“I am well rebuked by a mortal,” the Lady said. “And yet—may not a friend offer restoration even so?”

“I am well rebuked, to lecture one so far above me,” Estil said, looking down. “My Lady, your kindness to us, all these years, has more than repaid any injury that might have resulted.”

Kieri put one hand on Estil’s shoulder and the other on his grandmother’s. “Ladies, you are both more courteous than my stomach, which is empty of fine words and full of discourteous growling. Can you please end this competition of manners and let us find a place to sit down and eat? I dare not command either of you, and yet I am your king.”

The Lady laughed, and after a moment Estil laughed, too. Each took an arm, and he walked them to the fire, where someone had contrived a table and benches. “Sit here,” he said, handing them to seats on either side of the table, “and keep me company while I eat, remembering that I know nothing of the last part of the night.”

One of Estil’s daughters set in front of him a mug of sib, a jug of honey, a platter of bacon and flatbread, and a bowl of porridge. Kieri’s stomach took command, and he ate, as the two women talked, more easily with each passing moment. When he had wiped his porridge bowl clean with the last of the flatbread, he sat back. “So … it is gone forever, or gone for the moment, that menace?”

“Gone for a time,” the Lady said. “Evil is never gone forever; the seeds of it are abroad in the world, and given the right conditions, it grows again. But for now—and I cannot say how long, perhaps a turn of the year, perhaps a lifetime—it is gone from this place.”

“What made the fire and explosion?” Kieri asked. Sunlight now touched the ruins, and the smoke had thinned to a gray wisp. “It looked like it was in the stable cellar, but all that I remember being there was—oh.” The wine, the brandy, the oil from southern berries. Barrels of the stuff, kept under the stable because no one lighted a flame in a stable and thus it would not catch fire.

“Gitres can bring fire from the sky,” the Lady said. “Blowing open a cellar door would be no difficulty.”

“That was southern wine, Andressat wine,” Aliam said, coming to the table and sitting down beside Estil. He made a sad face, but his eyes were merry. “All that lovely red wine. All those juicy oilberries. And the oil for our lamps this winter.”

“Be serious.” Estil elbowed him; he laughed, and she poked him again. “You should be over there nailing the sticks together to make us a hut.”

“Can’t. Nails were in the stable cellar, too. They’re scattered all over the meadow now.” He made a face at her, then winked at Kieri.

“You can whittle pegs, then.”

“Estil, my little bird, you are not going to pretend we have no help, and you are going to accept the help we’re offered.” His voice was sober now; he put his arm around her shoulders.