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Prataxis gri
Kavelin. Always Kavelin. Damnable, demanding little Kavelin.
A sweating courier rushed in. He bore Inger's response. Bragi read it, said, "All right. You've got me. Gods help us all."
In his rags, with sores disfiguring his hands and face, the bent man didn't stand out. He was but one of tattered thousands lining the avenue. The King's Own Horse Guards pranced past, followed by Gjerdrum Eanredson, the new Marshall, then the Vorgrebergers.
The King and his wife approached. The Royal carriage wasn't much. Fiana's hearse converted. Kavelin had few resources to waste.
The old man hobbled away on feet tortured by hundreds ofmiles. He stared at the flagstones, hoped he wouldn't catch Varthlokkur's eye.
He squeezed the Tear shape in his pocket.
The wizard had been singularly careless, leaving it unat-tended.
But that was the nature of the Poles. To be forgotten. His own was the same.
Varthlokkur might not check on it for years.
He hobbled eastward, gripping the Tear with one hand, tumbling his gold medallion with the other. An hour outside Vorgreberg he began humming. He had had setbacks before. This one hadn't been so terrible after all. The Nawami Crusades had gone worse.
There were countless tomorrows in his sentence without end.