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heart of Roisinan. Who owned this pair? If the owner had been to the court at Miranei and seen Anghara, she was in danger. They could still lose everything, even here, at the very threshold of safety. He had pondered confining Catlin and Anghara to their room for the duration of their stay.
    But Halas Han was a good place to be for someone seeking to stay lost. It was constantly bustling, crowded, new faces coming and going in a confusion of impatient men whose motto, howled unanimously from a thousand throats on every conceivable occasion, seemed to be, “I’ve no time to waste!” In keeping with han tradition, there was only one hostelry, a rambling building of motley architecture, spreading up and out over three floors and half a dozen haphazardly built-on wings added as and when it seemed necessary. A guest in one wing could go for a week without setting eyes on anyone from another wing, and a week was considerably longer than any guest would be expected to spend in Halas Han. The landlord was a man with a prodigious memory for guests, especially those about to depart and due for an accounting—but even he could hold only so much in his head. Even if March’s anonymous lord tripped over Anghara in this bubbling cauldron, the girl who called herself Brynna had taken to wearing her bright hair in two long plaits, and looked nothing like the royal princess spirited out of Miranei several days before. If the lord should think the face was familiar, even so, enquiries with the landlord, if they produced any results at all, would yield only a false name. And Anghara’s best protection would be an innocence of danger. Any sign she was guarded in the presence of strangers might jog the memory of a name to go with that face, and could trigger an unwelcome train of thought.
    But fears for their safety proved unfounded. They were only there for one night, and gone again far earlier in the morning than a pampered lord could have been expected to have been astir. They made their departure cleanly, and were certain to have been wiped off the slate of the landlord’s memory, making space for new arrivals, as soon as they had settled their account with the queen’s gold. Their passing left hardly a ripple in the constant bubble and simmer of Halas Han. And the next stop was Cascin—safety at last, and, for March, home. This was country he knew well, the land of his boyhood. While Anghara travelled deeper and deeper into exile, March was returning from a long one of his own.
    Perhaps he had unconsciously picked up the pace, or else he was simply unwilling to stop over for another night so close to the manor. In any event, the last day of their journey was by far the longest they had endured. Catlin was tired and well shaken by the constant jouncing of their wagon, and Anghara had passed through tiredness into exhaustion and was fast asleep by the time they drew near Cascin Manor. The moon was up and most of the house abed, but a messenger had been sent on ahead when Rima had conceived of this plan. Someone had been sitting in the gatehouse ever since word had come to watch for travellers out of Miranei. One of the two men on guard that night hastened ahead to alert the manor’s lord and lady as the other climbed onto the wagon next to the driver and directed him into the inner court. Lord Lyme was already waiting as March rode in and dismounted from his horse.
    “Be welcome here, all of you,” Lyme said. A childhood paralysis had left him the legacy of a withered leg and a carved stick without which he found walking difficult. He was now leaning on this, a man not yet past his forty-fifth year. The illusion of great age was strengthened by pale blond hair, almost white in the light of several small torches burning in the yard.
    “Thank you,” said March. Catlin poked her head out of the back of the wagon, rubbing her eyes, and scrambled to get down when she saw Lyme waiting. March turned to help her with instinctive courtesy,