While Tamin’s Black Knight had been on the field of honor just after Sir Xia’s death, trying to distract the crowd from Dedreugh’s actions, he was absent when we returned. I suspect his exit had been a fast one, as the angry crowd had begun expressing their displeasure with thrown vegetables and spoiled wine. If he had retreated, his shelter options were limited to the azhocks behind the grounds.

The tentlike azhocks formed a temporary, traveling encampment that moved from city to city with each tournament. Despite its roaming nature, it maintained a pattern of streets and addresses as constant as visiting taxmen just after the harvest.

Dorna guessed the secret of just who we were visiting when we passed a band of horses—stallions—being kept well away from any mares. The single fireblood stallion in their number stood out like a giant redwood among dwarf pines.

She saw the fireblood and snorted. “Oh, so that’s how it is.”

“Be nice,” I warned her, and then walked inside a tent marked with red spiderwebs.

“Hello, Sir Baramon,” I said as I flipped back my sallí cloak’s hood.

The man who looked up from his Eamithonian plum wine looked well past his prime, by the kindest definitions. He possessed blue roan skin and a magnificent black mustache whose ends trailed past his chin. He still wore his Black Knight armor; the helmet rested on a small portable table next to the man’s rope bed and more liquor bottles.

The man looked up, surprised at our entrance. “You’re not supposed to be in here—”

“Well, look at you.” Dorna walked into the tent behind me. “Fatter than I remember you being, last I saw you.”

“And you’ve grown no prettier in your dotage, you old sow. I haven’t—” But then all the color fled from his face as he shifted his attention from Dorna back to me.

He’d recognized me.

The knight didn’t even look as Brother Qown slipped into the tent. He ignored Dorna even though they had just traded barbs. I had his full attention.

“From your reaction, I’ll assume I don’t need an introduction.”

Sir Baramon barked out a laugh and wiped his mouth. “Oh no, lord. You don’t. Frena would be proud, to see how you’ve grown.”

He poured himself another drink.

I grabbed his arm. “We don’t have time for that.”

He tried to snatch his arm away, but he’d have had an easier time bending an iron statue. He scowled, his gaze flicking from his trapped arm back to my face. He might have been old and out of shape, but he was still a stallion. “What do you want?” he sputtered.

“Do you remember when last you saw me?”

“Of course.” A sick look stole over his features. “You were…” His gaze dropped down to his arm. “Let me go.”