the clients' bedclothes — and the drain plugged with rags and lint. I'd been shirking my work, and Drotte told me to go outside and ram a clothes prop up it. The wind was terribly cold. That was your ice coming, I suppose, though I didn't know it at the time — the winters getting a little worse each year. And of course when I got the drain open, a gush of filthy water would come out and wet my hands.
“I was angry because I was the oldest, except for Drotte and Roche, and I thought the younger apprentices ought to have to do the work. I was poking at the clog with my stick when I saw him across the Old Yard. The keepers in the Bear Tower had held a private fight, I suppose, the night before, and the dead beasts were lying outside their door waiting for the nacker. There was an arsinoither and a smilodon, and several dire wolves. The dog was lying on top. I suppose he had been the last to die, and from his wounds one of the dire wolves had killed him. Of course, he wasn't really dead, but he looked dead.
“I went over to see him — it was an excuse to stop what I was doing for a moment and blow on my fingers. He was as stiff and cold as... well, as anything I've ever seen. I killed a bull once with my sword, and when it was lying dead in its own blood it still looked quite a bit more living than Triskele did then. Anyway, I reached out and stroked his head. It was as big as a bear's, and they had cut off his ears, so that only two little points were left. When I touched him he opened his eyes. I dashed back across the Yard and rammed the stick up so hard it broke through at once, because I was afraid Drotte would send Roche down to see what I was doing.
“When I think back on it, it was as if I had the Claw already, more than a year before I got it. I can't describe how he looked when he rolled his eye up to see me. He touched my heart. I never revived an animal when I had the Claw, but then I never tried. When I was among them, I was usually wishing I could kill one, because I wanted something to eat. Now I'm no longer sure that killing animals to eat is something we are meant to do. I noticed that you had no meat in your supplies — only bread and cheese, and wine and dried fruit. Do your people, on whatever world it is where people live in your time, feel so too?”
I paused, hoping for an answer, but none came. All the mountaintops had dropped below the sun now; I was no longer certain whether some thin presence of Master Ash followed me or only my shadow.
I said, “When I had the Claw I found that it would not revive those dead by human acts, though it seemed to heal the man-ape whose hand I had struck off. Dorcas thought it was because I had done it myself. I can't say — I never thought the Claw knew who held it, but perhaps it did.”
A voice — not Master Ash's but a voice I had never heard before — called out, “A fine new year to you!”
I looked up and and saw, perhaps forty paces off, just such an uhlan as Hethor's notules had killed on the green road to the House Absolute. Not knowing what else to do, I waved and shouted, “Is it New Year's Day, then?”
He touched spurs to his destrier and came galloping up. “Mid summer today, the beginning of the new year. A glorious one for our Autarch.”
I tried to recall some of the phrases Jolenta had been so fond of.
“Whose heart is the shrine of his subjects.”
“Well said! I'm Ibar, of the Seventy-eighth Xenagie, patrolling the road until evening, worse luck.”
“Surely it's lawful to use the road here.”
“Entirely. Provided, of course, that you are prepared to identify yourself.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.” I had almost forgotten the safe-conduct Mannea had written for me. Now I took it out and handed it to him. When I had been stopped on my way to the Last House, I had by no means been sure that the soldiers who had questioned me could read. Each had stared wisely at the parchment, but it might well have been that they took in no more than the sigil of the order and Mannea's regular and vigorous, though slightly eccentric, penmanship. The uhlan unquestionably could. I could see his eyes traveling the lines of script, and even guess, I think, when they paused momentarily at “honorable interment.” He refolded the parchment carefully but retained it. “So you are a servant of the Pelerines.”
“I have that honor, yes.”
“You were praying, then. I thought you were talking to yourself when I saw you. I don't hold with any religious nonsense. We have the standard of the xenagie near at hand and the Autarch at a distance, and that's all I need of reverence and mystery; but I have heard that they were good women.”
I nodded. “I believe — perhaps somewhat more than you. But they are indeed.”
“And you were sent on a task for them. How many days ago?”
“Three.”
“Are you returning to the lazaret at Media Pars now?” I nodded again. “I hope to reach it before nightfall.” He shook his head. “You won't. Take it easy, that's my advice to you.” He held out the parchment.
I took it and returned it to my sabretache. “I was traveling with a companion, but we were separated. I wonder if you've seen him.” I described Master Ash.
The uhlan shook his head. “I'll keep an eye out for him and tell him which way you went if I see him. Now — will you answer a question for me? It's not official, so you can tell me it's none of my affair if you want.”
“I will if I can.”
“What will you do when you leave the Pelerines?” I was somewhat taken aback. “Why, I hadn't planned to leave at all. Someday, perhaps.”
“Well, keep the light cavalry in mind. You look like a man of your hands, and we can always use one. You'll live half as long as you would in the infantry, and have twice as much fun.” He urged his mount forward, and I was left to ponder what he had said. I did not doubt that he had been serious in telling me to sleep on the road; but that very seriousness made me hurry forward all the faster. I have been blessed with long legs, so that when I need to I can walk as fast as most men can trot. I used them then, dropping all thoughts of Master Ash and my own troubled past. Perhaps some thin presence of Master Ash still accompanied me; perhaps it does so yet. But if it did, I was and remain unaware of it. Urth had not yet turned her face from the sun when I came to that narrow road the dead soldier and I had taken only a little over a week before. There was blood in its dust still, much more than I had seen there previously. I had feared from what the uhlan had said that the Pelerines had been accused of some misdeed; now 1 felt sure that it was only that a great influx of wounded had been brought to the lazaret, and he had decided I deserved a night's rest before being set to work on them. That thought was a vast relief to me. A superabundance of the injured would give me an opportunity to show my skills and render it that much more likely that Mannea would accept me when I offered to sell myself to the order, if only I could contrive some
