A hand fell upon Trehearne's shoulder from behind. It was the man in the yellow tunic, and he had become, in the last few seconds, quite jovially drunk. He gave Trehearne a friendly shove toward the door and called out to the people who stood there, "I found him out here looking for a way in--and I swear the man's a Vardda!" Under his breath he said rapidly in Trehearne's ear, "Keep your mouth shut, or we'll both be in trouble!" They went together into the keep. The men stared closely at Trehearne, and the women chattered about him in their own tongue. And Kerrel said to Shairn, "Are you satisfied, now you've got him here?" "_I_ didn't get him here," she said. "He was going to Keregnac anyway, and nothing could have kept him back then." She turned away, toward a table where there were bottles and various foods, and poured wine into a goblet. "Besides, he's a grown man. He knows what he wants to do. Isn't that so, Michael?" She handed him the goblet. He took it and said, "Oh yes, that's so. You'd better collect your bet." "I think," she answered, "I'll let it ride." She raised her goblet to sip the wine, doing it in such a way that her sleeve fell back and showed him the dark bruised ring his fingers had left around her wrist. The man in the yellow tunic said something in his own language, and her eyes narrowed. But she turned to Kerrel and said mildly, "Edri doesn't approve of me." "I don't think any of us do right now," said Kerrel. "You should have let the man alone." "Michael doesn't think so--do you, Michael? I didn't tempt him to follow me. That was his idea." "Well, he followed you," said Edri, and there was a deep anger in his voice. "But not all the way," murmured Shairn, and smiled into Trehearne's eyes. "Only the first step, Michael. You were annoyed with me when I wouldn't tell you about the Vardda, very much annoyed. So now you're going to find out." She reached up her fingers and drew them slowly across his cheek. "You look like a Vardda, you bear yourself like one, you even think like one. But _are_ you one?" Kerrel said irritably, "That's impossible, and you know it." He began to speak to Edri and the other men, in that language that Trehearne had never heard before. They seemed disturbed and ill at ease, men beset by a problem to which there was no good solution. Their attitude, and the particular way in which the women looked at him, took away the fine edge of Trehearne's excitement. "They act," he said to Shairn, "as though they're planning where to bury me." She shrugged. "Oh, they're discussing all sorts of alternatives, but there's only one possible answer." She sat down on the edge of the table, watching him in the catlike way that she had. "Nervous?" "Cold. The rain was very wet." That was only half the truth, but he was damned if he was going to admit it to her. "And I'm curious. Where do you people come from? What are you doing here? What's all the mystery about?"