“Beggin your pardon, ma’am,” Renfrew said, leaning briefly across Roland to Coral Thorin. She smiled her thin smile (it reminded Roland of Jonas’s), trudged her spoon through her soup, and said nothing. Renfrew emptied his ale-cup, smacked his lips heartily, and held the cup out again. As it was recharged, he turned back to Roland.

Things weren’t good, not as they once had been, but they could be worse. Would be worse, if that bugger Farson had his way. (This time he didn’t bother excusing himself to sai Thorin.) They all had to pull together, that was the ticket-rich and poor, great and small, while pulling could still do some good. And then he seconded Lengyll, telling Roland that whatever he and his friends wanted, whatever they needed, they had only to name it.

“Information should be enough,” Roland said. “Numbers of things.”

“Aye, can’t be a counter without numbers,” Renfrew agreed, and sprayed beery laughter. On Roland’s left hand, Coral Thorin nibbled a bit of green (the beef-strips she had not so much as touched), smiled her narrow smile, and went on boating with her spoon. Roland guessed there was nothing wrong with her ears, though, and that her brother might get a complete report of their conversation. Or possibly it would be Rimer to get the report. For, while it was too early to say for sure, Roland had an idea that Rimer might be the real force here. Along, perhaps, with sai Jonas.

“For instance,” Roland said, “how many riding horses do you think we may be able to report back to the Affiliation?”

“Tithe or total?”

“Total.”

Renfrew put his cup down and appeared to calculate. As he did, Roland looked across the table and saw Lengyll and Henry Wertner, the Barony’s stockliner, exchange a quick glance. They had heard. And he saw something else as well, when he returned his attention to his seatmate: Hash Renfrew was drunk, but likely not as drunk as he wanted young Will Dearborn to believe.

“Total, ye say-not just what we owe the Affiliation, or might be able to send along in a pinch.”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s see, young sai. Fran must run a hundred'n forty head; John Croydon’s got near a hundred. Hank Wertner’s got forty on his own hook, and must run sixty more out along the Drop for the Barony. Gov'mint hossflesh, Mr. Dearborn.”

Roland smiled. “I know it well. Split hoofs, low necks, no speed, bottomless bellies.”

Renfrew laughed hard at that, nodding… but Roland found himself wondering if the man was really amused. In Hambry, the waters on top and the waters down below seemed to run in different directions.

“As for myself, I’ve had a bad ten or twelve year-sand-eye, brain fever, cabbards. At one time there was two hundred head of running horses out there on the Drop with the Lazy Susan brand on em; now there can’t be more than eighty.”

Roland nodded. “So we’re speaking of four hundred and twenty head.”

“Oh, more’n that,” Renfrew said with a laugh. He went to pick up his ale-cup, struck it with the side of one work- and weather-reddened hand, knocked it over, cursed, picked it up, then cursed the aleboy who came slow to refill it.

“More than that?” Roland prompted, when Renfrew was finally cocked and locked and ready to resume action.

“Ye have to remember, Mr. Dearborn, that this is hoss-country more than it’s fisher-country. We josh each other, we and the fishers, but there’s many a scale-scraper got a nag put away behind his house, or in the Barony stables if they have no roof of their own to keep the rain off a boss’s head. ’twas her poor da useter keep the Barony stables.”

Renfrew nodded toward Susan, who was seated across and three seats up from Roland himself-just a table’s turn from the Mayor, who was, of course, seated at the head. Roland found her placement there passing peculiar, especially given the fact that the Mayor’s missus had been seated almost all the way at the far end of the table, with Cuthbert on one side of her and some rancher to whom they had not yet been introduced on her other.

Roland supposed an old fellow like Thorin might like to have a pretty young relation near at hand to help draw attention to him, or to cheer up his own eye, but it still seemed odd. Almost an insult to one’s wife. If he was tired of her conversation, why not put her at the head of another table?

They have their own customs, that’s all, and the customs of the country aren’t your concern. This man’s crazy horse-count is your concern.

“How many other running horses, would you say?” he asked Renfrew. “In all?”

Renfrew gazed at him shrewdly. “An honest answer’ll not come back to haunt me, will it, sonny? I’m an Affiliation man-so I am, Affiliation to the core, they’ll carve Excalibur on my gravehead, like as not-but I’d not see Hambry and Mejis stripped of all its treasure.”

“That won’t happen, sai. How could we force you to give up what you don’t want to in any case? Such forces as we have are all committed in the north and west, against the Good Man.”

Renfrew considered this, then nodded.

“And may I not be Will to you?”

Renfrew brightened, nodded, and offered his hand a second time. He grinned broadly when Roland this time shook it in both of his, the over-and-under grip preferred by drovers and cowboys.

“These’re bad times we live in, Will, and they’ve bred bad manners. I’d guess there are probably another hundred and fifty head of horse in and about Mejis. Good ones is what I mean.”

“Big-hat stock.”

Renfrew nodded, clapped Roland on the back, ingested a goodly quaff of ale. “Big-hats, aye.”

From the top of their table there came a burst of laughter. Jonas had apparently said something funny. Susan laughed without reservation, her head tilted back and her hands clasped before the sapphire pendant. Cordelia, who sat with the girl on her left and Jonas on her right, was also laughing. Thorin was absolutely convulsed, rocking back and forth in his chair, wiping his eyes with a napkin.

“Yon’s a lovely girl,” Renfrew said. He spoke almost reverently. Roland could not quite swear that a small sound-a womanly hmmpf, perhaps-had come from his other side. He glanced in that direction and saw sai Thorin still sporting with her soup. He looked back toward the head of the table.

“Is the Mayor her uncle, or perhaps her cousin?” Roland asked.

What happened next had a heightened clarity in his memory, as if someone had turned up all the colors and sounds of the world. The velvet swags behind Susan suddenly seemed a brighter red; the caw of laughter which came from Coral Thorin was the sound of a breaking branch. It was surely loud enough to make everyone in the vicinity stop their conversations and look at her, Roland thought… except only Renfrew and the two ranchers across the table did.

“Her uncle!” It was her first conversation of the evening. “Her uncle, that’s good. Eh, Rennie?”

Renfrew said nothing, only pushed his ale-cup away and finally began to eat his soup.

“I’m surprised at ye, young man, so I am. Ye may be from the In-World, but oh goodness, whoever tended to your education of the real world-the one outside of books ’ maps-stopped a mite short, I’d say. She’s his-” And then a word so thick with dialect that Roland had no idea what it was. Seefin, it sounded, or perhaps sheevin.

“I beg pardon?” He was smiling, but the smile felt cold and false on his mouth. There was a heaviness in his belly, as if the punch and the soup and the single beef-strip he had eaten for politeness’ sake had all lumped together in his stomach. Do you serve? he’d asked her, meaning did she serve at table. Mayhap she did serve, but likely she did it in a room rather more private than this. Suddenly he wanted to hear no more; had not the slightest interest in the meaning of the word the Mayor’s sister had used.

Another burst of laughter rocked the top of the table. Susan laughed with her head back, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling. One strap of her dress had slipped down her arm, disclosing the tender hollow of her shoulder. As he watched, his heart full of fear and longing, she brushed it absently back into place with the palm of her hand.