“I was sent here with a task to do and you are—” Temar was shouting now but Lachald remained unmoved, seated behind his desk.

“Oh, do shut up!” he countered with a full-throated bellow that easily drowned out Temar’s intemperate accusations.

The younger man fumed, unable to decide between further argument or the satisfaction of slamming the door behind him.

“Have a glass of wine and we can discuss our options like sensible men,” Lachald commanded acidly. He rose and turned to a shelf, extracting a flask of wine and two glasses from behind a set of ledgers.

“Rielle thinks I’m drinking too much during the day,” he explained as he offered Temar one of the crude greenish beakers. “She will insist on sending over small-beer when I ring for refreshment. Sit down, won’t you?”

Temar hesitated for a breath then took the wine and found a stool under a pile of ledgers.

“That’s better.” Lachald took a long drink and closed his eyes for a moment before continuing, smudges of tiredness gray beneath his lashes. “I know it’s the saddle horses, the bulls, the rams and so on that will make the Crowns to buy your ship and supply her. I wish you all the best and we’ll burn some incense to Dastennin when you sail.” He raised his drink to Temar in a toast and the youth took a reluctant sip from his still full glass.

“So why aren’t we—” Temar began, but Lachald spoke on over him, his tone commanding attention.

“In the meantime, I have to look at the whole game, see where all the runes are going to fall. I’m not expecting you to wait for the cattle droves and the ox-carts, not once we’re past the Astmarsh. You can cream off the best and welcome, once we’re under the protection of the cohorts again, but until then we’ll need to keep together or one attack from the plainsmen could cut us to pieces. I’ll also be cursed if I’m going to leave anything behind that those dog-lovers can use against any of the other settlements around here. If I didn’t think it would be bad for morale, I’d fire the buildings as we leave tomorrow!”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Temar demanded, undaunted.

“Why didn’t you ask?” Lachald shot back, dark eyes challenging. “Why didn’t you do me the courtesy of assuming I know my business after managing these ranges for the Sieur for close on a generation?”

“My apologies, Esquire,” Temar said stiffly.

“My pardon, Esquire,” Lachald responded with ironic formality.

Temar drained his glass and placed it carefully on the edge of the desk. “I will see you at dinner,” he said crisply.

Lachald watched the young man leave, shook his head with a mixture of exasperation and amusement and then applied himself to the seemingly endless lists that this departure was generating.

Temar hesitated in the colonnade outside the office door. The sounds of disgruntled cattle and overworked men lifted over the stone tiles of the low roofs. He looked at the rope burn across one palm and the bruises on both arms and decided he’d done as much rough laboring to safeguard his House’s prosperity as it was reasonable to expect in one day.

The sun was dipping below the main dwelling as Temar walked across the grass toward it; he looked up at the gilded clouds, dragged across the deepening blue of the evening sky by the ever present winds, of Dalasor. Snapping a twig from a feverfeather growing in one of the urns along the colonnade, he paused to breathe in the sharp scent as he bruised the leaves. Temar closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment to think of his mother, who always favored the herb in her tisanes. Her wedding at the Winter Solstice seemed to be the last time he could remember being free of apprehension and aggravation over Den Fellaemion’s expedition.

He went into the entrance hall and his steps echoed against the bare walls. The intricate hangings that once displayed the quality of the wool raised here were already packed and stowed on one of the ox-carts. Sounds of activity could be heard all around and Temar hoped a little guiltily that he hadn’t stopped work with the stock just to end up moving the last of the furniture. A maid appeared from one of the anterooms and bobbed a quick curtsey, almost as surprised to see Temar as he was to see her.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled as she passed with an armful of books and a traveling writing desk that Temar recognized as belonging to Rielle. They must be finally clearing the private apartments, he concluded. A thought struck him and he sniffed, turning his head toward the kitchen wing. There was no savor of dinner on the air, he realized gloomily; the clatter of pans and stoneware must be the last packing up of the kitchen. At this rate they were going to be leaving with more wagons than an Imperial Progress.

He returned to the colonnade and walked swiftly around to the shrine, closing the door behind him. The two statues stared at him with impassive marble patience, challenging him. Temar pulled up a chair and sat, looking thoughtfully at the half-size figures.

Talagrin was not a god he was used to worshipping; the favor of the lord of wild places seemed a little irrelevant when you lived in one of the biggest cities in Formalin. Temar felt a sudden qualm; would the god have heard his half-meant irreverence? Talagrin’s good will would be worth having once he was trying to carve a colony out of a wilderness, no argument there. Temar opened the drawer in the plinth beneath the figure, which was draped in the fluidly carved skin of a long-forgotten predator, and took out a stick of incense. It was stickily fresh and he saw recent ashes in the offertory bowl before the god; he was evidently not the only one looking for divine protection against the perils of journeys ahead. He snapped flint and steel against a twist of dry wool and lit the incense. Waiting for a moment he breathed in the fragrant smoke, feeling it loosen the tension behind his eyes that had been threatening to break into a headache for most of the day.

Larasion regarded him over her mingled armful of flowers, fruit and bare branches as Temar prepared a second offering. He had made enough of these in his time, he thought with a rueful smile, asking for fair weather when he reckoned he was in with a chance of spending a chime in the long grass with some pretty girl, beseeching cold winds and rain when one of those hopeful maidens wanted him to join some family celebration, to be presented for parental inspection. That was all very well but rain in due season and sun to bring a fruitful harvest was going to mean the success or failure of Den Fellaemion’s colony, not just profit and loss in the D’Alsennin ledgers. Temar lit the incense with a sober expression and looked at the sternly beautiful face of the goddess, hoping she would understand his unspoken pleas.

The door opened and a small, pointed face framed in gold braids peeped round.

“Oh, Temar, don’t let me interrupt your devotions.”

“No, Daria, it’s all right, come in.” Temar rose and the girl entered, bringing with her a blend of scents that made a heady mixture with the incense. She seated herself with practiced grace.

“Aunt Rielle has had me at work all day in the stillroom.” Daria fanned herself with an elegantly manicured hand, now somewhat stained. “Halcarion only knows how I’ll get my fingers clean.”

She proffered some minor blemishes for Temar’s inspection, resting her hand in his for a breath longer than was strictly necessary.

“I thought I would find some peace and quiet in here, maybe avoid being given another job for a little while,” she confessed with a mischievous glance from beneath her darkened lashes.

“You and me both,” Temar replied with accomplished charm. Daria had been sent to spend a couple of seasons up here after some escapade at Solstice, he recalled. There had been talk of a coppersmith or similar; certainly she’d over-stepped the boundaries most good families expected of their daughters.