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Chapter One

The boat the Zephyr sails from Inismohr to Strangore in the Kingdom of Camlann in Avalon. On board is a stern-faced, heavyset Eisen woman and her young companion - a girl who appears to be Vodaccean by her appearance. Both look as if they are nearing the end of a long journey. Also on board is a young Hebridean who seems perfectly at home on the sea. His name is Rhuadh McCodrum. When the Eisen slips below, Rhuadh takes the opportunity to try and strike up conversation with the young Vodaccean. She tells him her name is Iris.

Meanwhile in Carleon, Sir Frach, a Wandering Knight of the Rose & Cross who is visiting the chapter house of the order there, is asked to handle a request for aid from Baron Douglas Colby, who lives in northwestern Camlann, not far from Strangore. Frach rides west and decides to call in on his old companion from his student days, Sir Geraint Penarfion, a Knight of Queen Elaine who is serving under Sir Lamorak in southern Camlann, managing Her Majesty's mercenary forces. Sir Lamorak grants Geraint a couple of weeks leave but asks him to cast a watchful eye over the furloughing Eisen who flock to the famous Strangore Jennyhouse. There have been some reports of conduct unbecoming.

Disembarking in Strangore, Rhuadh notices a stern-faced Eisen Priest (he appears to be a Vaticine) and his acolyte. Surprisingly, these two, like most of the rest of the passengers on the Zephyr, make their way up the cobbled streets to the hill at the east side of Strangore where the Jennyhouse is situated. Iris is also brought to that establishment by her escort, Helga, who introduces her to Rebecca, one of the senior aides to Mme Charlotta herself.

The two knights have also arrived at the Jennyhouse and are drinking in the bar on the ground floor of the west wing. Frach, obviously an Eisen and sporting a dracheneisen breastplate under the tabard of the Montaigne Order of the Rose & Cross, is the subject of some ugly stares from a trio of Eisen mercenaries. Iris comes downstairs where she is accosted by a fat sailor who offers to show her the bite the sirens gave him. Rhuadh intervenes and this fellow, named Sharky after the real source of the bite, ends up talking with Rhuadh about his hatred of Bregs. (He's a good Fenshire lad.)

About the same time, one of the three Eisen mercenaries, Karl, staggers drunkenly over to Frach's table and begins to insult him for having "sold out" to the Montaige. After a few failed attempts to be diplomatic, Frach responds with an insult and Karl whispers "Show me your fist". The two head for the door to the main courtyard, stopping to collect their weapons en route. With half the bar heading after them, Rhuadh (by agreement) shoves Sharky onto a table where two Breg merchants are drinking and Sharky's mates immediately jump in, ensuring a bar brawl.

In the melee that results, Geraint spots another of the mercenaries, dark-haired Kristoff, slipping quietly upstairs. Geraint follows him. Iris runs up the stairs behind the bar to fetch her rapier, but meets Rebecca en route. Rebecca, with a pistole in each hand, discharges a shot into the ceiling and then proclaims that the next one will be for anyone continuing to fight. The hubbub subsides.

Outside, the haar, or thick sea-mist, is beginning to pour into the town and thicken the air. Frach and Karl square off, while baldheaded Kurt - the third of the mercenaries - watches nervously. Frach fights in the Desaix style, Karl in the Eisenfaust. Karl manages to catch Frach's rapier in his panzerhand but Frach puts his main gauche to good use and manages to deliver a couple of savage cuts whilst parrying Karl's swordblows. Karl goes down.

Geraint storms into the room that Kristoff went into, only to find the mercenary in the process of accepting a sealed letter from the Vaticine Priest mentioned earlier. Kristoff, an apprentice of the Hopken school, shoots Geraint with a crossbow, injuring him, but Geraint plucks the letter from his hand on the point of his rapier. Downstairs, Iris' keen ears hear the sounds of turmoil and she runs up to help, followed closely by Rhuadh. The Priest produces a small shillelagh and deals Iris a ringing blow to the head before she and Rhuadh deal him enough injury to end the battle. His apprentice flees down the hall but Geraint heads him off. Kristoff attempts to flee the battle by leaping out the window, bringing him crashing into the courtyard near to where Frach stands over the body of his fallen comrade. Seeing Geraint hurl a dagger from the window into the fleeing Kristoff's back, Frach decides that he had better head him off at the pass and intercepts him at his horse, persuading him that at this point surrender is the better part of not taking a beating. Rhuadh, meanwhile, searches the unconscious Priest and finds a small rosary of exotic stones with a black iron cross dangling from the end of it.

During the general cleaning up which follows all this conflict, Rebecca takes Sir Geraint, Sir Frach and Rhuadh aside. When Geraint shows her the (coded) letter that he took from the Priest she seems quite upset but then regains her composure, asking them to meet her in her private chambers in the east wing of the Jennyhouse later that evening on a matter of gravest importance....

Chapter Two

The hour draws on from ten o'clock. In the now thickening mists over the Inish Sea the last of the boats come in to harbour, including the black-sailed Nightfall and the light Seagull. Upon this latter boat comes riding young master Aaron Flynn, an Inishman from the family once strong under the Montaigne but now stripped of much of their holdings.

Rebecca's room in the Jennyhouse is filled with bulging bookcases (bearing copies of Scarovese's Treatises, the three Books of the Prophets, several Illustrated Histories of Theah and books on Vaticinism, Objectionism, mysticism and the Syrneth, as well as several more lurid publications about heroic adventure and whatnot), a dresser crammed with papers, an extensive armoire, a modest bed, a writing desk, a shelf loaded with salves, ointments and tinctures, and an ornament which looks like the bastard child of a lava lamp and a samovar, bubbling away in one corner. There, Rebecca, Iris, Geraint, Frach and Rhuadh have their meeting.

Rebecca tells our heroes that she is worried about a "grave danger to all of Avalon" that is being smuggled into Strangore tonight. Being vague about the details and her sources, she tells them that they must intercept this shipment, which is hidden in straw, and that they should search for a one-eyed woman who may lead them to what they seek. She asks that they take Iris with them to observe what transpires and forbids Iris to endanger herself. In return, she offers to attempt to decypher the coded letter. Geraint agrees to let her transcribe a copy and work with that and she begins transcription whilst they question their prisoners.

Whilst the three men go to the questioning, Iris is saying goodbye to Helga, who apparently has to return to Eisen right away. The dour Eisen woman says a surprisingly emotional goodbye to Iris and then dons a cloak and disappears into the night with Chloe, another one of the girls from Mme Charlotta's.

Various techniques are applied to the prisoners, including the classic good-knight bad-knight combination. Although badly wounded, the Eisen Priest remains unruffled. His acolyte, whose name is Heinrich, seems pretty nervous and Sir Frach (who is playing the bad-knight) takes him out in the hall to try and squeeze him. Iris, who has been listening at the door, takes objection to Frach bullying the kid, who must be even younger than she is, but Frach just drags him into another room to berate him. In the main room, meanwhile, Kristoff volunteers to confess what he knows provided Sir Geraint will guarantee him a cell separate from the Priest. Rhuadh takes the Priest to another room and proceeds to taunt him by dangling the rosary he took from him in front of his eyes. When this fails to provoke a reaction, he taunts the Vaticine by using the heretical Sorcery that he inherited from his mother: the magic of Porte. Using his dagger, he slices open a bloody pocket in the very air and slips the rosary inside, sealing it away in the no-space Between. The Priest seems more angered than scared by this. Kristoff meanwhile tells Geraint that he is involved with a conspiracy amongst the Eisen mercenaries but that his retrieval of the message was to be his recruitment mission; he knows little - only the name of the man who contacted him. Frach, for all his bullying breaks Heinrich down to the point where the boy mutters under his breath in Eisen, "Evil to those who stray from the path of the Cross."

The Seagull has landed and Aaron Flynn makes his way through the mist-wrapped town to the Jennyhouse. As he approaches, he hears the sounds of a scuffle outside and goes round the building to find Sharky and his mates beating the two Breg merchants. Aaron looses a shot from his longbow, planting it centrally to the plank Sharky is wielding and suggests they desist, but instead they rush him. As the battle is joined, the rest of the group, having concluded their interrogations, step into the courtyard to begin their search for the one-eyed woman.

Overhearing the affray, Sir Geraint rushes to the scene with his companions following. Geraint orders them to desist at once, but in the dark and the mist no-one can tell he is a Knight. A hurled clay tankard catches him in the head and then the battle is joined. Our heroes dish out merry hell to the Fenshire men, but Sharky proves to be pretty handy with a broken winebottle and both Aaron and Geraint take some nasty cuts. The fight is ended when Rhuadh blinds Sharky by shining a lantern in his eyes and Aaron stabs him savagely through the stomach. The remaining Fens flee, although Aaron and Rhuadh bring down a couple more with an arrow and the hurled lantern.

The search for the one-eyed woman is thus delayed whilst Geraint sends for the Sherrifs to have these hooligans taken away. The two Bregsmen explain that they are merely harmless cider merchants, here to deliver a cargo for shipping to the Hebrides. They deny all claims of making any anti-royalist pronouncements. One of them recognizes Rhuadh as the guy who punched Sharky onto their table and started the brawl earlier in the night. As for Sharky himself, it is doubtful whether he will survive the night. The others are hurt but none grievously.

Geraint uses the waiting time to give the Fens a piece of his mind. Iris, noting that her comrades are pretty badly hurt, remembers the salves in Rebecca's room and goes up to enquire about them. From outside she hears voices but when she knocks and Rebecca answers she is alone. Rebecca gives Iris two small jars of a pungent red ointment, ruffles her hair and tells her to be careful. Iris notes that she looks worried.

Chapter Three

With the worst of Aaron and Sir Geraint's wounds salved and the Sherrifs having carted the unfortunate Sharky and his Fenshire friends off to jail, the search for the one-eyed woman finally begins. Having been a student at Bedegrane only a few years ago, Aaron is quite familiar with the taverns of Strangore from many a stopover en route between home and University. He suggests the Red Dragon, one of three bars in the old part of town, as a starting point for the evening's enquiries.

The group make their way into town through a mist as thick as the inside of a cloud. Along the cobbled main streets of Strangore, the lanters turn the night to a tumble of sulfur-orange cottonwool. The Red Dragon takes up the entire ground floor of a building in central Strangore. It is a well-lit, family type of pub and full to the gills with merrimakers even at the late hour of midnight when the group finally arrive. Rhuadh investigates the back entrance while Geraint (removing his cloak and Knight's insignia) makes his way to the bar, acts tipsy and joins in a cardgame with Derwynt Finnigan. Aaron enters shortly after and seats himself at a booth, overhearing the conversation of the cloaked gentleman and his jenny in the adjacent booth. The gent in question seems to be foreign and fairly boorish to boot. Frach, wrapped in a great cloak, arrives with Iris in tow and gets into conversation with some sailors. Finally Rhuadh, having found nothing of interest round back, enters and joins the cardgame, pretending not to know Geraint (who is having an amazing streak of luck playing "shoot the pot" with Mr Finnigan). At the sailors table, Iris is harassed by a redheaded Inish lad name of Tom Dingle who has been drinking alone for some time.

Things come to a head when the hooded noble drags the girl to her feet, demanding that they leave. She drenches him with a cup of ale and he cuffs her to the ground, knocking the card table flying. Aaron leaps to his feet and intervenes, which quickly leads to the challenge of a duel between him and the Vodaccean. As his antagonist strides to the door, Rhuadh darts in and tries to swipe the dagger from his hip, but he spots this and rewards Rhuadh with an elbow smash to the face. Turning to his (now two) assailants, he snarls "Both at once, then? Very well, you dogs...."

The usual crowd is pushing its way to the door to see the fight. Geraint has helped the Jenny to her feet and checked that she is okay. He then gives her his (not insubstantial) winnings for the evening and suggests that she call it a night. She responds by giving him a kiss on the cheek, telling him her name is Penelope and taking a powder through the side exit. Geraint then looks around to see Iris trying to elude the company of Mr Dingle over by the bar. Making his way to her he helps shoot young Tom down and the pair slip out into the night.

The duel is short and bloody. The Vodacce fights savagely but is outnumbered, with Rhuadh darting in and out to strike at him as he battles Aaron. They each give him a nasty cut before he floors Aaron with a crippling pommel strike to the nose, breaking it. While Aaron is down, Frach (who suspects that two against one isn't very sporting, even if the fellow is a cad) interposes himself between the Vodaccean and Rhuadh. The Vodaccean offers peace if they apologize and are disciplined for their unruliness, but Rhuadh darts round Frach, drops under the man's guard and pins his Sidhe blade in his shoulder. The Vodacce drops his blade and collapses to his knees, severely injured. At this point, Red Pete and Legion Jack -- two elderly pirates who were drinking in the Red Dragon -- break up the watching crowd and move them inside. The Vodaccean gentleman curses both Aaron and Rhaudh, telling them that his name is Viscount Romero de Lacce and he will make them both sorry one day. Frach helps him inside while the other two skulk off to join Geraint and Iris.

There follows a short argument about proper conduct and the wasting of time, punctuated by Sir Geraint's realization that the Viscount is nephew to the Vodaccean ambassador, Count Cristoban de Lacce. The outcome is that Rhuadh and Aaron head down to The Mermaid's Withers, a fairly rough establishment that caters to sailors, while the other three make their way to the harbour to check on the boats.

In The Withers, Rhuadh falls into conversation with an old sea dog, name of Douglas MacColl, bosun of the Fair Weather. MacColl recognizes Rhuadh as a McCodrum and asks which branch of the family he comes from. Turns out, MacColl knew Rhuadh's father, Aidan, through an old smuggling acquaintance - an Inishman named Packie MacGrath. Aaron meanwhile follows a one-eyed jenny (of a rather less stately sort than are found at Madame's) and her john upstairs, only to twig that this is not the one-eyed woman they're looking for. MacColl suggests that Rhaudh try looking for MacGrath in the Bit and Traces, a rather ill-known pub at the east edge of town and the two head for the docks. On the way they notice Tom Dingle talking with a colossal bald man named Bruno who is mentioning that their captain will be beginning unloading now....

Meanwhile at the harbour, the rest of the group have identified the Nightfall as a potential place to press their investigations. They find the boat guarded and decide that things look suspicious enough to proceed forcefully. True to Rebecca's instructions, Iris conceals herself in the mist, next to a bollard, while the two Knights go into action. Frach smashes one of the guards into the harbour and the other leaps back onto the bow of the boat, with the Eisen in hot pursuit. Geraint contents himself with scrambling along the bow line. They quickly fell another four men on the boat before the smugglers downships in the mist unload a brace of muskets in their direction. Then the battle begins in earnest.

Hearing the sound of musket fire, Bruno and Tom Dingle begin to run towards their boat. Rhuadh gives chase but Aaron is too tired from his injuries to go on and collapses next to a bollard. Rhaudh leaves him the lantern and chases the smugglers down the pier, hurling a knife into Bruno's back as he goes. Bruno turns to find his assailant and Rhuadh terrifies him by opening a Porte portal, flooding the misty night with a sickly bloody light. The smugglers flee towards their boat post-haste with Rhuadh in pursuit.

Frach meanwhile has pressed deeper onto the boat, battling numerous smugglers. Things take a turn for the worse for him however when someone drops a crate of ballbearings on his head and then Black Annie, the one-eyed captain of the Nightfall, shoots him from her vantage on the poop deck. Black Annie then cuts the rope holding the last of the cargo (which is being lowered down to a rowboat on the open sea side of the boat, to be taken across the inlet to the beach). This crate falls into the boat with a crash. Hearing this, curiosity overrides Iris' caution and she starts to scramble along the thin strut between the boats' births, shining her lantern down onto the rowboat, revealling its four man crew, a heavy trunk and the broken crate Annie just dropped.

Geraint meanwhile has mopped up the remaining men in the bow just in time to tangle with Bruno the bosun who comes charging aboard swinging a mooring crook. Bruno is a man mountain and soaks up several of the Knight's cuts before dealing him a resounding blow atop the noggin. Geraint collapses but is saved by Rhuadh who appears out of the mist to slash the bosun's hamstrings before he can take a further action. The two then charge to assist Frach, Geraint leaping over the loose ballbearings whilst Rhuadh sprawls on the deck. As they are mopping up the smugglers, Iris decides to throw caution to the wind and takes a running leap off the jetty to land in the rowboat. The four men in it are so surprised that she has time to cut down two of them before they can react. However, a moment later, Black Annie also leaps down into the boat and the duel is on. Annie, however, is a far superior swordswoman, while Iris only has the simple instruction in the Sisterhood of the Wasp style that Olga was able to impart during their travels in Eisen. Quickly, she takes a nasty cut. The smuggler then tells her she's impressed by her guts and suggests she jump to save herself further pain. When Iris continues to fight, Annie uses her Rogers style to first bind the young Vodacce's foil and then send it spinning away into the icy waters. At which point Iris jumps, hits the freezing Inish sea, remembers she can't swim and begins to sink like a stone.

Seeing this, Rhuadh dives off the side of the boat into the water. The Selkie blood flowing in his veins protects him from the bitter chill and makes him an excellent swimmer, but even so it takes long, fraught moments in the pitch black of the harbour's waters before his questing fingers touch the trailing hem of Iris's jacket. He quickly drags the shivering girl to the surface, where Sir Geraint tosses down a rope to them. By now, the rowboat is out of sight in the mists and only the faint sound of its oars can be heard, so Rhuadh ties Iris firmly so Geraint can haul her up and then turns to strike out into the dark waters of the open bay, following the smuggler captain and her unknown cargo....

Chapter Four

Curled round his bollard, Aaron finds himself shaken awake by one of the town constables, who is concerned to find a scruffy-looking injured man passed out on the pier in this time of crisis. (The sherrifs have been alerted by the sound of massed musketfire from the pier, as have the rest of the sailing population, who are hunkering low in their boats and arming themselves as quickly as possible. Aaron follows the constables through the mists down the pier to where Geraint and Frach stand victorious aboard the deserted Nightfall. Geraint has wrapped his cloak around the shivering Iris who is trying desperately to get warm.

Sir Geraint takes charge, telling the sherrifs and their constables to impound the boat and calling for the surrender of the few remaining smugglers who are cowering in the hold. They comply. Tom Dingle is amongst those arrested. Most of the smugglers on deck are dead from the fighting, although the men in the crow's nest and one or two others have escaped into the mists. Sir Frach meanwhile is busily lowering the ship's other rowboat into the water and making it ready. Aaron comes aboard and starts helping him whilst Iris finally warms up. Sir Geraint asks the constables to send men on horseback to the beach to try and intercept Annie's boat. Then the four of them pile into the other rowboat and give chase, paddling out into the mists.

Rhuadh, meanwhile has been chasing Annie's boat across the bay, staying below the surface as much as he can and trying to be as quiet as possible. He is trying not to think about the sirens which sometimes come into these bays at night. He is a strong swimmer, and his Selkie heritage protects him, but he can still feel the cold beginning to sap his strength. Realizing that the smugglers are not bound for the beach but are instead crossing to the south end of the bay, he resolves to slow them down. To this end, he swims under the boat and catches one of the oars the next time it hits the water. Placing his feet against the boat's hull he hauls on the oar and pulls it free, then ducks under the boat, coming up on the opposite side. Alarmed by this, Annie tells her two remaining men to take precautions. One of them rows, alternating the remaining oar on each side of the boat, while one stands in the bow with a storm lantern, uncovered, and Annie crouches in the rear, keeping watch. Trying to unnerve them, Rhuadh opens a Portal, letting its bloody light flood the mists. Annie responds with a pistol shot, which badly scores his buttocks as he attempts to dive.

Although the light of the storm lantern is diffused by the mist, the sound of the pistol shot carries across the bay, alerting the others to the direction the smugglers have taken. Iris is sitting in the bow of their boat, keeping lookout, while Sir Geraint and Aaron row and Sir Frach, whose shoulder is injured, works the tiller. Hearing the shot, Iris decides to bring her magic into play. The young Strega has come to realize that there is a Cups strand growing between her and Rhuadh and that she can use it to guide herself to him, and thus the smugglers. On queue, the legend of Thomas makes Aaron Flynn's left thumb start tingling, but he attributes it to some as-yet-unseen menace on shore.

Keeping a low profile now, Rhuadh follows the smuggler boat through some treacherous rocks and into a narrow crevasse in the headland at the south end of Strangore bay. Once inside, he finds it narrows and there is a secluded, rocky beach where the smugglers land. He sees Annie's boys carry the packing crate from the boat up the valley and away into the darkness, while four more lads grab the boat and slide it over a boulder and into a cave concealed in the shadows beyond. Annie hangs the lantern from a pole and in its light he can see her talking to a mysterious cloaked figure wearing a wide-brimmed hat. The smugglers then depart from the light, further up the valley, leaving two men with muskets to guard the mouth of the cove.

When the others arrive, Iris having successfully found the narrow passage through the rocks, Rhuadh gives a warning cry and dives beneath the waters. The two guards cut loose with their muskets but he shots go wide and Aaron drops them both with his longbow before they can reload. Rhuadh then creeps up the side of the valley and runs out to the lantern, intent on removing the dangerous light which will make them targets as they advance. When someone shoots at him from the darkness ahead, he instinctively catches the shot using Porte, thus revealling himself as a Sorceror to the others. Then he dashes the lantern to the ground and darkness floods the valley.

In the dark, Sir Frach and Aaron creep up along the left wall of the valley while Sir Geraint and Rhuadh creep up the right. Frach slips on some seaweed and goes over in a muddy pool. Iris, meanwhile, has crept over the boulder and into the cave beyond. Once safe in its darkness, she uncovers her storm lantern and begins to look around. The cave contains the large red leather trunk that Annie brought from the Nightfall, as well as tarred rope, barrels of pitch and of shot, dried jerky, muskets and harpoons hanging on the wall and a pair of rapiers. Iris gladly exchanges the cutlass she took from the defeated Nightfall for one of the lighter weapons with which she is more familiar.

Outside, the others have crept up to be just shy of a 4' sandy ridge which crosses the valley. As they are preparing to clamber up onto it, Black Annie and one of her men shine storm lanterns onto them, blinding them, and the rest of the smugglers cut loose with their muskets. A shot goes pinging off Frach's dracheneisen breastplate and away into the dark, but otherwise the group emerge unscathed. Rhuadh flicks a dagger into the other man with a lantern and Frach and Geraint leap up onto the ridge to duel with Annie. Two of the smugglers come to her aid, while the remaining three rush at Rhuadh. From below, Aaron shoots a couple of arrows through the skirmish, but in his care not to hit his companions his shots go wide. Black Annie disarms Sir Geraint of his rapier, which goes down to the rocks below, while Sir Frach slices through the men guarding her rear. She then turns and uses corps-a-corps to drive Frach back off the ridge. He lands badly and is winded. She and her last man turn and press Sir Geraint, who defends himself valiantly with his main gauche.

Iris, meanwhile, has emerged from the cave and scrambled up to join Rhuadh, who is still holding the three smugglers at bay. Rhuadh illuminates a Portal and suggests the smugglers leave or face his wrath. When they rush him again he takes out a pair of them with a double-parry/double-riposte. The final smuggler decides to leave, rather than face his wrath. As Rhuadh chases after him, further up the valley, Iris runs to the aid of Sir Geraint. Aaron shoots Annie's last man, leaving her facing Sir Geraint and Iris. Rhuadh meanwhile, stops chasing the smuggler to look at the packing crate, which is sitting alone in the darkness with straw scattered around it. Before he can get a look at it however, he hears a horse whinny and a shot ring out from where the smuggler had scrambled over the lip of the valley.

With Aaron taking pot shots at her and Sir Frach dusting himself off below, Black Annie decides that she knows the better part of valour. She quickly drives Sir Geraint back over the cliff, where he strikes his head on a stone and is knocked out, and trips Iris to the floor. Then she turns and runs into the darkness. Rhuadh and Sir Frach attempt to chase after her, but she gives them the slip on the scree slope side of the valley. Following her to the top, Rhuadh has time to see her vanish into the mists aback a black stallion. Inspecting the ground, he finds signs that two horses were tethered here, as well as the body of the last smuggler, who has been shot dead, apparently at close range.

Back in the valley, the knights inspect the abandoned crate, finding that amongst the packing straw it is filled with stoppered glass vials filled with a yellowish white froth. At least one of these vials has broken, probably when Annie cut the crate loose to fall to the rowboat from the side of the Nightfall, and there is a putrid, almondlike scent in the air. Frach puts it together from his history studies in Charouse; the vials contain samples of the dreaded White Plague, thought until recently to be extinct. Everybody backs off, real slow like.

Fearing that it is the Plague, Rhuadh bravely offers to drop the vials through a Portal and onto the "walkway" - the space Porte sorcerers pass through when they move Between. He knows that his Sidhe blood will protect him from most diseases, but he doesn't know if he will be safe from the Plague. And yet he resolves to do this anyway, maneuvering them closer to the Portal with a ship's crook. Afterwards, someone starts a fire and they burn the crate and its straw, as well as the bodies of the dead smugglers. Aaron and Rhuadh quietly help themselves to the smugglers' purses while the knights are summoning the constables from down on the beach. Sir Geraint orders them to impound the red trunk, which turns out to be filled with valuable saffron, but not before Aaron Flynn has quietly slipped a packet of the precious spice into the pocket of his cloak. One of the constables recognizes Flynn from his unsavory reputation, but keeps quiet about it.

Finally, exhausted, the group returns to the Jenny House to find it in an uproar. Rebecca's room has been thoroughly ransacked, and Sir Geraint notices blood on the floor. There is no sign of the transcript of the coded letter that Rebecca had taken, nor of Rebecca herself, although Frach's investigations turn up a secret compartment behind the mirror that looks from the dust to have recently contained both a book and a small bowl. Most strangely, the constables had to break the door down when they arrived in response to a jenny's reports of screaming, because it was still locked from the inside. The Eisen Priest and his acolyte, Heinrich, have somehow vanished from their room, even though they were tied up and a guard was outside all night. Worse still, a constable reports to Sir Geraint that although they placed the mercenary Kristoff in a solitary, guarded cell, they found him later with his throat cut open from ear to ear.

As our exhausted heroes try to contemplate the meaning of all this, Jonty the barman approaches them. He has some letter for them, left by Rebecca earlier in the night. He gives one each to Iris, Sir Geraint and Rhuadh. Iris and Geraint's letters ask the Knight to take temporary charge of the young Vodacce and explain that Rebecca "has to go away" under unforseen circumstances. What Rhuadh's letter contains, he does not tell....

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