Ritva made the gesture of reverence that the Dúnedain shared with the Old Religion towards the holy images, clapping her palms twice, softly, and then bowing with them pressed together and fingers beneath her chin. Her people were courteous towards the fanes of others, whether it was reciprocated or not. Then she stood easily, waiting a moment for the lady of the plain clean chamber to speak first if she would.

It wasn’t a bleak room, though; the austerity was of a friendly sort, the bareness chosen because it sufficed and didn’t distract from things thought more important. The stern-faced woman behind the desk probably looked friendly often enough too, judging by the way the lines around her mouth and eyes lay. Right now she looked very tired, and not just because she’d probably been up all night, and extremely serious. Her face was rather horselike, and Ritva judged she’d been about the Ranger’s age at the time of the Change.

No point in a who-can-wait-longest match, and I’m the guest here asking for a favor, Ritva thought.

Then she put her hand on her heart and bowed. “Ni veren an gi ngovaned, naneth aen,” she said. “In the Common Speech, I am very pleased to meet you, Reverend Mother.”

“Sit, my child,” she replied, with a wry quirking smile. “I have been expecting this visit for some time, since my last talk with Rancher Woburn.”

Ritva pulled a small knife from her boot-top first, slit open a seam on her belt, and produced a set of thin onionskin paper documents. The abbess took them in worn fingers, fished spectacles out of a pocket, turned up the lamp and read. At one point she looked up sharply. “The leaders of the Dúnedain?”

Ritva spread her hands, and the Abbess nodded.

“Yes, there is no need for me to know more about that.”

At last she sat back and sighed, then crossed herself and bent her head over clasped hands for several long moments, in prayer or meditation.

“You come highly recommended,” she said when she looked up again. “Not least by Abbot-Bishop Dmwoski and Father Ignatius. I know of the Order of the Shield of St. Benedict, and news of the good father’s vision of the Virgin in the Valley of the Sun—”

She paused to bow her head to the Madonna.

“—has spread widely to us of the Church.”

“I was with him on that journey, Reverend Mother,” Ritva said. “I’m not of your faith, but he is a very holy man. And a very clever one as well; clever, brave, a faithful friend. The High King has appointed him Lord Chancellor of Montival.”