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the lesser lights: Ivor Pigget, the Dorns, Farmer Tallo, Dernck Castilion, who was the proprietor of the other village inn, over at the Bridge House.
    Together this informal group effectively governed the village, with reference to custom and occasionally to the Great Weal of Cunfshon, the constitutional texts that underlay the governing structures of the Argonath. Of course, matters of law were settled by the justices and matters of religion were settled by the temple.
    "And so, how do you find your prodigy, Macumber?" said Farmer Pigget after he'd taken a wet.
    "He has come through it all very well. The two of them make a fine team. You can see they have worked together for a long time."
    "We had high hopes for them, I remember. The leatherback was quick and supple, clearly very good with the sword."
    "Oh, yes, he was always good with the sword. But there was more to Bazil than just a sword fighter. He has that good soul, the very best trait of our wyverns."
    "That boy was a scapegrace as a lad, but I always thought he'd make a good soldier," said Tomas Birch.
    Farmer Pigget chuckled. "I seem to recall a time when you found your orchard just about stripped."
    Birch pursed his lips and nodded. "I'd have taken rawhide to him if I'd have caught him that day!"
    "Well, here's to them," Farmer Pigget raised his mug. "They've saved the village from legion taxes for many years now. They've served us all very well indeed."
    The mugs were raised high, then drained.
    For a while the talk was of more parochial things, the state of the planting after the heavy rains of the week before. Farmer Pigget was concerned about the bottom end of his main field.
    "They should never have taken the elms out along the south road. It always gets muddy down there now."
    "They were too old, Farmer Pigget, too old. There's young ones in there now. Give them a decade or so. It wasn't done right in your father's day." Thus spoke Farmer Haleham.
    Pigget nodded at this criticism of his sire. "Aye, Haleham, I'm afraid you're right about that."
    "Lukam up at Barley Mow has a wagon for sale," broke in Trader Joffi. "It's almost new, a Kadein make."
    "I'm not yet ready to go buying wagons from anyone up at Barley Mow," groused Tomas Birch, who was known for his ungenerous opinions of the nearby villages.
    "It's a fine wagon. Made in the wagon shop of Postover in Kadein."
    "From Lukam at Barley Mow? You've got to be joking with me."
    "Not at all. By the Hand, will you listen now. It's a fine wagon, and not that old at all."
    "Would you talk of the devil," said Tomas Birch, pointing as Relkin entered the front room of the inn intent on refilling his mug.
    A general caw of acclaim came up from the circle in the center of the room. All around the periphery other heads turned. Relkin felt the influence of so many eyes upon him and felt that odd unease again. His recent experiences in the mad elf-city of Mirchaz had left him rawly sensitive on the psychic plane. He could feel all these people staring at him and filling him with their preconceptions, their concerns, their desires. Their hungers seemed to burn him, as if he were too close to the flames. He could not satisfy these people. He was just a dragonboy, a good one perhaps, but no more than that. Not even a dragoneer or dragon leader yet, he thought a little bitterly. What these people wanted he didn't have, no answers to their questions, no balm for their wounds. He had to wall off their thoughts to keep his own turning smoothly.
    Now he was drawn into their circle and made to shake hands with all the great men of the village. He thanked them with a grave bow. In his previous life here, he'd been just an orphan boy, paired with the dragon; the dragon was far more important than he. He'd been unlettered, unschooled, raised in the orphanage and then by Macumber in the Dragon House. Macumber wasn't bad. He was stern, but kinder than he seemed on the outside. His bark was much worse than his bite. And he had a