HE sat in Cymry’s saddle like a sack of grain, and waited for doom to fall on him. She had taken him up the path, through what looked like a heavily-wooded park, past one enormous wing of a building so huge it had to be the Palace. Eventually they came to a long wooden building beside the river in the middle of a huge fenced field—he’d have called it a stable, except that there weren’t any doors on the stalls. . . .

Then again, if this was where Companions stayed, there wouldn’t be any need for doors on the stalls, would there?

It had a pounded-dirt floor covered ankle-deep in clean straw, and there was a second door on the opposite side, also open. These gave the only light. Cymry walked inside, quite at home.

The building was oddly deserted except—

Except—

For three people who were very clearly waiting for him just inside the door. One was an odd, birdlike man, slight and trim, hardly taller than Skif, with a cap of dark gray hair and an intelligent, though worried, expression. The second was taller, with a fairly friendly face which at the moment also bore a distinctly worried expression. Both of them wore the white uniform only a Herald was allowed to wear.

His “welcoming committee,” evidently.

He couldn’t see the third one very well, since he was standing carefully back in the shadows. The third person wasn’t wearing the white uniform though; his clothing was dark enough to blend in with the shadows.

Could be sommut from the Guard, he thought gloomily. Gonna haul me off t’ gaol soon’s the other two get done with me.

:He’s not, and you’re not going to gaol,: said Cymry. But that was all she said. He couldn’t find it in himself to feel less than uneasy about the shadowy lurker.

She stopped a few paces away from the two men, and Skif gingerly dismounted, turning to face them with his hands clasped behind his back. A moment later, he dropped his eyes. Whatever was coming, he didn’t want to meet their faces and see their disgust.

“So,” said the smaller one, “you seem to be the young person that Companion Cymry has Chosen.”

“Yessir,” Skif replied, gazing at his ill-shod toes.

“And we’re given to understand that you—ah—your profession—you—” The man fumbled for words, and Skif decided to get the agony over with all at once.