“You will wish to stay together, I imagine,” the Marshal-General said. “You will be more comfortable here than in the School barracks, and anyway, there’s a disturbance over there right now.” She turned to the gnome and again spoke in that language. “Rockbrother, I honor your skill in wound care and do not doubt you have applied the best herbs you could find, but Arvid is a man, and I would ask that you permit one of our healers to see him. I am sure it will not lessen whatever ceremony of exchange you had with him.”

“He was wounded by my blade in another’s hand, and he saved me,” the gnome said. “The debt is mine; my life is his; do what you will.”

The Marshal-General glanced at Arvid; he opened his mouth to explain, but his vision darkened and he was hardly aware when he slumped, other than to think, Oh, no. He came to himself again in one of the beds. Snoring from the other bed proved to be his gnome companion, sound asleep. A dim lamp burned in the bath chamber. Outside, it was dark, as he could see between the slats of the shutters, now opened for a nonexistent breeze.

Beyond the closed door, he could hear footsteps and voices, but not what they said. Some passed … more silence … then immediately outside the door he heard voices again.

“I’ll just look,” one said. The door opened. The Marshal-General, in a simple blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, over gray trousers.

“I’m awake,” Arvid said. “But he’s not.”

“I’ll be brief. Do you remember waking once before?”

“No.” He hated the thought of that.

“You roused enough, after you were cleaned up, to drink a little soup. Your wound has been healed, though we can do nothing for the blood loss. If that bloody mess in your cloak pocket—and dear Arvid, I do not wish to think what purpose you find for all those pockets—is all your own blood, our healers think that is quite enough to explain what happened.”

Arvid squeezed his eyes shut a moment. So now the Marshal-General and doubtless all the other Marshals knew some of his secrets … and the cloak was the easiest of his tools to use, most times.

“I travel a lot,” he said, his voice coming out in a croak. He had never felt more like a rain-sodden rooster, tail feathers limp and dragging.

“Indeed you do. I will not worry you tonight, but if you are awake, the healers say more food would be a good idea.”

“And then?” Was this a last meal?

“And then a night’s sleep, and in the morning we shall talk.”

His stomach grumbled, and she wrinkled her nose at the sound. “I’ll have a bowl of beef broth and all-heal sent in, and some bread. And more water.”

“The door—”

“Is guarded. You have nothing to fear, Arvid.”

He wasn’t so sure, but as the gnome snored on, and a woman with a broad friendly face brought him the food, he ate and—snoring or no—slept. He woke to children’s voices in the garden outside; it was broad day already, and they had been sent, he gathered, to pick herbs for the kitchen.