IT WAS COLD IN THE GULLY BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. THERE was a thin, sheltering line of birch trees between them and the gates of the Nievolee, but even so the wind was a knife whe picked up.
There had been snow last night, a rare thing this far north, even in midwinter. It had made for a white, chilled sed night of riding from Ferraut towhey had started, but Alessan had refused to slow their pace. He had said increasingly little as the night wore on, and Baerd said little at the best of times.
Devin had swallowed his questions and trated on keeping up.
They had crossed the Astibar border in darkness and arrived at the Nievolene lands just after dawn.
The horses were tethered in a grove about a half mile to the southwest, and the three men had made their way to this gully on foot. Devin dozed off at intervals through the m. The snow made the landscape strange and crisp and lovely when the sun was out, but around mid-afternoon the grey clouds had gathered heavily overhead and it was only cold now, not beautiful at all. It had snowed again, briefly, about an hour before.
When Devin heard the jingle of horses approag through the greyness, he realized that the Triad, for once, were holding open palms toward them. Or that, alternatively, the goddesses and the god had decided to give them a ce to do something fatally rash. He pressed himself as flat as he could to the wet ground of the gully. He thought of Catriana and the Duke, warm and sheltered with Taccio in Ferraut.
A pany of about a dozen Barbadian meraries materialized out of the grey landscape. They were laughing and singing in boisterous exuberaheir horses breath and their own made white puffs of smoke in the cold. Flat in the gully Devin watched them go by. He heard Baerds soft breathing beside him. The Barbadians stopped at the gates of what had once been Nievolene lands. They werent anymore, of course; not sihe fiscations of the fall. The pany leader dismounted and strode to the locked gates. With a flourish that drew cheers and laughter from his men he unlocked the iron gates with two keys on an ornate .
"First pany," Alessan murmured under his breath. His first words in hours. "He chose Karalius.
Sandre said he would.」
They watched the gates swing open and saw the horses ter through. The last man locked the iron gates behind him.
Baerd and Alessan waited another few moments then rose to their feet. Devin stood up as well, wing at how stiff he felt.
"Well o find the tavern in the village," Baerd said, his voice so unusually grim that Devin glanced sharply at him in the growing gloom. The other maures were unreadable.
"Not to go ihough," Alessan said. "What we do here, we do unknown.」
Baerd nodded. He pulled a much-creased paper from an inner pocket of his sheepski. "Shall we start with Rovigos man?」
Rovigos man turned out to be a retired mariner who lived in the village a mile to the east. He told them where the tavern was. He also, for a fairly signifit sum of money, gave them a hat of a known informer francial and his Sed pany of Barbadians. The old sailor ted his money, spat once, meaningfully, then told them where the man lived, and something of his habits.
Baerd killed the informer, strangling him two hours later as he walked along a try lane from his small farm towards the village tavern. It was full-dark by then. Devin helped him carry the body back towards the Nievolees and hide i