Roric turned away abruptly and thrust his fist into the straw again. When he turned back toward her she had risen to her feet. “As a queen,” she said, “I also cannot compromise my good name by being found in the men’s loft.” But then she looked at his expression and bent to kiss him swiftly before scrambling down the ladder.

As the sky went red and shadows stretched long across the castle courtyard, Roric slipped out the gate on foot. He stayed away from the road but cut through the oak forest, across the sandy hills, toward the base of the cliff.

The sun had set by the time he reached it. He stood for several minutes at the cave entrance, waiting. Above him, the first bats darted across the sky, squeaking on the fringes of audibility.

He lowered his eyes from the cliff to find a short personage standing before him. “Greetings, Roric, No-man’s son,” said a voice that could have been either a high-pitched man’s or a deep-pitched woman’s. No one had ever been able to say for sure if Weavers were men or women, or if the distinction had any meaning for them. This one, or one just alike, was said to have lived here since before the castle was built.

Roric reached for his belt. “I’ve brought you my best knife,” he told the Weaver.

The pommel was set with rock crystal and the blade was polished steel. The Weaver took it and examined it, turning it over as a squirrel turns over an acorn, before finally whisking it out of sight beneath dark robes. Roric followed as the Weaver stumped back into the cave where a tiny fire was burning.

“And what would you ask of voima and of fate?” asked the Weaver, arms and legs huddled together until the robes looked like a pile of empty clothes, though yellow eyes glinted in the firelight. Roric too sat down.

“I met someone last night,” he said after a moment. “Weaver, Mirror-seer-or Wanderer. I want to know who he was.”