"It seems dry," he said, and sent a man to fetch the rest of the company. "We'll set fires as our perimeter."

She laughed, liking his pragmatism. "Fair enough, Captain."

They ate well around six fires set at points around the clearing just beyond the crown's circle. Deadwood came easily to hand. It caught and burned with relish, and the meat tasted good, better than any meal she'd had in days because she sat easily with her companions and chatted about nothing and everything.

Eventually she discovered that some among these men had known Hanna rather better than the others.

"Yes, it's true, lady," said the one called Ingo, a broad-shouldered, good-looking man with a scar and a wicked smile. "We knew her from before, from the march east with Prince Bayan, may he rest at peace in the Chamber of Light. We're them who found her at the Veserling. We ripped her from the hands of the monster. We marched with her west and got her settled at Gent, although she was deathly ill there. It's a miracle she survived, but survive she did. And she did come with us, then, to Osterburg. After that she was sent south to Aosta. As you've already heard."

"She spoke of you," said the youngest of them, shyly.

"She is a good friend to me," said Liath. "I'd be pleased to know she has survived this tempest."

She found it easy to chat with these men. They acted, at moments, in awe of her knowledge and education, but Thiadbold and the cheerful scamp called Folquin had no fear of questioning her about what they did not understand. The older men could not be intimidated; they had seen too much. She had saved the life of one of their own. That was enough for them to accept her as a comrade. The endless battles waged on the royal progress had no claws here.

Later, when the sentry changed, those few men still awake lay down to sleep, but Liath was restless, as if the night's insomnia that often afflicted Sanglant had passed into her. You would think that afflictions might be rubbed from skin to skin or breathed from mouth to mouth. Anyone who studied medicine knew that sick people often left illness in their wake. Why not other afflictions as well?

She paced around the sentry circle, pausing between each bonfire to stare up at the heavens. Clouds veiled the stars, yet it seemed to her that she could almost see the faint threads of their light trailing down into the waiting crown. Would it be possible to weave the crowns if the heavens weren't clear? Any good mathematicus armed with an astrolabe and a table and a knowledge of the date and approximate hour could predict which star was rising and which setting. Could point near enough to the place in the sky where this constellation, or that one, rode and turned as the hours passed.