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an instant.
    On top of the fell stood a small host of men, ten in number, Lynet counted. Two on horse, the rest on foot. She did not know any one of them. All of were dirty and windblown. Their hair stuck out in all directions where it was not braided tight, and travel had heavily stained their dull woolen cloaks. The men on horseback had swords and knives at their belts, and those on foot carried pole-arms that had been used at least as hard as the men.
    The two leaders rode their horses forward to the very edge of the hillside.
    â€œWe seek the Steward of Cambryn!” boomed the right-hand man. He had the coloring of a fall fox, all dark red hair with keen black eyes. His chin was stubbled by only a traveller’s scrubby beard, but his mustaches hung down almost to his waist.
    Colan, soaked to the knees, his dripping arms filthy with mud straightened up. He surveyed these newcomers, and saw, Lynet was sure, how they all went armed.
    â€œSteward Kenan is not here,” he said. “He has gone to Tintagel to take council with King Mark.”
    Discreet of you brother,
thought Lynet, half with admiration and half with irony.
Gone to plead more like, and all Mark’s other vassals with him.
    â€œI am Lord Colan, the steward’s son, and I stand here for him at this time.” He hoisted himself out of the stream, mustering what dignity he could, filthy, dripping and half-naked as he was. “I do bid you welcome, Chief Mesek Kynhoem, and you Chief Peran Treanhal.”
    Kynhoem. Treanhal. Now she could place these men. Their peoples lived to the north and east on Cambryn’s boarders. They lived by their kyne mostly, growing some small crops to feed the beasts and themselves. They did come up from the moors from time to time, to trade and reaffirm their loyalties to the steward and the absent queen. There had been trouble between them recently, she remembered hearing. A raiding that had left some men dead. But she thought the blood-price had been settled before Lord Kenan had left. What brought them here now?
    The second man, Peran Treanhal, was the taller of the two. His brown hair was thin on top, letting his speckled pate show through, but still long enough behind to make a stout braid that hung down his back. His hawk-like face had been horribly burned on its right side. The flesh was pebbled and puckered and his eye and mouth both twisted and pulled. The back of one long, raw hand was mottled red and white as well. The whole sight made Lynet wince in sympathy.
    â€œI am here for justice, Lord Colan,” Peran said. His voice was painfully harsh, and Lynet looked again at the burns.
He was well in the fire that had caused that, and breathed its smoke.
“There has been murder done.”
    The word dropped heavily from him, and one of the women behind Lynet gasped. Lynet herself went cold. The charge of murder, of death dealt outside the law of God and Man was as vile an accusation as could be levelled. If it were judged true, far more than blood-price would be paid. The shame upon family and clan would follow down the generations. The guilty man might even be declared outlaw, a sentence that was the same as death, only more slow.
    Mesek sighed. “It was no murder, Lord Colan. It was the mischance of a young hothead’s impatience,” he said in a tone far too reasonable for words bearing a clear insult.
    â€œThis is for my son’s life, and I will be heard!” Peran’s raw shout tore from his heart and made the sinews of his neck stand out like knotted cords.
    Mesek barked in laughter, as if this was some bitter jest. At this, Peran’s wounded face flushed red and he looked as though he might have struck out, but only just remembered to stay his hand.
    â€œThis is no place to hear such hard business,” said Bishop Austell in a voice of quiet reason. “And no place to make weary travellers comfortable.” He climbed the bank as easily as a much younger