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Five, in all. Each worse than the last.”
    “Your family…” Amnachudran hesitated. “They couldn’t protect you?”
    “Protect a murderer?” Gereint asked bitterly. The older man looked down. Gereint, observing the flinch, paused, lowered his voice. “You could be the last of my masters. You saved my life: You might save it again in a different way…”
    “Stop asking me for that,” Amnachudran ordered in a low voice.
    “You can’t command my tongue,” Gereint reminded him, waited a beat, and added, “Of course, you
could
order me to kneel and hold still, then beat me unconscious. Or at least until your arm was too tired to lift. You haven’t got a whip, but”—he gestured at the woods around them—“there’s plenty of springy wood. That would probably work. Shall I cut you a—”
    “Be quiet!” Amnachudran commanded him, his tone much sharper.
    “If you don’t wish to own a
geas
slave, you could simply tell me to walk away—”
    “You
want
me to lose my temper,” Amnachudran said suddenly.
    Gereint stopped.
    The other man studied him. “Of course you do. Because you want to know what I’ll do if I’m angry. You need to find out how far you can push me—and what will happen if you push me too far.”
    Gereint didn’t try to deny this. He’d never had a master more intelligent than he was. It occurred to him now that Amnachudran might be the first.
    For a long moment, the other man only continued to look at him. His plain, round face was difficult to read. He said at last, “Gereint. Get up.”
    Gereint got to his feet.
    “Walk that way”—Amnachudran pointed into the woods—“fifty paces. Sit down with your back to the fire. Stay there till I call you. Go.”
    Gereint turned immediately and walked into the woods. Carefully, because it was dark under the trees. And chilly. He counted off fifty paces, found a rock, sat down. Wrapped his arms around himself for warmth. His imagination populated the darkness with wolves. Griffins—no, griffins would, like the one they’d seen, have headed for the desert as dusk fell. If it
had
been headed back to the desert. But surely it had been.
    Dragons, then. Did dragons hunt by night? Would fire keep a dragon away or draw it? He knew there was almost no chance of dragons this far south, but he nevertheless half believed he heard some vast creature shift its weight away off in the dark.
    Probably there was a better chance of wolves. Fire would definitely keep wolves away. Though not from fifty paces behind him. He tried to think about poetry instead of wolves. Gestechan Wanastich’s measured cadences came to mind, unfortunately. Fire and the dark and women weeping: not what he wanted in his mind at this moment. And hadn’t Wanastich actually written something about wolves? Ah, yes: the part of the Teranbichken epic with the snow and the black trees and the wolves’ eyes glowing in a circle… Imagination was a curse, Gereint decided, and closed his own eyes. He knew perfectly well there were no wolves.
    He wished he’d had a chance to eat that fish. He might have picked up a blanket, at least, if he’d been quick. Amnachudran might have let him keep it. He wondered whether the man meant to leave him out here all night. Probably not. Maybe. The command had been
sit.
Gereint would not be able to lie down. Though he probably would not have found a dry spot to stretch out, if he was going to be left out here all night, he was going to regret his inability to try.
    Behind him, Amnachudran shouted his name.
    Gereint jumped to his feet and, despite the darkness, walked back to the fire much more quickly than he had left it. Once he stepped out into the light, the idea of wolves seemed ridiculous. He walked more slowly back to the fire and stopped, facing his master.
    “Well?” asked Amnachudran, looking shrewdly up at him.
    Gereint dropped at once to his knees. “Pardon my insolent tongue, master—sorry. Forgive me, sir. I won’t—”
    “Stop