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"What do you want? You were a slave once Now you speak on my council What do you want?"

"My lord," says theemotion has overcome him He will not speak He cannot

"Well, then, Otto When you know, you must tell me You have earned a reward this day"

"Yes, my lord," the man says obediently, but he weeps, as humans do when their ehand still does not truly understand them

From ahead, he smells the fires of home A faint hus yip

OldMother is waiting for hiuardsman to Captain Lukas

Alain shook himself to a halt just before he slammed into the captain’s broad back Lukas had stopped at the top of the stairs, below a gate carved with Dariyan rosettes Beyond lay the remembered courtyard, lined on one side by a stone colonnade and on the other, just to their left, by a stone rampart that opened onto a spectacular view of the town below, although frole Alain saw only one corner of the cathedral tower The graveled courtyard had recently been raked and tidied Opposite stood the faonal chapel with its proud stone buttresses He heard hy and, from farther away and therefore harder to place by direction, ," couardsman and Lukas were clearly old friends, and indeed the other e of a captain as a clasp for his cloak "True enough" He chuckled and said, with a save birth at dawn"

"Is that so?" asked Captain Lukas, eyes widening as he leaned toward his comrade "Girl or boy?"

"A lad, wouldn’t you know it? It’ll be proclai The other two didn’t"

"Yes, I recall it, but the older girl seelanced around to uards could overhear, and leaned closer "Still How is the duke taking it?"

"Look there," said the other guard, pointing back down the stairs "Here he co"