The village was called Calbor. It was an unlikely concretion of huts and fortifications that had certainly seen better days, though no one could say when, exactly. When the red king had annexed Greyarm, he had given the leadership to Marso Longerrand, his most trusted lieutenant, who had gathered an assembly of liegemen from the ranks of the soldiery. From then on, it was their heirs who were in charge of the primacy with a rough practicality they had learned from their fathers, a rascal-like resourcefulness that had allowed them to make a living from the harsh land and the unfriendly climate. The initial companionship that united these noblemen had faded over the decades, and distrust, latent enmities and petty resentments, the unavoidable competition of the court that arises from the distribution of titles and the exercise of power, began to emerge. In my experience, this is the case in every place where men play the game of kings and lords, princes or parliaments, everywhere in fact where gold and sword are draped in the respectable garb of the law, to justify misery and slaughter to the needy and the slaughtered.

I was directed towards the village stronghold, which looked more like a bandit's den than a lord's home. There were no real alleys or anything, and most of the buildings were small and round, with slate roofs and low doors. We were far from civilization here, far from the trade routes and iron mines that made the primacy rich. As far as I could tell, they had simply fortified the top of a hill and left poor people to settle inside the palisade. The noise I had heard earlier came from the first floor of the stronghold. Through the half-open door came ten different conversations, all more or less shouted, as well as the melodious creaking of the rebec, which miraculously managed to be heard. Somewhere upstairs, a vulgar, high-pitched voice was screaming with a pleasure that seemed overrated. I slipped through the doorway, hoping I wouldn't have to miss the disturbing quiet of the Ceras.

I was welcomed inside by an indescribable mess. Two large tables had been set up in the living room of the bastion. Local militiamen were drinking with a patrol of the civil guard, a dozen men who all seemed quite drunk. Some of them were already sleeping on the benches, their faces pressed against the oily boards of the table. Near a large flaming fireplace, I noticed three old women playing with pieces of wood under the watchful eye of a shabby shepherd, dressed in wool and skins. In the corners, there were scruffy girls with lascivious eyes, whom I suspected of being whores, as well as a motley crew of rogues with lively eyes but reddened by wine. They were arguing and drinking a little apart from the others. The musician with the rebec was tall and skinny, accompanied in his melodies by a dancer whose suppleness and theatrical grace made us forget her poxed face. Both were standing on a raised platform at the back of the room, near the chair of a bald, plump man with a bulbous nose, whose posture and voluminous silver chain made me suspect that he owned the place. The lord was dozing, an empty pint of beer in his hand.

Several of the dogs were curled up under the tables, probing the air currents with their greying muzzles, their whisker pads dangling in the straw and dust. When I appeared on the threshold, one of them stretched and limped over to me to lick my hand before slipping away into the night. A flock of chickens then scurried away as I passed, cackling in a small recess near the front door. All of this awakened memories in me, because the place reminded me of Brown-Horn and the debonair and relaxed atmosphere of the establishments of the lower town, but also of the drinking tents of the canvas village that had been set up around the siege camp of Ac-Pass. Despite the familiarity of it all, I walked into the room on the lookout, as vigilant as I could be.

Many eyes were drawn to me, and I attracted the attention of the civilians more than the soldiers. They were sizing me up to see what they could get out of me, and whether it was worth the effort. Most of those who had settled here had not done so willingly and probably had something to run away from or to forget. I could have been one of them, but I had the triangle on my cheekbone and the gear of a dead Carmian, and I distrusted them because I knew them only too well. I wondered, with some curiosity, if the bounty the Lemis had put on my head was still in effect.

I sat down at the end of the table, where everyone could see me, putting down my package and the rest of my belongings with a sigh of relief. The strap of my bag had been biting one shoulder after the other all day long. I waited for a while, the dogs sniffed me one after the other, and then one of the old ladies interrupted her game of chips to ask me straight out if I wanted something to eat. I answered in the affirmative, to which she added that she had a dormitory for travelers, if I had enough money. After some negotiation (I only had to give her a glimpse of one of my silver denarii for her to suddenly become very accommodating), the toothless old woman brought me some bread and cheese with spring onions and a hard-boiled egg, as well as a large jar of beer. As I ate, and the soldiers glanced at me with tired eyes, the minstrel began his last song of the evening, a bombastic old song about the glory of the red king's armies.

The man with the work apron and black beard who had greeted me at the entrance of the village appeared again shortly after. Twice dismissed from the company of militiamen, he came to sit on the bench beside me. He was obviously interested in my beer, which seemed to me to be a lesser evil, and I decided to indulge him, mainly because his intentions seemed to be easy to read and I could keep my mind at ease with him. We shared a drink. The beer was a little less bad than I expected. Soon the man was blabbering on and on about taxes, and vagabonds (with all due respect), and a thousand other subjects, and I could listen to his drunken ramblings with a fairly attentive ear while finishing my meal.

I first found out that his name was Petir the Bit, that he was ten years older than I was, and that he was some kind of itinerant craftsman, cartwright, cooper, riveter, makeshift blacksmith, occasional farrier, carpenter and nail merchant, in short a kind of jack of all trades who made a living by doing odd jobs, an opportunistic wanderer with no roots and little future. I found him, in spite of his passion for alcohol, to be more verbose and spirited than he appeared, and above all, he seemed to me to be devoid of malice. When he turned his attention to me, I told a little story I had made up while crossing the moor, claiming to have come from Alessa on my way west, where I hoped to find work as a henchman. Petir nodded and admitted that he had thought about it, but that he had a club foot. I smiled kindly, and my guest poured himself a fresh tumbler from my nearly empty jar. The man drank, belched loudly and waved his pitcher in my direction.

"Sure as hell not gonna run out of work these days, buddy, if your business is war," he shouted with a hiccup, the drink trickling down his beard and over his bulging belly. "While I struggle to find horses to shoe." The old landlady, who was sitting not far away, jeered at him in a rattling voice. "It's for the best," she confided to me, "the last animal he shoed was still limping three moons later." Petir vigorously denied this accusation, and there followed a dialogue of the deaf which I would certainly have found amusing, had I felt more at ease. The debate lasted as long as it took me to finish my bread, then some of the scoundrel looking men left and the old woman returned to the fire. I let my guest finish the jar before resuming the interrupted discussion. "What did you mean earlier?" I asked cautiously, "about not going to run out of work." Petir shrugged. "It's just that there are wars everywhere these days. Though we've avoided the worst one, if you ask me." I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, everyone here was waiting for the Carmians," he told me. "Even if the primate supports Hill concerning Ac-Pass, he hasn't made any agreement with Carm and hasn't let the proselytes cross our borders yet. We thought that Orfys would send their legions and three or four other cities with them..." I shook my head, because my interlocutor obviously didn't hear anything about the workings of the carmian houses, but that wasn't the reason I interrupted him. "Wait, wait," I said, "what's the story with the proselytes?" The man looked at me like he was staring at a simpleton. I frowned and flushed. "I've come a long way, and I haven't had any news from the primacies for several years," I said, a bit too much on the defensive. "All right, all right," Petir replied, moving his arms to appease me. He rinsed his throat and continued.

"So listen, since Hill has been at war with Wadd, for six years now, Cleo Gon, who's the primate of Hill, has been employing carmian henchmen. They've given him a discount, from what I heard. In exchange, he gives their priests complete freedom in all his cantons. Some of them have been fooled by their stories, the primate and his family first, many nobles too, and there are even temples being built. I heard one of them talking at the market in Kidmine last year, I didn't understand any of his nonsense, but I left him alone. Here, in Greyarm, there are rumors that it's like an invasion without an army, that they're going to settle here with their sun-god, but I don't think they know what they're talking about." I nodded out of politeness, wondering what Hill's primate was up to, and whether, marked as I was, I would have any difficulty crossing his land. I imagined the curious situation in which this would put him regarding the Round Table, but also regarding his subjects. I couldn't imagine for a second that his conversion to the stareid wasn't out of interest.

"So it's like I was saying," Petir resumed, "we thought we were going to have a war, and then there was that nasty plague that saved our asses, in my opinion. They say that a hundred thousand people died of it, that the whole region of Nycenea is as dead as my grandpa. That didn't stop them from invading the Val country, but no one will convince me that they could still fight two wars at the same time and win them." My heart dropped in my shoes. Petir only had to look at my face to know that something was wrong. "You didn't know about this either." I shook my head. "Tell me more," I said, a cold lump in my stomach. "I don't know much about it to tell you the truth," Petir said. "There's been a carmian fleet blockading Valheld's harbor for over a year now, and the Serifs control the banks of the Denis. There was a rumor that the city fell a few moons ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't true. There are some strange things being said about the Vals anyway. That they don't agree with each other, that some of them don't want to fight for their land and just run off to Riga. Can you imagine? In any case, Carm's well on its way to ruining the Vals' reputation."

I swallowed, confused, full of apprehension for this country that I had never visited, but where Ulrick had told me that everyone could have a place there, if they managed to leave their chains behind. In my mind, when I would find Brindy, I had thought of perhaps convincing her to go with me to the free country, even if I didn't know if she would like it there. This information upset my plans considerably, because I couldn't risk ending up one day in a region dominated by the Carmians, because of the triangle they had carved in my cheek. I had also thought about the clans and the Stone Forest, but I was thinking more and more about the Seïd and the tales of Breanna, and I didn't want to go too far west, if I could avoid it. I emptied my tumbler then, and shook my head. Sometimes I was aware of the absurdity of these projections, and found the naivety, the childish hopefulness that gave them shape, unbearable. It could very well be that Brindy had been dead for a long time.

As I remained pensive and silent, Petir the Bit fidgeted on his bench, looking at the buckets that were being finished a little further on. The villagers were beginning to leave the stronghold in small groups now, carrying their hubbub with them, and we could hear each other talking better. The minstrel and his dancer were eating by the fire, murmuring and counting their coins. The dogs yawned under the tables, soiled straw stuck to their noses. One of the sleeping militiamen began to snore. "Is this the first time you'll be a henchman?" Petir finally asked me in a voice that feigned curiosity. I realized that he was mostly trying to make conversation in the hope that I would ask for another jar, and I shook my head. "No, it won't be the first time." I ran my tongue over my lips, wondering if I would dare to bring up the subject that was really important to me, now that the world I had known had been returned to me in pieces.

"I can tell you more about the war in the Pass, if it's war you want to hear about," Petir said, without taking his eyes off the empty jar. I didn't have time to answer, because one of the militiamen, a well-built sergeant with a shaved head and a square jaw, leaned towards us. "Nobody wants to hear about this war, the Bit. Or about any war, for that matter," he said, looking at me from top to bottom. "Everything's quiet in Calbor, and we intend to keep it that way. We don't need anyone peddling gossip around here, especially about the war." I nodded ostentatiously, with a half-smile, to let the soldier know that I had no intention of making trouble for him. "That's right, sergeant," Petir said. "We were just chatting, nothing more. We didn't want to disturb anyone." "I plan to be on my way tomorrow," I added candidly. "But I'm glad to hear that I have nothing to fear around here. On the road I've often been advised to be careful of the Ceras."

The militiaman moved his chew to his other cheek and looked at me sideways, without being able to decide if my light tone disguised insolence or idiocy. "The Ceras don't bother us," he finally growled. "We're getting by, and that's fine. Which way are you going?" I shrugged. "I don't know. I'd like to go to Hill, if the road's passable. Then I'll see." I thought for a moment that the man was going to give me directions, but he obviously didn't like me. He stared at me for a long time, I lowered my eyes so as not to upset him even more, and the sergeant simply spat in the straw before turning away.

Near me, Petir murmured, "I've been hanging around here for too long anyway. If you want, tomorrow I'll go with you to Ochreclod, it'll be the best route for you, and we'll be safer traveling together." I stood up to stretch, giving a few glances to the old woman who had offered to provide me with lodging, but who now seemed to be drowsing with her friends by the fireplace. "I'll need someone who knows the village well to help me tomorrow," I replied to Petir after considering his proposal. "Before I leave, I'll need to stock up on supplies and find a money changer. If you help me, we'll go to Ochreclod together." The man held out a filthy hand to me, which I shook firmly. The landlady stirred in her chair, then escorted me back to her house.

The bed was moth-eaten and not very comfortable, and it looked more like a bunk than a real bed. The old woman had taken a hot stone from her fireplace and wrapped it in a sheet to keep me company. After telling me that she still knew how to please a man, as long as he had five pennies to spare (an offer I politely declined), she lay down with a grimace on a mat near her fire pit. Outside a dog was barking, a drunken soldier was singing a song, doors were creaking and slamming. I found a semblance of a crowd, and so many familiar things, but I was still being told about the upheavals that had taken place, and which spaces had been stained by the passage of time. I oscillated between a terrifying nostalgia that diminished me, that crushed me on a chopping block to offer me as a sacrifice to the world, and spurts of ferocity. I despised this feeling of vulnerability, because I understood the vital necessity of living up to it, despite everything. I tried to remember that I had escaped the plague and the mountain, that I had survived the mines, two battles and the rope. That I was a warrior, or at least could be, and that it was this man who should now go in search of Brindy, not the bereaved child I could no longer be. I fell asleep thinking about Spinel, about everything else, about everything that had not been said and wasn't yet in the balance.