“Bless ye, my son,” said the old priest gratefully, as they passed one another. “We be perilous shorthanded for the hoof stock.”

“Just in stable?” Skif asked, carefully keeping to his country accent.

The priest nodded, patting a dusty rump as he moved to fill another manger. “With the wee beasts, the hurt ones, there’s Healer Trainees that coom t’help, an’ there’s folks that don’t mind turnin’ a hand with cleanin’ and feedin’. But this—”

Skif laughed softly. “Aye, granther, this be work, eh?”

The old priest laughed himself. “’Struth. They say there’s a pair of novices coming up, come winter, but till then—”

“Till then, I’ll be takin’ the heavy work, granther,” Skif heard himself promise.

When the last of the beasts were watered and fed, the old man showed him his place in the loft, and left him with a lantern, trudging back to the Chapter House. Like his last bed above a stable, this was in a gable end with a window supplied with storm shutters, piled high with hay, that looked out over the courtyard. He spread out his bedroll, stowed his few possessions in the rafters, blew out the lantern, and lay down to watch the moon rise over the roofs of Haven.

This’s been—about th’ strangest day of m’life, he thought, hands tucked behind his head. What was just about the strangest part of it was that he had literally gone from a state of fearing for his very life, to—this.

There was such an aura of peace and serenity within these walls! What might have seemed foolish trust under any other circumstances—after all, he was just some stranger who’d shown up on their doorstep, and at night, yet—was perfectly understandable now that Skif could see the poverty of the place himself. There literally was nothing to steal. If he didn’t do the work he’d promised, he wouldn’t be fed, and he’d be turned out. There was no reason for the Brethren not to trust him.

He should have been feeling very smug, and very clever. He’d found the perfect hiding place, and it was well within striking distance of the manors of the high and mighty.

Instead, all he could think was that, as workworn and weary as both the priests had seemed, there had also been something about them that made his cleverness seem not quite as clever as he’d thought it was. As if they had seen through his ruse, and didn’t care. And that didn’t make any sense at all.

I’ve got to think this through—he told himself, fighting the soporific scent of cured hay, the drowsy breathing of the animals in their stalls beneath him, and the physical and emotional exhaustion of the last day and night.