The first delegation arrived at ten past six on a damp, gray, windless evening, and the second arrived at eleven past.

Lloyd saw them from the front window, where he was setting out the lamps. It was an hour that he had come to like, a quiet pause between the supper rush and the long drowsy stretch of the night, when the common room smelled of woodsmoke and stew and the last of the regulars were still lingering over their mugs. A farmer was asleep by the fire. Two of Dorrin's apprentices were arguing gently over a game of dice. Elena was in the corner mending a bridle, and the General stood at the till, counting out the day's copper with her lips moving.

It was, he thought, almost peaceful.

The sound of hooves came from the north road.

He glanced up. A column of riders had come out of the trees, five of them, in a tight wedge, with white cloaks that glimmered faintly in the gloom and a pennant at the head of the line. The pennant bore a sunburst. They rode in good order, at a walking pace, with their hands on their hilts and their eyes on the inn, like men who had been given an address and an instruction.

He put down the lamp.

"Elena," he said.

"I see them."

She had risen. She laid the bridle on the chair, quite calmly, and stood with her hands loose at her sides. Her face was very still.

"They are Order," she said. "Holy Escort, third company. The captain is Aldous Reeve."

"You know him?"

"He taught me the pike," said Elena. "When I was eleven."

Lloyd opened his mouth to ask a second question, and the sound of hooves came again, from the south.

He turned.

A second column was coming up the road from the village. There were four of them, on tall black horses, in long dark coats with silver buttons, and they rode in a single file, not slowly. Each wore a plain iron helm, with a curving pair of horns cut out of the brim. The leader carried no banner. He did not need one. The cut of the coat, and the set of the shoulders, and the iron ring on the left hand, said everything.

"Marcher," said a voice behind him.

It was very quiet. He turned his head.

Malina was standing at the till with her hands flat on the counter. She had gone perfectly white. Her gold eyes were fixed on the window, wide and bright, and a small muscle was working in her jaw.

"A reconnaissance patrol," she said. "Four officers. The leader is Major Torv, Third Intelligence Division." She drew a short, controlled breath. "He is not a stupid man."

"General..."

"Do not say it. I know."

The two columns reached the gate at precisely the same moment.

---

It was, in its way, a masterpiece of timing.

They drew rein on either side of the lane, a bare twenty feet apart, and sat their horses in the dusk, glaring across the road. The Church riders had halted in a tight, disciplined wedge. The Marcher officers had spread out, in a casual loose line, with an air of bored menace. The captain of the knights, a big, grizzled, broad-shouldered man of fifty with a white scar through his beard, looked at the Major. The Major looked back. Neither of them said anything.

Between them, the little white inn stood in the failing light, with its blue sign swinging gently in the breeze, and lamplight in every window.

Lloyd stepped out onto the porch.

He did it quietly, with his hands visible, and he closed the door behind him. He stood at the top of the steps, in his apron, with a rag in his hand, and looked down at them. His heart was going very hard. But his voice, when he spoke, came out smooth and mild and pleasant, the voice of a man who has done this many times.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Welcome to the North Star Inn."

The knights looked at him.

The Marchers looked at him.

"I'm the proprietor," said Lloyd. "I have beds. I have a hot supper. I'd be glad to serve you both."

Nobody moved.

"Both," said the captain of the knights, slowly.

"Both parties."

"At once."

"I'm afraid it's the only way. I have the one dining room."

There was a long silence. A horse snorted. Somewhere behind the lamp-lit glass, a spoon rang against a bowl.

"We were not told," said the Marcher major, in a smooth dry voice, "that there would be a Church patrol."

"We were not told," said the captain of the knights, "that the house was infested."

"Infested," said Torv, in tones of silky interest.

"With the Realm's vermin."

"I should be careful, Captain," said Torv. "It has been a long ride, and I have a short temper, and I notice that you have five men."

"I notice that you have four."

"I notice," said Lloyd, "that you are both on my property."

They both looked at him.

"There's a rule," said Lloyd. "Everyone gets a bed. Everyone gets soup. Weapons go in the basket." He pointed at the great wicker hamper, which stood beside the door. "It applies to all guests, regardless of banner. I'd be grateful if you'd observe it."

"I do not give up my sword," said Reeve, "to a tavern-keeper."

"Nor I," said Torv, "to a clerk."

"Then I'm afraid I can't serve you."

"Then we will take what we want."

"Then," said Lloyd, "I will have to ask you to leave."

He said it politely. He said it with a faint apologetic smile. He did not raise his voice, and he did not change his stance. But the lamplight fell on his face, and in the shifting yellow glow, he looked suddenly, curiously, like a very different man: calm, and tired, and utterly immovable, like a rock in a river.

The knights stared.

The officers stared.

And in the lamp-lit doorway, behind him, a very tall black-and-gold figure had appeared, with its arms folded.

---

"By the Seven," said Major Torv, softly.

The color had gone out of his face. He had half risen in his saddle, with one gloved hand clenched on the pommel, and his dark eyes were fixed on the figure in the doorway as a man's eyes are fixed on a ghost. His three officers had gone quite rigid behind him. One of them made a small strangled sound.

"Commander," said Torv.

"Major," said Malina.

She did not move. She stood in the door, in her black coat, with her hands clasped behind her, and her chin lifted, and she looked down at him with a face of polished stone. The lamplight caught her horns and made them gleam like dark glass.

"We had understood," said Torv, "that you were on leave."

"I am."

"That you were at the Citadel."

"I am not."

"That you were," and here his voice dropped, and cracked, "that the Demon King had lost track of you entirely."

"I am aware of the Demon King's information."

"Commander, I... " He swallowed. "Might I ask what, in the name of the Deep, you are doing?"

There was a pause.

It was a very short pause. But Lloyd, standing next to her, saw her go through it. He saw her eyes flick, once, to the sign over the door; to the little brass plate on the post; to the lit windows, and the figures in the room beyond. He saw something move in her face, too quick to catch. He saw her lift her chin another quarter of an inch.

"I am," said Malina, in a clear, level, unwavering voice, "paying off a table."

Torv's mouth fell open.

"A table," he said.

"Of oak. Six feet. In four pieces."

"I do not..."

"I broke it," said Malina. "In the course of a dispute. I have incurred a debt. I am discharging it by labor, under the terms of a lawful contract, which I have read and signed." She raised her chin. "I will be finished in ninety-six days."

There was a ringing, awful, perfect silence.

On the other side of the lane, Aldous Reeve had turned in his saddle, very slowly, and was staring at the Marcher major as a man might stare at a cat that has begun to speak. Behind him, one of the younger knights had put a hand over his mouth.

"Her?" said Reeve, in a hoarse whisper. "That is... that is the Iron Hand of the Deep Defense Legion?"

"It is," said Torv, faintly.

"She is... at a cash register."

"She appears to be."

"There is a woman at the door," said Reeve, "with a sword."

"And I know her," said Torv. "I know that woman."

He had turned his head. He was looking, not at Malina, but past her, over her shoulder, into the room, where a broad, copper-haired figure in a plain linen shirt had risen from a chair by the fire and taken up a post at the end of the counter.

"Elena," said Captain Reeve.

"Captain," said Elena.

She was holding a bridle. She laid it down. She did not move toward the door. She stood with her hands at her sides, and her face quite quiet, and her gray eyes steady and clear.

"You have been listed as missing," said Reeve. "For nine weeks. The Abbot has had a prayer said for you every night. There is a Tribunal inquiry. You are to return with me, tonight, to Saint Aldric's, to answer the charges of..."

"I am employed," said Elena.

She said it in the same level voice with which she had said it to Inspector Crane. It was quite gentle. But the captain stopped, with his mouth open, as though he had walked into a wall.

"Employed."

"I have a contract. I have a room. I am well." She smiled, a little. "I am more than well, Captain."

"You are a Champion of the Order!"

"I am a woman who chops wood," said Elena. "I find that I like it."

---

It might have ended there, in a standoff, with words. A different sort of evening might have found its way to a quiet end. But the horses were tired, and the men were tired, and the lane was narrow, and in the dark behind the knights, someone drew a sword.

It made a very small sound. It was the soft whisper of steel on leather, quickly stifled, from the back of the Church line, where a young knight with a nervous face had gripped his hilt too hard. But in the silent dusk, it carried like a bell.

Torv's hand moved.

Behind him, three Marcher officers drew in a single motion, with a flat metallic rasp, like a tearing sheet. The lane was suddenly bright with steel. The knights went for their own blades. The horses plunged. Someone shouted. And on the porch, Elena had taken a single long stride toward the door, with her hand dropping to the place at her hip where her sword had been, and Malina had stepped forward, quite soundlessly, to meet her, and for one long, wild, horrible second, it all hung on the thinnest of threads.

"Stop," said Lloyd.

He said it in an ordinary voice.

He did not shout. He did not use the Command voice. He took one pace down the steps, onto the wet grass, in his apron, with a rag in his hand, and stood in the lane between the two columns, with his back to the lit door and his hands empty at his sides.

He looked at them.

He read them.

They were exhausted.

It was a thing he knew as plainly as the nose on his face. Reeve had not slept in thirty hours. The dark hollows under his eyes were the color of old plums, and his sword hand was shaking, ever so slightly, on the hilt. The young knight at the back was a boy, no more than nineteen, with a face white as milk, who had drawn his blade not because he wished to use it but because he could not bear the waiting. Torv's lips were cracked. His officers had the glazed, stubborn, locked-kneed look of men who had been in the saddle for nine days and wished for nothing in the world but a bed.

None of them wanted to fight.

They had come here to be told what to do. They had come with orders, and the orders had run out. And each of them, in his own tired heart, was waiting for someone to give him a reason to put his sword away.

"I'd like to propose something," said Lloyd.

---

He did not wait for an answer.

He turned, and walked back up the steps, past the General, past Elena, and into the common room, where a number of startled faces were staring from the tables. He went to the counter. He took out a clean sheet of paper, and an inkwell, and a pen, and laid them in a row. He took off his apron, and folded it. He sat down.

"Pico," he said.

"Operator." The small blue figure had appeared at his shoulder, with its ribbons fluttering and its round eyes bright.

"I'd like a precedent."

"Querying." There was a short whir. "Border Accord of Year Three, Article Four. Section Two. No armed force of either power may enter occupied civilian property within the Buffer Woods without a joint warrant."

"Is that in the records?"

"Negative. It is not in the records." The golden light in its chest pulsed. "The Operator invented it, at approximately nineteen forty, some weeks ago, in order to dissuade a Marcher patrol."

"That's right. I'd like to ratify it."

"Affirmative," said Pico, with great satisfaction. "This unit will provide supporting language."

He began to write.

Out in the lane, a horse stamped. Someone coughed.

At last he laid down the pen, and rose, and went to the door. He stood on the threshold, with the paper in his hand and the warm yellow light of the room at his back, and looked at the two captains.

"Gentlemen," he said. "I'd be grateful if you'd step inside, and hear a short statement. It will take about four minutes. If, at the end of it, you'd still like to proceed with a fight, I won't stand in your way."

There was a pause.

"A statement," said Torv.

"It's brief."

"Of what nature?"

"Of the nature of a treaty," said Lloyd.

---

They came in.

They came in, one by one, with a great deal of clanking and muttering, and stood just inside the door in two separate knots, glaring at each other across the lamplit room.

He stood on a chair.

It was not a dignified position. But it was the only way to be seen, and he had found, over the years, that it was a great help, in addressing a hostile room, to be slightly taller than it expected.

"Thank you," he said. "I'll be brief."

He unrolled the paper.

"THE INN PEACE ACCORD," he read. "Being a Convention for the Regulation of Conduct upon the Premises of the North Star Inn, Thornwick, in the Buffer Woods. Drawn up this seventeenth day of Hearthmonth, in the Presence of Witnesses.

"Article One. The premises of the North Star Inn, comprising the main building, the stable, the barn, the grounds, and the well, shall constitute a zone of neutral ground, in which no person shall be molested, arrested, assaulted, or otherwise injured by any other, on account of his allegiance.

"Article Two. All persons entering the premises shall deposit their weapons in the basket provided. Weapons shall be returned upon departure. No weapon shall be drawn, brandished, or fondled for the purpose of intimidation. The word fondled has been included at the specific request of the cashier."

There was a small stifled sound from somewhere near the till.

"Article Three. Every person who enters shall receive a bed and a meal, to be paid for at the posted rate, without regard to rank, creed, or origin.

"Article Four. No person shall conduct espionage upon the premises. No person shall conduct recruitment. No person shall attempt to induce another person to defect, desert, or convert, whether by argument, bribery, or the offer of a pension."

He paused.

Behind the captain of the knights, one of the younger men had begun, quite visibly, to relax. His shoulders had come down. He was gazing at the proprietor with an expression of cautious, dawning, incredulous hope.

"Article Five. All disputes arising between guests shall be referred to the proprietor, who shall adjudicate them by whatever means he judges fit, and whose decision shall be final. The proprietor's usual means is a cup of tea.

"Article Six. All damage to the premises shall be assessed according to the schedule in Appendix A, and shall be recoverable from the party responsible, in coin or in labor, at the proprietor's discretion.

"Article Seven. This Accord shall take effect upon signature, and shall remain in force for so long as the Inn remains standing, and the soup remains hot."

He lowered the paper.

"That's the substance," he said. "There's an appendix."

---

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

"It is not valid," said Torv at last.

He had folded his arms. His voice was dry and precise, and his eyes were narrowed.

"No sovereign power has authorized it. It has no standing in the law of the Realm. It is a clerk's scribble."

"Quite so," said Lloyd.

"And it would be..." Torv hesitated, and a faint flush rose on his thin cheek. "It would be without precedent."

"That's right."

"There is no such Article Four in the Border Accord of Year Three."

"There wasn't," said Lloyd. "There is now."

The Major stared at him.

"It's not a treaty between powers," said Lloyd gently. "I'd never presume. It's a house rule. It's a notice posted on a door. It says that, within the walls of this building, for the length of a night, everyone has agreed to be tired together." He looked from one to the other. "You're both exhausted. You've been in the saddle for days. You have men who are cold, and hungry, and a long way from home. I have a fire, and soup, and a number of beds. All I'm asking is that you leave your swords in a basket, and your quarrels at the door, and sit down."

"And if we do not?"

"Then I'll serve you both a very long cold supper," said Lloyd, "on the porch."

A small ripple of something ran through the room.

It might have been laughter. It was stifled at once. But one of the Church knights, a young man with a snub nose and a freckled face, had made a short snorting noise, and had covered it, hastily, with a cough.

"Who," said Reeve, in a deep, gruff, careful voice, "stands surety?"

"I'm sorry?"

"For the Accord. A treaty requires a guarantor. A man whose word is bound. A power that will enforce it." He lifted his scarred chin. "Who is yours?"

Lloyd considered the question.

"The reputation of the establishment," he said.

Reeve's eyebrows rose.

"And," said Lloyd, "the combined disapproval of the cashier and the security staff."

---

There was a pause.

Then, very slowly, as if they had been choreographed by the same hand, the two women turned their heads and looked at each other.

It was a long look. It lasted perhaps three seconds. There was nothing in it that a stranger could have named. It was not warm. It was not cold. It had something in it of an old and honorable enmity, and something of the sheepish embarrassment of two people who have just been caught agreeing. Elena's mouth twitched. Malina's brow lowered. A faint, slow rose-colored blush began to climb out of her collar.

They straightened.

They did it together. The General drew herself up to her full six feet and one inch, with her hands behind her back and her chin level. The Champion squared her broad shoulders, set her feet, and folded her arms across her chest. They stood side by side at the end of the counter, in the lamplight, like a pair of pillars, and they turned their heads in unison, and fixed the room with two perfectly identical expressions of grave and absolute and unyielding disapproval.

It was, he thought, rather impressive.

The younger knight swallowed.

One of the Marcher officers took, quite visibly, a half step backward.

"I would sign," said the freckled knight, in a small clear voice, "if it please the captain."

"Hold your tongue, Garrett," said Reeve.

"Yes, sir. But, sir, it's soup."

---

They signed at ten to eight.

It was Hettie who witnessed it. She had been sent for in haste, and had arrived out of breath, in her three shawls, with her notary's seal in her reticule and a face like a woman who has been promised the greatest gossip of her career. She sat at the end of the counter with the document in front of her, and a pen in her fist, and conducted the ceremony with a gravity that made Lloyd want to weep.

Reeve signed first. He did it slowly, in a large heavy hand, with his scarred jaw set. Then Torv, in a small precise slanting script, with a curt flourish at the end. Then Elena, in her big blunt upright letters, and the small cold ring of the iron seal that she wore on a chain. Then Hettie, in a flourishing copperplate, with the seal of the Thornwick Council of Property stamped in red wax. Then Pico, who had been given a pen, and signed with a small neat golden spark, at the bottom of the page, in the tiny angular glyphs of the Core.

Malina did not sign.

She stood at the end of the counter with her hands behind her back, and when the paper came to her, she looked at it for a long moment, and then, without a word, she took the pen.

"I am an observer," she said.

"General..."

"I am not a party to the Accord. I am a cashier." She did not look at him. "I will witness it. In my capacity as an observer."

She wrote her name.

It was the plain M. Malina that he had seen on the contract, black and sharp and angular, with no title and no rank. But when she had finished, she did not lay down the pen. She held it for a moment, with a very strange expression, looking at the margin below the last line. And then, in the small, hard, upright script that he had read on a hundred pages in the last three months, she added one more sentence.

He saw it from where he stood.

He was too far away, at first, to read the words. He saw only the movement of her hand, rapid and precise. Then she set down the pen, and stepped back, and Hettie, with a gasp of delight, picked up the page and read it out.

"'Article Eight,'" said Hettie. "'Added in the hand of the observer. The innkeeper does not work past midnight.'"

There was a silence.

The knights looked at one another. The officers looked at the floor. Somebody, from the back of the room, said "Hear, hear," in a faint voice, and was shushed.

Lloyd stood quite still.

He was still standing on the chair. He had not moved. He was looking at the page, at the single line in the margin, in her black angular hand, and he found that the whole room had gone quiet and distant, as though it were a long way off, and that the only thing in the world was that one small sentence.

The innkeeper does not work past midnight.

It was not a request. It was a rule. It was set down in black ink, with the weight of a signature behind it, on a document that two armies had signed. It was, he realized, with a faint sense of vertigo, the first time in his life that anyone had ever written a law for his protection.

She had taken his contract, the one he had written for himself, and turned it into a wall.

He did not look at her.

He could not. He stood on the chair, with the lamp-light in his eyes, and the paper in his hand, and the knowledge in his chest like a pressure of warm water, and kept his gaze fixed on the single line of ink until it blurred.

"Thank you," he said, to the page, in a very small voice.

Nobody heard him. Except, perhaps, the person standing six feet away, who had gone suddenly very still.

---

The soup was served at eight.

It was a very quiet supper. The two parties sat at opposite ends of the long new table, with the basket of weapons between them like a centerpiece, and ate in a wary silence.

The silence began to loosen.

It started with the freckled knight. He asked, in a very small voice, whether the bread was baked on the premises. A Marcher officer, a stout dark young man with a rough accent, said that he believed so, and asked about the butter. The freckled knight said it was Mistress Hettie's, and very good. There was a pause. The Marcher said that his mother used to churn butter, in the old country. The freckled knight said that his had too.

By nine, they were comparing mothers.

At eleven, the knights began to sing.

It was, he thought, very nearly the most extraordinary evening of his life.

He wrote. The lamp burned. The numbers went down the column, one after another, neat and orderly. He had a great deal to do. The stock needed counting. The week's receipts needed balancing. He had been meaning to draft a proper tariff for the stable, and a list of repairs for the roof, and a letter to the miller. It would take another hour. Perhaps two.

The clock on the shelf struck twelve.

He did not hear it.

He was writing.

---

"It is past midnight."

He did not look up.

"It is three minutes past," said the voice, at his elbow. It was quiet, and level, and very close. "By the clock on the shelf."

"I'll just finish the column."

"You will not."

"It's the last one."

"The innkeeper," said Malina, "does not work past midnight."

He turned his head.

She was standing at his shoulder. He had not heard her come. She was in her shirtsleeves, with her coat off, and her hair loose, and there was a streak of ink on her cheek. She was looking, not at him, but at the pen in his hand. Her face was perfectly expressionless. But in the low yellow lamplight, he saw that her horns, just visible above the collar of her shirt, were the faintest rosy tint.

"It's an article of the Accord," he said, slowly.

"It is."

"It's your article."

"It was entered in the hand of the observer."

"I wrote the Accord."

"You wrote seven articles," said Malina. "I wrote the eighth. It was a late amendment. It is binding on all signatories."

"I'm not a signatory."

"You are the proprietor," said Malina. "You are the one party to whom it applies."

He looked at her.

She looked back. She did not smile. She stood in the lamplight with her arms at her sides, and her gold eyes held his, bright and steady and fierce, and in them was something that he had not seen before. It was not an order. It was not even a request. It was something quieter, and more naked, and much more difficult to refuse.

"Put down the pen," said Malina.

It was said very low.

He felt it go through him, like a hand laid flat on a drum.

In six years, in the Command Chamber, she had said a great many things to him. She had said, Report. She had said, Sit. She had said, You're late, and You are dismissed, and Operator Vane, a word. She had never once, in all that time, said a thing like this. She had never told him to stop.

He looked down at the pen.

It was a small thing, a steel nib in a wooden holder, with a smear of black ink on the end. He had held it in his hand for most of his waking life. It sat there between his fingers, as natural as another finger, and he had the odd, tilting sensation that he was being asked to put down something much larger.

He set it in the groove of the inkwell.

It made a very small sound.

"Good," said Malina.

She said it so softly that he nearly missed it.

She did not say anything more. She reached across the counter, with a slow, precise hand, and closed the ledger. She picked up his lamp, and handed it to him. She stood there, for a moment, with her hand outstretched, looking at him, and then, with a little stiff nod, she turned and went to the foot of the stairs, and stopped, and waited, with her back to him.

He followed.

Behind them, in the lamplit room, a Marcher lieutenant and four exhausted knights began, very softly, to hum.