“Like as not,” Earl Coenred agreed, hoisting a tankard of ale. His fingers, with their smooth nails, curved about the bejeweled tankard. He nodded to one of the serving-maids. “Gerde, fill our guests’ cups. Drink up, lads, the mutton’s yet to come!”

Bobbing a nervous curtsey, she obeyed, circulating around the long trestle table. It took a long time to serve the Staccian lord’s contingent and Osric and his men. There were a great number of the former, clad in handsome attire. Another servant brought her a fresh jug of ale. As she reached the far end of the table, where the Fjeltroll were seated, her steps began to drag, and her hand trembled visibly as she poured.

Osric and Coenred spoke in murmurs, ignoring both her anxiety and its source. While the earl had extended hospitality to the Fjel in a gesture of allegiance, it did not include taking them into the counsel of Men.

With an attempt at a benign smile, Skragdal extended his tankard. For Lord Satoris’ sake, Skragdal was doing his best to honor the earl’s hospitality, hunkering on the tiny chair provided him. It was built to Men’s scale and he perched awkwardly on it, broad thighs splayed, his rough-hided knees bumping the edge of the table. It was not his fault it was too small, nor that his taloned grip dented the soft metal of his tankard, rendering it lopsided. He tried to convey these things with his smile; easy and apologetic, wrinkling his upper lip and baring his eyetusks in a gesture of goodwill.

The serving-maid squeaked in terror, and the lip of her jug rattled against his tankard. Ale splashed over the rim. Setting the half-empty jug upon the table with a bang, she fled. Earl Coenred glanced up with brief interest, beckoned to another serving-maid to bring another jug, then resumed his conversation, intent on Osric, spinning a web of smooth words.

Skragdal frowned.

“I … do not like how this smells.”

A deep voice; a Fjel voice, speaking their tongue. He glanced up sharply to see the young Tungskulder Thorun, sitting with shoulders hunched, a posture of uncertainty. “Speak,” he said.

Thorun’s hunched shoulders shrugged as he peered out from under his heavy brow; his eyes were red-rimmed and miserable. “I do not trust my senses.”

“Ah.” Skragdal remembered; there was a story, one that mattered. “Bogvar.”

Thorun nodded. They remembered it together—Thorun who had lived it, Skragdal who had heard it, left behind to command as field marshal in Hyrgolf’s absence. Cuilos Tuillenrad, the City of Long Grass, where the Lady of the Ellylon had awoken the wraiths of the dead. There, confused by the magic she had awakened, Thorun had mistaken his comrade Bogvar for an Ellyl wraith. Death, a foul death, had been the result. Thorun had offered his axe-hand in penance. The Lord General had refused it.