The next morning Arcolin rode into the city to visit his banker, his factor, and Clart Company. Ser Kavarthin greeted him as an honored customer; it took two turns of the glass to complete both the required courtesies and the business they needed to transact. The first payment of his contract with Foss Council had indeed been deposited, Kavarthin told him, and Paltis had been submitting accurate accounts since being audited by Kavarthin’s son.

On his way to Clart’s headquarters, Arcolin spotted Aesil M’dierra in the central market and hailed her.

“I heard you’d arrived,” she said. “You know I’ve foisted my scamp of a nephew on your Captain Selfer—”

“Only until the campaigns start, I understood,” Arcolin said. “Unless you want to sign him squire to one of us.”

“Not yet,” she said, grinning. “He needs a year under his aunt’s wing, his mother says. I think he’d rather be with you.”

They rode together up the street leading north from the market. Arcolin surprised himself by feeling nothing more than comradeship—here was an old friend, no more.

“Captain Arcolin!” That came from a side street; Arcolin turned and saw a man in Marshal’s blue and white.

“Yes?” he said. M’dierra waved and rode on.

“If you have time, I need to speak with you about a matter of concern to the Fellowship.”

Arcolin looked at the shadows on the street. Past midday but not long past, and he could see Clart another day. “Certainly,” he said. He dismounted and followed the Marshal to his grange.

“I remember that you are Girdish,” the Marshal said.

“Yes,” Arcolin said.

“What do you know of a man called Arvid Semminson, a thief from the north?” The Marshal kept going toward the platform at the end of the grange.

“Only what Paksenarrion told,” Arcolin said, and repeated what Paks had said.

“Did she say much about him as a person?”

“Not really. I haven’t talked to her myself for over a year, but I heard from Dorrin Verrakai that Paks suggested Gird might have plans for him and the Guild. Nothing more than that.” Arcolin wondered where this was leading. “I know my junior captains made some sort of agreement with him over the winter, but have not yet sorted that out—or even met the man. I know he was using a false name.”

“Here is our relic,” the Marshal said, and reached into the niche. “It has been effective before in testing liars and scoundrels. Take it.”

Arcolin lifted his brows. Did the Marshal think he was a liar or scoundrel? But he took the hand-polished length of wood. It felt as it looked: an old stick or branch, smoothed by use, and nothing more. He remembered the relic in the grange where he had first joined the Fellowship and the way that one had warmed under his hand.