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Josua lay down fully dressed beside his wife, ready for whatever calamity might befall next. Within moments, he had fallen into a deep, exhausted slumber. In the morning, the prince awakened to discover Aditu still watching over Leieth. Wherever the child's spirit had journeyed with Geloe, it had not yet returned.

Not long afterward, Hotvig and his men rode into camp, weary and empty-handed. 2 Ghost Moon Simon and Miriamele rode in near-silence, the princess leading as they made their way down into the valley on the far side of the hills. After they had gone a league or more, Miriamele turned them north so that they were riding back along the same track the company had taken on its way to Gadrinsett. Simon asked her why. "Because there are already a thousand fresh hoofprints here," Miriamele explained. "And because Josua knows where I'm going, so it would be stupid to head straight that way in case they find out we've left tonight.

" "Josua knows where we're going?" Simon was disgruntled. "That's more than I do." "I'll tell you about it when we're far enough that you can't ride back in one night," she said coolly. "When I'm too far away for them to catch me and bring me back." She would not answer any more questions. Simon squinted at the bits of refuse that lined the wide, muddy track. A great army of people had crossed this way twice now, along with several other smaller parties that had made their way to Sesuad'ra and New Gadrinsett; Simon thought it would be a long time before the grass grew on this desolated swath again. I suppose that's where roads come from, he thought, and grinned despite his weariness. I never thought about it before. Maybe someday it will be a real king's road, with set stones and inns and way stations ... and I saw it when it was nothing but a hoof-gouged track. Of course, that was presuming that whatever happened in the days to come, there would be a king who cared about roads. From what Jeremias and others had told him about the state of affairs at the Hayholt, it didn't seem very likely that Elias was worrying about such things.

They rode on beside the Stefflod, which glowed silver in the moon's ghostly light. Miriamele remained uncommunicative, and it seemed to Simon that they rode for days on end, although the moon had not yet moved much past the midpoint of the sky. Bored, he watched Miriamele, admiring how her fair skin took the moonlight, until she, irritated, told him to stop staring at her. Desperate for diversion, he then considered the Canon of Knighthood and Camaris' teachings; when that failed to hold his interest for more than half a league, he quietly sang all the Jack Mundwode songs he knew. Later, after Miriamele had rebuffed several more attempts at conversation, Simon began counting the stars that dotted the sky, numerous as grains of salt spilled on an ebony tabletop. At last, when Simon was certain that he would soon go mad—and equally certain that a full week must have passed during this one long night—Miriamele reined up and pointed to a copse of trees standing on a low hill some three or four furlongs from the wide rut of the infant road. There," she said. "We'll stop there and sleep." "I don't need to sleep yet," Simon lied. "We can ride longer if you want to." 'There's no point. I don't want to be out in the open in daylight tomorrow. Later, when we're farther away, we can ride when it's light." Simon shrugged. "If you say so." He had wanted this adventure, if that was what it was, so he might as well endure it as cheerfully as possible. In the first moments of their escape he had imagined—during those few brief instants in which he had allowed himself to think at all—that Miriamele would be more pleasant once the immediate worry of discovery had lessened. Instead, she had seemed to grow even more morose as the night wore on. The trees at the top of the hill grew close together, making an almost seamless wall between their makeshift camp and the road.