Novander was sputtering out in wind and delicate snow; Decander waited patiently, year's-end in its train.

King John Presbyter had been taken ill after calling his two sons back to the Hayholt, and had returned to his shadowed room, again to be surrounded by leeches, learned doctors, and scolding, fretting body servants.  Bishop Domitis swept in from Saint Sutrin's, Erchester's great church, and set up shop at John's bedside, shaking the king awake at all hours to inspect the texture and heft of the royal soul.  The old man, continuing to weaken, bore both pain and priest with gallant stoicism.

In the tiny chamber next to the king's own that Towser had occupied for forty years the sword Bright-Nail lay, oiled and scabbarded, wrapped in fine linens at the bottom of the jester's oaken chest.


Far and wide across the broad face of Osten Ard the word flew: Prester John was dying. Hernystir in the west and northern Rimmersgard immediately dispatched delegations to the bedside of stricken Erkynland.  Old Duke lsgrimnur, John's left-hand companion at the Great Table, brought fifty Rimmersmen from Elvritshalla and Naarved, the whole company wrapped head to foot in furs and leather for the winter crossing of the Frostmarch.  Only twenty Hernystiri accompanied King Lluth's son Gwythinn, but the bright gold and silver they wore flashed bravely, outshining the poor cloth of their garments.

The castle began to come alive with the music of languages long unheard, Rimmerspakk and Perdruinese and Harcha-tongue.  Naraxi's rolling island speech floated in the gateyard, and the stables echoed to the singsong cadences of the Thrithings-men - the grasslanders, as always, most comfortable around horses.  Over these and all others hung the droning speech of Nabban, the busy tongue of Mother Church and her Aedonite priests, taking charge as always of the comings and goings of men and their souls.

In the tall Hayholt and Erchester below these small arImes of foreigners came together and flowed apart, for the  part without incident.  Although many of these peoples had been ancient enemies, nearly four score years beneath the High King's Ward had healed many wounds.  More gills of ale were bought than harsh words traded.

There was one worrisome exception to this rule of harmony - one difficult to miss or misunderstand.  Everywhere they met, under Hayholt's broad gates or in the narrow alleyways of Erchester, Prince Elias' green-liveried soldiers and Prince Josua's gray-shirted retainers jostled and argued, mirroring in public the private division of the king's sons.  Prester John's Erkynguard were called upon to break up several ugly brawls.  At last, one of Josua's supporters was stabbed by a young Meremund noble, an intimate of the heir-apparent.  Luckily, Josua's man took no fatal harm - the blow was a drunken one, and poorly aimed - and the partisans were forced to heed the rebukes of the older courtiers.  The troops of the two princes returned to cold stares and disdainful sneers; open bloodshed was averted.

These were strange days in Erkynland, and in all of Osten Ard, days freighted with equal measures of sorrow and excitement.  The king was not dead, but it seemed he soon would be.  The whole world was changing.  How could anything remain the same once Prester John no longer sat the Dragonbone Chair?