The fawkner said, “Morning, Rena,” as Verena stepped past him and hunted for her sandals by the stairs. “That cursed Tumna is still hanging about. We were thinking she’d fly on off to the mountains like any normal bird that’s lost its reeve does, but maybe she’s gone rogue. She’s looking for someone else’s head to rip off.”

Verena turned to give the other fawkner a hard stare. “She’s a good bird. Don’t go thinking otherwise.”

The two reeves watched this exchange with interest, grinning first at the fawkners and then at Joss. He ignored them and sat down in front of the cluttered desk that was the marshal’s worktable, but all he could do was to stare in disgust at the hopeless disarray: two pots of unstoppered ink turning to sludge; a writing brush left uncleaned so its fine hair tip had dried into a twisted horn; a pile of paper needing a clerk to read to him; a mug filled with chits, each one marked with a name so he could resolve a long-standing dispute over duty rosters; a pair of blue and black glass-bead bracelets—what in the hells were those doing here?

“You didn’t waste much time,” said the older reeve, sauntering in when he hadn’t been invited. “The story in the hall this morning goes that she got you drunk last night and hauled you off by the—Eiya! A new version of the usual tale, I admit, but with the same ending.”

Joss squinted up at the man he thought of as “the Snake.” “Volias. Greetings of the day to you, too. Why are you hammering on my door?”

“That was Siras, here.” He gestured to the younger reeve, who was still standing at the threshold.

“Come in,” said Joss wearily, beckoning to Siras and the old fawkner, whose name he had forgotten. Verena’s footfalls crunched away down the gravel path. “I’m not awake yet.”

“I’ll fetch tea and soup from the cook,” said Siras hastily and, without attempting to come in, he took himself off.

“Is the news that bad?” asked Joss, eyeing first the Snake’s smirking face and then the old fawkner’s serious expression.

Unexpectedly, the old man smiled. His was a sweet smile rather like a child’s. “Neh, Marshal. It’s a good morning when we wake up to know we’re shed of Yordenas and the rest of his hateful crew.”

“I admire you fawkers and reeves who stuck it out despite everything for the sake of the eagles and the hall,” said Joss. “You did well. I mean that, Geddi.” The name surfaced at last.

“Begging your pardon, it’s Askar. Geddi is taller and about twenty years younger by my reckoning.”

Volias snickered.

“Why are you here to plague me?” asked Joss. “Didn’t I send you back to Clan Hall?”

“Commander sent me right back again. There’s trouble everywhere, Joss.”

“Wherever I see your ugly face. Aui! I recall now. You returned yesterday. High Haldia is fallen to an army larger and better-disciplined than the one that attacked Olossi.”