“Yes, why, didn’t you know? Surely you’ve heard that I’m the son-in-law of the Northern King?”

I was stunned to silence for some moments. Then, forcing my lips into movement again (and surprised to find it was still possible) I said, “No, I didn’t know.”

I remembered now, rumours of long ago, my nurses thinking I could not hear, gossiping of the foreign army commander currying favour with the Northern Ruler’s daughter, and thereby gaining the position of High General. At that time I had thought the foreign commander a woman.

The blue, light smoke kept coming between me and what I was looking at, except when there was a hole in the roof over the direction I gazed and then the rain coming through the roof made holes in the smoke and dispersed its existence.

The Forest man beside me poured me more wine. He was a young, handsome man. His name was Falicq. He had told me. He poured me so much wine I might have thought he was trying to weaken my commonsense for some reason but he talked too enthusiastically and ingenuously for me to suspect any such thing. He sat beside me and talked. He hardly looked at me. My head nodded, I wasn’t sure whether I was nodding at his conversation—I gathered vaguely it was about grain-stooks at the moment—or from drowsiness.

The blue odorous smoke kept eddying between me and Zerd and I couldn’t see him where he sat with the Chieftain’s daughter. They sat on one of the wooden settles grouped everywhere about the long rambling hall. This smoke was not so heavy as the purple fumes from the Northerners’ torches and camp-fires. I should be able to see him through this smoke, but perhaps my eyes were sleepy.

Oh, shut up, I’m not really interested in grain-stooks.