The gnome’s bed was empty, but he could hear splashing from the bathing room. He lay, feeling less soreness in his shoulders and hands than he’d expected, even if his arm was healed … he looked, and the bandage was gone, but a clean white scar, thin as a string, outlined the slash.

Well. He sat up; his head spun for a moment. A cream-colored shirt embroidered with stars and flowers around the neckline and a pair of gray trousers were folded on the table. He glared at them. He wore black. He did not wear Girdish clothes, except he had no others, and he was not going to walk around bare-skinned. He put on the clothes—they smelled of sun and herbs and were pleasantly soft-rough on his skin—and tried standing. Yes, he could stand, but he felt weaker than he’d hoped.

The gnome came out of the bathing chamber, dressed now in a sleeveless brown jerkin and green trousers, both too wide for him and held on with a leather belt. “They had only dwarf things,” he said to Arvid. “It is not discourtesy. Our clothes will be clean and dry later today, they said.”

“Do you have others at the inn where we met?” Arvid asked.

“I do,” the gnome said. “But I am not sure—the dwarf may have hidden them, or perhaps he did not even pay the score. And he could have taken my money—”

“We have two gold pieces,” Arvid said. “Those were mine, from my own purse.” At least … he’d had them the day before. But there they were, on top of his folded cloak. His sword belt and sword, too, and all his other blades, neatly laid out. Either the Marshal-General wasn’t planning to kill him, or she hoped he’d give an excuse. He thought about that as he went in the bathing chamber, splashed water on his face and hands, and made use of the jacks-hole, here set in a raised platform and provided with an elaborately carved seat. Surely that wasn’t Gird’s idea … but he remembered this had been a palace before Gird’s time.

He was pulling on his boots over thick gray socks when a tap came at the door. It was, again, the Marshal-General.

“You look better,” she said. Her gaze flicked to the table. “Feel free to arm yourself if you wish. I was quite impressed, by the way.”

“If you were going to kill me, you had your chance,” Arvid said. The embroidered shirt soured his mood. Flowers!

“You’re my guest,” the Marshal-General said. “I don’t kill guests. You need breakfast, you and your companion.”

She led them to a small empty dining room off the vast kitchen, with a table just large enough for six, and then fetched breakfast herself. “For you, Arvid, meat to make up the blood you lost. For you, rockbrother, what I believe your folk prefer: fruit and seeds. If that is not to your taste, please tell me.” The gnome chose berries over stone fruits, and crunched away at the various seeds and nuts. Arvid ate steadily: the slice of ham, the eggs, the bread. When they had done, the Marshal-General carried the crockery out and came back.