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Here, where the archives had not been destroyed with the overthrow of the high kings, breaking word of the s’Ffalenn bastard’s evasion was received with sobering recoil.
    The terse conversations exchanged in the carriage yard became a trial on Sulfin Evend’s taut nerves. Despite the biting, unseasonable cold, guild ministers decked out in jewels and lace seemed to pluck at his cloak at each step.
    â€˜My Lord Commander of the Light?’ The latest petitioner ploughed in, undeterredby the field weapons and mail worn beneath the Alliance first officer’s dress-surcoat. ‘What are your plans? Will the Divine Prince regroup his defence in the east?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Sulfin Evend demurred. His hawk’s features turned from the blasting wind, he unhooked the merchant’s ringed fingers. ‘Too soon to tell.’
    â€˜The entrance to Kewar should stay under guard.’ The insistent courtier still barred the way, unscathed by the war veteran’s impatience. ‘Did the Prince of the Light leave no company in Rathain to stand watch over the portal?’
    â€˜Had any-one stayed, they’d be dead to a man!’ Sulfin Evend barked back, since his tied hands on that score rankled sorely. Although tonight’s bitter weather still gripped all of Tysan, to the east, spring thaws mired the roadways. Ox-trains would labour, slowed to a crawl, with Daon Ramon rendered impassable. Melt-waters now roared through the boulder-choked vales, too engorged for a safe crossing. Supply would bog down in those forsaken notches, riddled with uncanny Second Age ghosts, and enclaves of hostile clan archers. ‘I won’t post my troops as bait to be murdered. Our toll of losses has been harsh enough without risking more lives to stupidity!’
    As the guildsman bridled, Sulfin Evend cut back, ‘That ground is reserved as Athera’s free wilds, and deep inside barbarian territory’
    â€˜Your bound duty is not to eradicate vermin?’ a fresh voice declaimed from the side-lines. ‘Our gold fills the coffers that arm your men! To what use, if you pack them up and turn tail each time the chased fox goes to earth?’
    â€˜Good night, gentlemen!’ The Alliance commander shoved through the last wave of inquirers, pushed past his last shred of patience. Too many fine officers had died on the field. Left in sole charge of demoralized troops, he found his resources stretched far too thin. Erdane was a stew of insatiable politics, both council and trade guilds riddled with clandestine in-fighting, and coloured by the entrenched hostility held over from past resentment of old blood royalty. The Lord Commander preferred not to billet the men here, worn as they were from the last weeks of a harried retreat. Yet his bursar lacked ready funds for provision, and troop morale was still fragile. Tempers ran too ragged to risk quartering the company at large in the country-side.
    Beside the Master of Shadow’s escape, Lysaer’s regency faced pending crisis: each passing day raised the spectre of famine, as the unnatural, freezing storms rolled down from the north and forestalled the annual planting.
    Yet since the Blessed Prince had wed the Lord Mayor’s daughter, a strategic refusal of this town’s hospitality became a social impossibility.
    Sulfin Evend outpaced the overdressed pack at his heels, stamped slush from his spurs, then mounted the stair from the carriage-way. Admitted through the mayor’s front door, he endured the butler’s imperious inspection. He stood, steaming, for the liveried boy who removed his sunwheel cloak, and sat for another, who buffed his soaked field boots until he was deemed fit to tread on the mansion’s priceless carpets.
    Their service was gifted no more than a copper. The shame was no secret: the Alliance treasury was flat strapped. If the town’s ranking ministers were all jumpy as jackals, expecting