“So soon as I had heard of the Far-Folk’s plan to send us their smith as a perpetual hostage,” she went on, “I was chilled with prescience of disaster, and said so freely. But when Ravenutzi came to council, and I had looked him through, I was warm again. You heard how I said last night that I could not tell if it was the blood of the Far-Folk playing traitor in me, or if there was, in fact, no shadow coming. So I was obliged to say to the Council, and they on their own motion, without any help from me, accepted him. No one has blamed me”—she mused a little, with her chin upon her hand—“but ever since I have been afraid. There might really have been some intimation of coming evil which my happiness, going from me to everything I looked upon, dispelled as a bubbling spring breaks up a shadow.” She rose and walked from me a little space, returned, and stood before me so intent upon getting some answer more than my words, that I thought it best to let no words trouble her. Presently she went on: “Since then I have had no serious forecasting that concerned the Outliers at large. But some days before Prassade first found you, I had a vision of Broken Tree and a bird rising from it crying trouble. There was shadow lying on my world, and dread of loss and change. But this is the strangest thing of all. When I had seen you I saw more than that. Between you and Ravenutzi there was some bond and understanding.” “No, no!” I protested; “on his part, yes, some intention toward me, some power to draw me unaware to meet some end of his. And yet....” “And yet you like him?” I admitted it. Though I had no special confidence in his purpose, I felt my soul invite his use. “And that,” said Trastevera, “is why I have kept you here and advised that you be told anything it is lawful for an Outlier to know. Ordinarily when we find House-Folk among us we give them the Cup and let them go. But since you are to drink forgetfulness at last, before that happens you may be of use to me.” “But how?” Though I had more curiosity than concern, I could see doubt pulsing in her like the light breathing of a moth. She resolved at last. “Even if you betray me, there is still the Cup,” she said. “You have already been of use to me, for as I came into camp last night I felt the shadow; it was not on you when I looked, but when Ravenutzi looked at you I saw it fall, and it fell from him.” She considered me attentively to see what I would make of this, but not willing to say until I had considered it myself, I spoke of the Cup; beginning to take it seriously for the first time. “Of what,” said I, “will it make me forgetful?” “Everything at first, but by degrees the past will clear. Only around all that happens here, and around the circumstance of your drinking it, there will be the blank of perfect sleep.” “But why are you so sure in sparing me, that I shall be able to serve you?”