I drew a long steadying breath and told myself that Atthis would explain everything when I reached the ken. If I had read the clues wrongly, she would tell me what they had truly meant, or she would explain what had changed and how it was to be dealt with. I began to add other things to the pack, half my mind focused on what I would need and the other half thinking about what it meant that I would go now from Obernewtyn, telling no one, and leaving no message save that which was locked deep in Rushton’s mind. Even then, the information he had was wrong, for when he had entered my mind, I had truly believed that I was to travel with the expedition to the Red Land.

A picture of the master of Obernewtyn leaning over my bed to kiss me came vividly into my mind and I heard again his last words: I hate leaving you. I groaned aloud, remembering how we had blithely anticipated the weeks on end we had thought to share aboard a ship bound for the Red Land.

And what of Dameon who might even now be on his way up to Obernewtyn? I would never be able to say goodbye to him.

Maruman reached out and nipped me hard enough to make me gasp with pain. ‘Must go,’ he sent.

‘But I … I have to …’ I began, and stopped.

What was I trying to say, I wondered? I have to wait until tonight; until tomorrow? I have to tell Rushton I am going? I have to say goodbye to Dameon and Ceirwan and to all the others? How could I do any of those things when I could not explain why I was leaving, or tell them where I was going?

It came to me then, like a chilly draught from an unseen gap, that I had always known in my deepest heart that it would be like this, a slipping away from a life full of people I had come to love, in a place I had helped to shape, in a land I had helped to free.

Something else occurred to me.

I looked down at my boots. Right from the first I had thought they were too heavy for a sea journey where most of my time would be spent barefoot. The coat, too, was not the sort one wore aboard a ship. Then I looked over at the shelf where two trays now stood piled with samples of travel food sent up from the kitchens by Javo, at the insistence of Christa.