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“What the hell are unborn?” It took three days forinto the town of Pentacost, covering about a hundred , but fortunately he also endured like a log and hadn’t murmured a word of complaint Rain found us on the road and poured on our heads for the last tenfrom the stables and now sat at the centre of our own little lakes, stea of Rhone tavern

“You don’t know?” Snorri raised wet eyebrows at that and plastered his hair farther up his forehead, shaking the excess water froers

“No” I’ unpleasantness fro I’ve done since I was a child Genuine surprise is a great help when faced with an unwelcoetting, that can lead to broken fingers And worse I guess it’s a forood at falsehoods They often say the best liars half-believe their lies—which h I can end up believing it entirely, no half measures involved! “No, I don’t know”

During our travels, mainly down dull and muddy tracks and past innumerable dreadful little far tosense of exploration, but of the incident at the gravesnothing, just a briefto the rescue A dozen ti of her breasts as she’d thundered past It took a three-hour soaking at the end of a three-day ride for the unborn to at last surface with a nagging insistence that finally made ination had begun to suggest I hoped

“How can you not know?” Snorri demanded He didn’t thump the table, but I kneanted to

Snorri proved the ideal travelling companion for a man like me who didn’t want to dwell on past mistakes and the like As far as Snorri was concerned all his goals, a in our wake, Red March and all its peoples, Grands of the South, were to be left behind, outpaced, no longer of concern or consequence

“How can you not know?” he repeated

“How can you not knohat eleven times twelve is?”

“A hundred and thirty-two”

Das in life, Snorri If you can’t ride it—one way or another—and it doesn’t play dice, or cards, or pour from a wine bottle, then I’n Or heathen Or both But thisthingsaid so that worried me”