Still, he could have condemned her to death as a Pall-ridden monstrosity. He could have had her immolated on the burning ground, had he wished. But he was an honorable man, and he had pledged to tell no one because he owed her his life. Afterward, he had given her and Aoving permission to remain at the Halt and to take up officially licensed work, as long as Elen agreed to train as a courier. A strategic man, he’d instantly understood that the viper would make her invaluable on the high paths and isolated trails of the hill country.

All this she had time to recall, and yet he did not speak. His silence frightened her, so she went on, as if she could delay a catastrophe with a flood of words.

“The viper was enough of a shock,” she said in a low voice. “But you understood that it offers me enhanced warning of the presence of Spore that it keeps the intendancy safer than it would be otherwise. That was a choice your authority allowed you to make, to allow me to stay and train as a courier. But what would the law have required for Kem? You are an honest man, Intendant, as well as an honored justiciar. You’d have felt obliged to return us all to Duenn Manor, wouldn’t you?”

He sighed grievously, a man made weary by multiple sorrows in his long life. “You were wrong to withhold this information from me, but I can see why you held it back. You never thought of leaving the child behind when you fled?”

Her hands convulsed on the bars. “Of course not! Would you?” Then she thought of his son, forced to live far away, in the heartland. “My apologies, Intendant.”

“You need not apologize for speaking the truth. I have not your courage.”

“I am not here to judge the courage of others whose situation is nothing like mine. Ao and I had nothing to lose. That made the choice easy for us. Easier than for you, because you have other children, other kin, other responsibilities. Your office of intendant and justiciar to fulfill. These are all things you can lose. All we had to lose was our lives.”

He gave a little grunt which, she knew, meant he was ironically amused. “Spoken with your usual generosity of spirit.”

“I am not generous.”

“So you say, but I see it differently. That’s neither here nor there. Did you never think to disguise or change the child’s name? That seems unlike you.”

“We didn’t know it was unusual. There were others who had similar names.”

“You didn’t realize a Woodfall Province name might seem unusual elsewhere?”

“No.” She regretted it now, but it had simply never occurred to either of them.