No sooner was the door open than the man was pulling Herbrobert outside, crying in distress, "They've taken my Taminy! He says he's going off to fight for the Faith! What does he know about fighting? He's only seventeen and can hardly hammer a nail straight, let alone throw a lance. And it's not only him neither; old Viker is there as well even though he's fifty if he's a day, and Brecher the Miller's son, too."

"Where are they?" Herbrobert asked.

"Town green. We need you, Cleric Cranesbill!"

"I'll get my coat," Herbrobert said.

She looked at Rock, who was gazing down at his plate, troubled. "What's this all about?"

"Recruiters. Right proper bastards."

"I'll come with you, H'robert," she said, taking her coat from the back of the door.

By the time both of them were ready to go, Jemony had disappeared. "Where does this rattle-brained idiocy come from?" she asked as they hurried up the street.

"Va knows! I don't believe they think at all. We've heard of attacks on shrines and shrine keepers, and Primordials being killed as well."

"After all that shrine keepers and the witchery-gifted do for folk? Where would we be without them?"

Herbrobert grimaced. "I know. Rock would be dead with his lungs the way they are, if it weren't for a witchery healer. What I'd like to know is who's supplying the money that entices these addle-pates in the first place, the money that buys their uniforms and their lances. Rock has a theory, of course. He reckons the money comes from those mountebanks selling spice pomanders for outrageous amounts, saying they guarantee protection from the Horned Death. He might have a point. No ordinary fraudster could fund buying the spices to sell in the first place. Spread over the past year, we've had a cartload of such peddlers dribble through here, not one of them a cheery character."

She pulled a face as they approached the town green. It was lit by pitch torches, and they soon found Jemony again.

"Does this recruiting happen often?" she asked him as she looked around.

"They usually target the hamlets and farmers," he muttered and wiped a forearm across his eyes.

"Townsfolk get riled," Herbrobert said.

Indeed, men and women were gathering in an angry, noisy bunch on one side of the duck pond. On the other side of the pond was a second group, eerily quiet as the men of varying ages lined up in orderly fashion.

"Those are the recruits," Jemony said. "My Taminy among them."

Separating the two groups was a barrier of mounted horsemen with lances and foot soldiers with drawn swords. Twenty men all told, plus a couple of archers, arrows notched at the ready. Not many to keep irate townsfolk at bay, but they were coldly unsmiling and she wouldn't have liked to challenge them armed with only a stave.

"When I tried to get to Taminy, those men threatened me," Jemony said. "I recognise one of them. He bought a barrel from me, a year back. A farmer from Cosward; less than half a day's walk from here. What the blazes changed him from an ordinary yeoman into one of them onion-eyed scuts?" He grabbed Herbrobert by the arm. "Master Cleric, what can we do?"

Jemony wasn't the only one asking; a number of townsfolk gathered around Herbrobert, each with a tale of a family member seduced by the recruiters, all begging him to intervene.

She watched as the recruits shuffled forward to present themselves to a man seated at a scribe's desk. He spoke to each in turn, wrote in a ledger, then handed over a gold coin. After receiving this largesse, the recipients assembled into rows. Once again, she counted: twenty-three recruits all told. Not many for a town this size. A lot of money though, if they were recruiting in every town and village.

The kind of money that came from selling pomanders at ridiculous prices?

Some of the townsfolk called out to their sons or husbands among the recruits; others wailed their anguish or wept quietly; some shook staves at the soldiers. But none dared to storm the line of armed men.

"I have to intervene," Herbrobert said and stepped forward. Hastily, she followed. The townsfolk parted before them. When a woman clutched at his arm, begging him to save her son from his recklessness, he murmured reassurance and pushed past her to approach the nearest of the foot soldiers.

"I'd like to speak to the man in charge," he said.

The soldier stared at him, stony-faced. The horseman behind him dropped the point of his lance until it was levelled at Herbrobert's chest.

Gerelda glared at them both and drew her sword. "Don't you dare," she said to the rider.

Herbrobert looked over the soldier's shoulder and yelled, "Hey, you up there behind the desk! Tell your men to let me through, in the name of Va. If you are the leader of this lot, I want to talk to you!"

"I'm going with you," she said in his ear.

"Then sheathe that confounded sword of yours. I'm a man of peace."

She hesitated, then did as he asked.

The man at the desk stood up and stared at them before replying. "Let the cleric through," he said, nodding to his men.

She grabbed Herbrobert firmly by the arm, and they slipped between two foot soldiers. One of them made a grab at her and she neatly elbowed him in the midriff. By the time he'd recovered, she and Herbrobert were already standing at the desk.

"I'm the town cleric. Cranesbill. Who are you?"

"Names are of no import to us," the man replied. "We are all agents of Va."

Herbrobert inclined his head. "I am that, certainly. But how are you serving Va? You're bribing young men to leave their families and their trades to become fighting men, when there is no war to fight."

"There is always a war to be fought against the enemies of Va the Creator. These men are all here by choice. There is no coercion, no bribery." He turned to address the recruits. "Men! If there is any one among you who wishes to turn his back on Va and return to the bosom of his family with his gold coin, let him step forward now without fear!"

No one moved, yet Gerelda felt a blow beneath her breastbone, the concussion radiating outwards like ripples in water. No one had touched her, the blow wasn't real, yet the ripples momentarily stopped her heart, leaving her hands shaking and her brow beaded with sweat.

He did that. His voice did that.

By the light of a torch's flickering flame, she studied his face. His gaunt features were as cold and hard as carved ice. At first she'd thought he must have been in his mid-thirties, but with a closer look she wondered if that estimation might not have been at least ten years too high. His cheeks were hollow; his eyes lacked life. No emotion, nothing to soften him, nothing that spoke of passion. She suspected all that had made him look older than he really was. He had not even glanced at her.

"For whom do you fight?" the man asked the recruits. His voice was loud, but she still heard no passionate conviction there.

"For Va!" they yelled in unison.

"Who will you fight?"

"Primordials!"

"What will you fight?"

"Shenat superstition!"

Theatre, she thought. Staged performance from an actor mouthing lines.

The man turned back to her and Herbrobert. "You see? Go away, you Shenat charlatan. These men are mine now and your time is done. Your world is ending. Your heresy is about to be exposedand eliminated."

No hatred, no joy, no triumph, just cold statement of fact.

He looks... ill. It's not natural for anyone to be so gaunt. I wish I had Peregrine with me now. He would know who here has the smudge.

Herbrobert nudged her arm. "Taminy's there," he muttered.

She glanced at him, and guessed what he wanted. She turned her attention back to the man. "Whom do you serve in this earthly realm?" she asked, eyebrow quirked. "Why is there no insignia on your coats? Are you ashamed of your affiliations?"

He turned to her then, his smile cold. "When right is on your side, there's no need of symbols."

She was aware that Herbrobert had stepped away from her side, but didn't look to see where he was going. "Do you follow the dictates of the Ardronese Prime, perhaps?"

She expected him to ridicule the notion. Instead, something in his eyes flickered. She cursed the lack of good light.

He said, "Every warren of rabbits has a fox den near. Now get out of here. I have more gold coins to dispense."

Behind her, Herbrobert was arguing with one of the younger recruits. When the lad raised his voice, she heard the cleric call him Taminy.

The recruiter snorted. "Fool. Nothing the cleric says will make any difference now."

"I'm off to kill them no good witches in the Shenat Hills," the lad shouted at Herbrobert, shaking off the cleric's hold on his arm. "Evil folk who would turn us towards shrines and trees and weeds with their wicked magic."

Witches? An old insult from days long gone, a stupidity not often used. Having a witchery didn't make someone an ugly crone of fairy tales, muttering spells by the full moon.

The recruiter made a gesture to some of the soldiers. "Get these two interlopers out of here," he said.

Faced with a drawn sword, Gerelda shrugged and left. A moment later Herbrobert, still protesting, was pushed out through the ring of armed men. Giving vent to several muttered curses not usually uttered by clerics, he went to join the townsfolk, while Gerelda returned to the house to tell Rock Speedwell what had happened.

"Is there no town authority who can challenge these men?" she asked him, after she'd related what had happened.

"On what grounds?" he asked. "They aren't forcing anyone to do anything." He sighed. "Unfortunately, all this will result in a resurgence of Primordials in reaction. You know that lotthose who say Va is just a made-up figure and we should all go back to the oldest of Shenat beliefs. There's going to be trouble unless this is nipped in the bud. Soon. That's what we want you to tell the Pontifect."

"How do you stop folk from believing beef-witted fustian? How can you punish people for not believing what you believe?" Va-damn, I'm glad I'm not Fritillary Reedling! "That recruiter, do you know anything about him?"

He shook his head, wheezing.

"I asked him if he followed Prime Valerian Fox. He made an odd remark about there's always been a fox den near every rabbit warren. He might have just been mocking me by agreeing he was indeed a predator in search of prey. Or he could have been saying that the Fox family had lots of members."

"Of which he was one?" His wheezing increased. "Perfectly possible. The Foxes have estates everywhere. I sometimes visit my cousin over in the Marches along the border with Valance, and there's one near him. Huge place, with its own forest. Valerian Fox has been there once or twice in my cousin's lifetime. The family paid to have a chapel built in the village recently, I believe. Oh, and they've always paid the upkeep on the river ferry and the ferryman's salary, as well as that of a local roadman and his sons to keep the road from the village to the ferry well-maintained."

"Well-liked then, are they?"

He frowned. "That's the odd thing. My cousin says the Fox household keeps to itself. Doesn't mix with the villagers, doesn't disturb them, doesn't employ them. Big wall all the way around the outside. You'd think, wouldn't you, that the villagers at the very least would be indifferent. But they aren't that. They're nervous. Even my level-headed cousin. When I asked him why, he just shrugged and told me to go and see for myself. So I did. I climbed a tree and looked over the wall."

"And?"

"I was as scared as a dragonfly stuck on a frog's tongue. Don't ask me why; I've no idea. I could see the house and it was a lovely old building, surrounded by gardens and stables and so forth. Nothing unusual. I scrambled down that tree and hared off home. Mind you, that was years ago. I was only twenty or so at the time. But I tell you something, every time I've been back there, I've never had the slightest inclination to take another look."

She stirred uncomfortably. The tale reminded her of a fairy tale told to her when she was a child. A castle, enchanted by a wicked sorcerer. Anyone who entered never came out.

Dread... I've felt that lately too.

"Did you have any problems getting here from Twite?" Rock asked when she was silent. "Forgive me for asking, but you did seem a little worn when you arrived."

"Trouble? You might call it that." She told him all that had happened, and ended the tale by saying, "I left Peregrine in good hands. Well, I washed my hands of him might be a more honest way of putting it. He's with the shrine keeper in Needlewhin Pass."

"And you saw no more of the lancers?"

"I saw their tracks. They headed off along the high trail through the border country. I came down to Needlewhin."

He pondered that. "They could have been heading towards Valance, or even Muntdorn, then."

"Or just trying to hide themselves in the rugged hills of East Denva. What's that route like?"

"Poorly frequented. Winds its way through dense forest, an advantage to people who don't want to be seen. Gerelda, I hope you're heading towards Vavala on the morrow, because the Pontifect needs to know all this."

She nodded. "She will."

10.

The Unlikely Merger

There was no easy route from Needlewhin to Vavala. Gerelda was on the wrong side of the Falvale River at a time when melting snows made the fords impassable and ferries closed operations.

"There's a bridge at the Valance border," Herbrobert told her the following morning, "and the mule track through the hill forests will get you there."

"Lonely though," Rock said. "Worse, you could run into your lancers again."

"No option. I'm in a hurry."

He started wheezing, and she exchanged a glance with Herbrobert over his head.

"Time we saw the healer again," Herbrobert said, but they all knew Rock's days were numbered. He was still gasping for breath when she rode off a little later.

By the evening of the third day, she knew she'd made a mistake. The weather had turned wet, the landscape was as miserable as dishwater, and a raging forest stream made a ford impassable. As the sun set, she tethered her horse close by and turned in for the night under her oil-cloth cover. When the rain slackened, she drifted off to sleep to the sound of trickling water.

A cloudburst woke her several hours later, followed by a jolt of thunder and a crack of lightning that left her temporarily blinded. The gelding whinnied in fear. She scrambled out of her shelter into a shock of cold rain. As she reached out a hand to seize the horse's halter, the darkness vanished into blinding brilliance. A violent thwack of thunder and the splintering of the bough of a tree came together as one mind-shattering assault on her ears.

Slammed to the ground, air punched from her chest, every bone jolted, blinded, breathless, deafened... She whooped in agony, dragged breath into her lungs. The air around her smelled, the tang of it sharp in her nose. She thought, I'm dead.

When she finally sat up, wet, dirty and gasping, she wasn't sure what had happened. Her hearing and vision straggled back as her breath steadied. The next lightning strike was more distant. Clambering to her feet, she steadied herself against the sodden bark of a tree and looked around. She was standing amongst a mess of broken branches.