him to see. It was dark, but his eyes had adjusted to that, and he could make out a strange, twining shape upon the ring: a man, half human, half creature of the sea. He swallowed.
"Will you tell me of him?" he asked, turning back to Alessan. "Of my father?"
Of stolid, dour Garin, grim farmer in a wet grey land. Who had, it now appeared, come from bright Avalle of the towers in the southern highlands of Tigana and who had, in his youth, wooed and won a woman beloved of all who saw her. Who had fought and lived through two terrible battles by a river and who had, if Alessan was right in his last conjecture, very deliberately sent out into the world his one quick, imaginative child capable of finding what he seemed to have found tonight.
Who had also, Devin abruptly realized, almost certainly lied when he said he'd forgotten the words to the cradle song. It was all suddenly very hard.
"I will tell you what I know of him, and gladly," Alessan said.
"But not tonight, for Catriana is right and we must get ourselves away before dawn. Right now I will swear faith with you as Baerd has done. I accept your oath. You have mine. You are as kin to me from now until the ending of my days."
Devin turned to look up at Catriana. "Will you accept me?"
She tossed her hair. "I don't have much choice, do I?" she said carelessly. "You seem to have entangled yourself rather thoroughly here." She lowered her left hand though as she spoke, two fingers curled. Her fingers met his own with a light, cool touch.
"Be welcome," she said. "I swear I will keep faith with you, Devin di Tigana."
"And I with you. I'm sorry about this morning," Devin offered.
Her hand withdrew and her eyes flashed; even by starlight he could see it. "Oh yes," she said sardonically, "I'm sure you are. It was very clear, all along, how regrettable you found the experience!"
Alessan snorted with amusement. "Catriana, my darling," he said, "I just forbade him to mention any details of what happened. How do I enforce that if you bring them up yourself?"
Without the faintest trace of a smile Catriana said, "I am the aggrieved party here, Alessan. You don't enforce anything on me. The rules are not the same."
Baerd chuckled suddenly. "The rules," he said, "have not been the same since you joined us. Why indeed should this be any different?"
Catriana tossed her head again but did not deign to reply.
The three men stood up. Devin flexed his knees to relieve the stiffness of sitting so long in one position.
"Ferraut or Tregea?" Baerd asked. "Which border?"
"Ferraut," Alessan said. "They'll have me placed as Tregean as soon as Tomasso talks, poor man. If I'd been thinking clearly I would have shot him as they rode by."
"Oh, very clear thinking, that," Baerd retorted. "With twenty soldiers surrounding him. You would have had us all in chains in Astibar by now."↙本↙作↙品↙由↙↙網↙友↙整↙理↙上↙傳↙
"You would have deflected my arrow," Alessan said wryly.
"Is there a chance he won't speak?" Devin interjected awkwardly. "I'm thinking about Menico, you see. If I'm named . . ."
Alessan shook his head. "Everyone talks under torture," he said soberly. "Especially if sorcery is involved. I'm thinking about Menico too, but there isn't anything we can do about it, Devin. It is one of the realities of the life we live. There are people put at risk by almost everything we do. I wish," he added, "that I knew what had happened in that lodge."
"You wanted to check it," Catriana reminded him. "Can we afford the time?"
"I did, and yes, I think we can," said Alessan crisply. "There remains a piece missing in all of this. I still don't know how Sandre d'Astibar could have expected me to be the...”
He stopped there. Except for the drone of the cicadas and the rustling leaves it was very quiet in the woods. The trialla had gone. Alessan abruptly raised one hand and pushed it roughly through his hair. He shook his head.
"Do you know," he said to Baerd, in what was almost a conversational tone, "how much of a fool I can be a