‘Ask it,’ she commanded.

‘It is not a thing to do but a memory you have that I need,’ I said. ‘Iriny, have you ever seen the statue that your D’rekta carved to mark the safe-passage agreement with the Council? I believe it is in Saithwold.’

‘It is there and I have seen it.’

‘Can you describe it for me?’

She frowned. ‘The ancient promises forbid any gypsy, even my brother, from speaking of it,’ she said.

I was taken aback. ‘Then it seems I must travel to Saithwold after all. I had hoped to avoid the necessity of such a trip.’

Iriny went on speaking as if I had not said a word. ‘I swore upon Stonehill that I would aid you in whatever you asked of me and I do not make such oaths lightly.’ Iriny gave me a sideways look out of her mismatched eyes. ‘There is only one way I can obey the ancient promise and fulfil my oath to you, and that is to show you my memory of the statue.’

‘You will permit me to see your memories?’ I asked, elated, for this was far more than I had hoped for.

‘You entered them once before without asking my permission,’ she answered drily.

‘To save your life.’

‘Also without my permission,’ she reiterated, but mildly. ‘I will summon up a memory of the statue now, if you wish.’

Jil interrupted to say that I had not been joking when I had mentioned a firstmeal feast, for I had brought a positive cornucopia of delicacies with me.

‘Take your time preparing it,’ I told her.

Taking the hint, she nodded and went back inside. I set down my mug on the step beside me and looked at Iriny expectantly. She turned her eyes away from me to look out over the sunlit knoll and below it to the trees blanketing the land leading up to Obernewtyn. Indeed, from this angle and facing out from the porch of the watchhouse, I could actually see part of the wall about Obernewtyn rising above the trees in the distance. I turned my attention to the gypsy and saw that her expression had grown abstracted, so I formed a probe and entered her mind, unable to help feeling anxious, since the last time I had done this, Iriny had nearly dragged me with her into oblivion.

I was careful to move slowly and to go no deeper than the upper conscious level of her mind. The memory she had summoned up was waiting for me, and even as I prepared to insert a probe into it, I heard her thought that I should enter the memory rather than merely observing it from without.