After a moment's silence, Sir Felis turned to the mayor. "If you don't mind, I'd like to ask a few questions."

"Go ahead."

"Paksenarrion, you say you served three campaign seasons. How soon after you joined the regular company were you made private from recruit?"

"The first battle, sir."

"What was your file position?"

"File second, the first year, sir, and the second. This past year we moved around a lot, but at the end I was file leader."

"I'm not clear on something. You've spoken both of leaving the company, and of being on some sort of long leave. Are you still the Duke's soldier, or not?"

Paks sighed. "Sir, the Duke had reason to give me a long leave. He and others had suggested that I might leave the company for a year or so. For other training, or experience, they said. But the Duke said I would be welcome back any time. I hadn't decided yet, sir, how soon to return."

"But you have no complaints against Duke Phelan, or he against you?"

"I have none against him, sir, and as far as I know he has none against me. And the Company is all I've known. I miss them."

"Have you any sort of token or pass from your duke, that might prove what you say of his opinion?"

Paks remembered the ring he had given the survivors of Dwarfwatch, and reached into her pouch for it. "Here is a ring—" She handed it to the mayor, who peered at it, and passed it along the table. When they had all looked at it, the mayor passed it back.

"Dwarfwatch," the mayor said. "Isn't that the name of that Sorellin fort on the south end of Hakkenarsk Pass?"

"So the traders say," said Master Senneth.

"So. Those rumors, last spring, of a major battle there—" mused Hebbinford. "You must have been there. Why were you so angry with the merchants, Paksenarrion, for mentioning it?"

Paks glanced quickly at Sir Felis and the Marshal, then back to Hebbinford. "Sir, it is the Duke's business. I don't talk of it with merchants. But—by treachery, most of my—of a—cohort was lost at Dwarfwatch, to Lord Siniava. Most of a cohort of Halverics, too. For those of us who lived, the Duke had these rings made."

"So he's fought understrength this past year," commented Sir Felis. "And the Halveric too, I presume."

The Marshal was not deflected from the original story. "What was it, a siege, or what?"

"If she considers it her duke's business, Cedfer—" began the Kuakgan.

"Nonsense. Anything that's happened almost a year ago is public knowledge in Aarenis, and we'll know the details here sooner or later."