"If our girl Hethya was passing herself off as some kind of ancient wizard to gain status wherever she lived," she continued, turning back to the Icefalcon, "Alketch bandits' religious scruples might not have stretched to keeping her around, especially once they found out she couldn't come across with anything useful. You know what the Church in the South does to wizards. My bet is she and Uncle Linok had to get out of there fast."

"So they stole a donkey," said the Icefalcon, "and came here... For what purpose? To hoax us?"

"At a guess. To buy status. Maybe they thought we wouldn't let them in. Everyone loves a good story."

"Civilized people do," retorted the Icefalcon, who wasn't about to admit to a weakness of that kind.

"They could make a good living," he added thoughtfully, "just selling the donkey."

Knowing some of the speculators who operated in the Keep, Linok had probably already been offered the little animal's weight in gold, which was cheap these days, since it would neither hold an edge nor stand up to the heat of a cook fire. It was just possible that someone would make an attempt to steal the creature, though with so few animals in the Keep, such a theft would be difficult to hide.

It occurred to him that he could have killed both the old man and the woman and sold the donkey himself to the highest bidder, always supposing anyone in the Keep possessed anything he wanted that badly.

None of the Talking Stars People were particularly interested in things they couldn't carry two hundred miles on foot. The habits of the Icefalcon's upbringing died hard.

Gnift the Swordmaster came in, calling together his afternoon practice, and now that her son Mithrys was able to walk-and learning to talk, may their Ancestors help them all-Gil had returned to training regularly with the Guards and taking her turn on the watches.