The breeze returned its unsettling burden to him again. There was an almost alien quality in what he could feel – or was it, hear? It was as though he were listening to a creature from an ancient fable, articulate and intelligent, yet wholly different from him in every way. Images formed and re-formed in his mind, but none clearly, each dissolving as he turned his thoughts towards it like shapes within a swirling mist.

‘Are you all right, Count?’

The voice thundered into his inner silence, rasping, uncouth and distorted, making him start violently. Only years of silent and stealthy warfare kept him from crying out. His questioner however was as shaken as he by the response.

‘I’m sorry, Count,’ he gasped. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I…’

Ibryen raised a hand to silence him. The man’s voice was becoming normal in his ears – a tone scarcely much above a whisper – the tone he would have expected anyone to be using in the sleeping camp. He identified the speaker. It was unthinkable that he above all should have spoken as Ibryen had heard. It had been like the shattering of night vision by a sudden brilliant light. What had he been listening to with such intensity? He made no attempt to answer the question.

‘It’s all right, Marris,’ he said to the dark shape in front of him. ‘I was a little restless. I just came out to look at the stars.’

Marris cleared his throat softly. ‘Fortunate that I wasn’t one of the Gevethen’s assassins,’ he said sternly.

‘I stand rebuked,’ Ibryen replied good-naturedly. ‘Though I doubt they’ll take the trouble to send assassins if they find us.’

‘Whenthey find us,’ Marris emphasized.

Ibryen reached out and laid his hands on the man’s shoulders. ‘I yield the field, old friend,’ he said with a soft laugh. ‘I’m retreating – returning to my bed to regroup my scattered wits. Wake me at dawn if I show any signs of licking my wounds too long.’