“Yes.” He glanced at me briefly, then looked away. “My brother has been asking me to visit for close to a year now. He says I should really meet his children before they grow any bigger, which is true, but I did not feel I could take the time away from my duties here. He wrote again this week and asked me to stop and see them on our way to the East. They’re only a short distance off our route, so when I talked to the king about it he said we would all go there. Now I’m trying to remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen him.”

So that was what had been on Joachim’s mind, I thought. I was relieved that he had not been worrying about the bishop. The bishop intermittently imagined some undue influence on the chaplain from his friendship with a wizard, although as far as I could tell I had never been able to influence Joachim in anything.

“You’ve seen your brother at least once since I became wizard here,” I said. “You met him over in the cathedral city of Caelrhon.”

“Six years ago,” said Joachim with a nod. “But I haven’t seen my brother’s wife since I left home for the seminary, and I’ve never seen their children at all.”

“Is there any particular reason why he wants to see you now?”

“He didn’t say specifically,” said Joachim, his dark eyes distant. “In his last letter he hinted at some problems coming out of the East and affecting the family business. For a moment, I even wondered if it might have something to do with Sir Hugo’s disappearance, but that would be too much of a coincidence. After all, almost all luxury trade is connected to the East in some way.”

I waited to give him a chance to say something more about his brother. When he didn’t, and silence again stretched long between us, I used his mention of Sir Hugo to bring the topic back to the major purpose of our coming quest.

“What do you think can have happened to Sir Hugo’s party?” I asked. I myself had no good ideas, in spite of six weeks of theorizing. Although Zahlfast and the other masters of the wizards’ school seemed relieved that someone had volunteered to go look for Evrard, they also had no ideas.