Priest shifted his his gaze to the stocky man to her left. He was of pale complexion and clad in well-worn garb that spoke of a long journey. He bore no blades and carried a plain oak staff as tall as his head. “You may call me Book,” he said with an affable grin. His words were spoken in Lenta, the most common tongue in the Alliance Lands, but coloured by a clear Northlands accent.

Standing to the rear of the man named Book was a taller figure clad in much finer clothes. He carried a heavy windlass crossbow on his back and twin daggers at his belt. However, his most distinguishing feature was the ornately engraved silver and brass mask that covered his face. Pilgrim thought it said much of the man’s skill with weapons that he had traversed the Valkerin Road without being murdered for the mask alone.

“Player,” he said with a florid bow. His words were spoken in a near-musical tone that complemented the floral engravings of his mask. Pilgrim had little difficulty in placing his origins; Atheria, the City of Songs on the northern shore of the Third Sea, where those of noble status wore masks when forced to commune with the lower orders.

Standing several paces removed from the others were a man and a woman with the complexion of those born to the lands south of the Fourth Sea. The woman was strikingly handsome of face, with high cheekbones and an aquiline nose, clad in fine garb at odds with the more rough-hewn travelling clothes of her male companion. He was of less pleasing aspect, his features hardened near to the point of brutality. The scars Pilgrim noted on his forehead and jawline, together with his straight-backed bearing and the well-worn scimitar at his belt, marked him as a soldier of many years service. He would have taken them for high-caste mistress and mercenary bodyguard but for the marriage bracelets they wore. Looking closer, Pilgrim saw that the woman’s beauty was not flawless. There was a certain redness to her eyes and shadows beneath her fine cheeks that might be due to the depredations of their journey across the desert, but he doubted it.

“You may call me Maisha,” the woman said with a slight bow.

“Kusiph,” the man said without opting to mirror his wife’s gesture.

“Maisha and Kusiph?” Book asked with a bemused smirk. “The fabled lovers of Valkerin lore? Forgive me, friends, but I am sure you could think of something more original…”

“I am Maisha,” the woman repeated in the same tone.

“Kusiph,” the man said, although his voice now possessed a very slight edge and he fixed the northlander with a steady glare.

“Maisha and Kusiph it is.” Book sighed, shaking his head and turning back to the altar.