Paks watched the Marshal-General's face, hoping for reprieve from imagined dooms, but it was still and unreadable. "No, my lord," she said to Phelan. "I cannot tell. It is early yet, and she is still recovering." She turned to Paks again, her expression softening. "Paksenarrion, you must have realized, from what Haran said, that some fear you have been badly damaged. I would not lie to you: as I warned you before, great loss is possible. But I think we will not know until you have regained your strength. We worried because you lay senseless so long, but that may mean nothing. Please tell me if you feel anything different in yourself at any time."

"I—I couldn't eat—" Paks said softly.

"Couldn't eat? What was wrong?"

"I couldn't—couldn't hold the—" Suddenly she began to cry, and tried to smother it. "—the fork—I couldn't cut—I dropped—"

"Oh, Paks!" The Marshal-General took her hands. "Don't—It will get better. It will. You are weak, it's too soon—"

"But she said—like a baby—" Paks turned into the pillows, ashamed.

"No. Don't say that. She was wrong. It will come back, faster than you think." The Marshal-General looked aside; Paks watched the line of her jaw and cheek. "If you keep trying, Paks, it will come back."

"All of it?" asked the Duke softly, echoing Paks's thought.

The Marshal-General's lips thinned. "My lord Duke, please! We cannot know yet. It will do her—or you—no good to worry about that now."

"But she cannot help it, Marshal-General. Nor could you, if you were in that bed, and she beside it. I, too, tried to tell her not to worry about the future, but that's empty wisdom no one can follow. What can she think about, save this? Nothing but knowledge will ease her."

"I have no knowledge," said the Marshal-General. She shook her head, and met Paks's eyes again. "But believe this: I do not think as Haran does, nor do your other friends. And Haran will not think that way long. Only someone of great courage and strength could have held off that evil so long, once it entered."

A knock on the door interrupted them again. Marshal Belfan, whom Paks had known before the journey to Kolobia, put in his head. "Now or later?" he asked.

"Come on in, Belfan." The Marshal-General got up. "Paksenarrion is awake, but weak."

"So Haran said. Gird's grace to you, Paksenarrion, my lord Duke. Old Artagh says first snow by morning, Marshal-General."

"Winter starts earlier every year," grumbled the Marshal-General; Belfan laughed. He had an easy way with him, and hardly seemed a Marshal most of the time.

"You said that last year," he said. "It comes," he said to Paks and the Duke, "of having a Marshal-General who grew up in the south."

"In Aarenis?" asked the Duke, clearly surprised.

"No. Southern Tsaia." The Marshal-General was smiling now. "Around here they call any place where it doesn't frost the Summereve flowers the south. Gird knows I like hunting weather as well as anyone, but—"