It is hard to track a man who has just left a river. His body oils get washed away, so that when he steps on dry land, he is harder to smell. Gaborn wanted to leave only his small traces of scent.

As he struggled up the incline, out of the millrace, the ferrin saw him coming, growled in fear, and scurried for cover.

“Food, food,” he whistled, for these creatures had performed him a service. How great a service, they would never know. Gaborn had little food to give, but as he reached the mill, he lifted the wooden latch on the front door, went in. A hopper above the grindstones was filled with wheat. Gaborn opened the hopper, turned to look behind him. The ferrin stood just outside the door, eyes wide in the darkness. One little gray-brown ferrin woman was wringing her paws nervously, sniffing the air.

“Food. I give,” he whistled softly.

“I hear you,” she chirped in return.

Gaborn slowly walked past them, left the ferrin just outside the door. They waited, blinking at him nervously, afraid to enter the mill with him watching.

Gaborn hurried up the trail to the castle, under the trees, then crept along the tree line until he reached the small stream that wound through the pussy willows.

Here, he slogged through the marshes quietly. The sky was red on the hill now, and the archer on the city wall stood out bright against the sky. He was watching the fire, Binnesman’s garden burning. Ashes drifted slowly through the air.

Gaborn crept through the willows, up to the city wall, unseen. At the wall, he set Rowan down and squirmed under first, through the cold water, then waited for Rowan. She wriggled beneath the wall, teeth gritted in pain at the touch of the icy water. She staggered up to her knees, inside the castle gate, then pitched forward in a faint.

He caught her, laid her in the grass beside the stream. He took off his dirty cloak, wrapped it around her for what little warmth it could give, then began making his way through the streets.

It was an odd sensation, walking that street. Binnesman’s garden was afire, the flames shooting now eighty feet into the air. The castle was alive with people shouting, running to and fro, afraid the fire would spread.

On the street leading to the stables, dozens of people raced past Gaborn, many of them carrying buckets to the stream so that they could douse the thatch roofs of cottages, protecting them from falling cinders.

Yet of all the people who passed Gaborn, none asked his name or sought to learn why he carried an unconscious woman. Is Earth protecting me, he wondered, or is this such a common sight this night that no one notices?