“I’d gone quite a way down through the marshes, doing a bit of hunting here and there, when I met him. He was riding a horse, but it seemed to know where to go without him having to guide it. I was on foot, so I stepped to the side of the trail when I saw him in the distance and started a fire. It’s something of a tradition in Ventgoria that when you meet a traveler going in the opposite direction, you take food and a drink together. Not many people have cause to travel right across that place—there’s not much there, especially for those who have no sense of wonder. So I was plucking a marsh goose I’d shot down a couple of hours before, gutting it, stuffing it with a handful of tumblespit I’d been drying in my rucksack. I had a bottle of wine too, from the village I’d just left. Kosar, you won’t believe the wine those Ventgorians can brew! Their grapes grow in the open on string racks, no earth, only the sun to give them sustenance, and the long, loving care of the roots by the growers. Believe me, it’s something to kill for.”

“Naturally, you bought it,” Kosar slurred.

A’Meer glanced up. “I traded.” She looked back down at the table and continued, her glass of rotwine long forgotten. Her small hand traced the outline of somebody’s carved name, and Kosar wondered if she had known them. “When he came nearer,” she continued, “I’d already skewered the goose and it was spitting fat onto the fire. It smelled delicious. I knew of the Red Monks, of course. I’d been made to know their purpose. But this was the first one I’d ever met.”

“Made to know how?” Kosar asked.

“I’ll get to that, Kosar. Let me talk. You told me yourself what you think this all means—how relevant this boy Rafe could be, how his appearance might change everything—so now I have something to break to you. And this is my way. By telling you about the first time I met a Red Monk.

“So, on came the Monk. He had his hood up, as they always do, and he seemed to be asleep. Hands on his thighs, his head dipped, the horse’s reins knotted on its back. The horse looked as though it had walked a long, long way. It sounded unshod, it was foaming at the mouth, and I could see its ribs rippling the skin with every step it took. My mouth was watering, but suddenly I wasn’t hungry. Because I knew what was to come.”