Pau's voice, very close, came next. "We heard he left," he said in broken Eujinni. "Early this morning he left. Early this morning or during the night."
"Who are you?" demanded the other.
"Pau the Minstrel."
"If you lie, Pau the Minstrel, you will hang for it!"
"Don't take my word for it," called Pau. "It's only what we heard." But it seemed that the conversation was over for there was no reply.
The soldiers harried and questioned the people of the fair, and long after Chaldez assumed they had gone he and Dan remained under the hides. When at last they were pulled off him,he was dazzled by the sunlight.
"They've gone," said Pau, peering down at him.
Chaldez was incredulous. "So many people knew I was here," he objected. "Why was I not betrayed?"
Tassin said: "I don't think many people noticed me fetching you. Everyone was busy packing up."

Pau put his arm around her shoulder. "A lot of these people know what it's like to have the authorities after them," he said. "That's why they're travellers."
By now most of them had packed up and were moving off, but Pau was in no hurry to join them. “We'll let them go," he said, and he squatted down and proceeded to re-string his zaratha while the two donkeys - Tassin usually rode one when they were travelling, while the other carried their belongings - stood idly by. Dan and Chaldez sat at his feet, their hoods pulled up over their heads.
They were sitting there patiently when once more they heard the thrum of horses hooves.
"By the gods!" exclaimed Dan, "they're back!"
Chaldez was fractured with dismay.
Dan said: "Pau, tell them we're your slaves! Chaldez has been branded. Show them the brand mark on his chest."
Pau was looking at him in utter confusion as the riders came up to them.
"You there!" cried their captain, apparently addressing Pau, "who are these two?"
Somewhat hesitantly Pau said: "My slaves."
The captain guffawed. "Come, you can do better than that!"
Chaldez, speaking Sairish, hissed: "Show him the brand mark!"
"I bought them," Pau burst out, painfully aware that he was involved in what must have looked like an absurd charade. But he persevered with it, and dragging Chaldez to his feet he threw off his travelling cloak and lifted up his jerkin, and was appalled by the livid scar he now saw for the first time on his chest. "There!" he cried. "My mark! I paid for him."
His audience was impressed. The captain dismounted. Slavery was rare in Eujinni and he had never seen a branded slave before. Then pointing at Dan he demanded: "Who's he?"
"Mine too," said Pau, his tone and bearing beginning to reflect the arrogance of a slave owner.
The captain was plainly astonished, but fortunately did not ask to see Dan's brand mark as well. He remounted, and then asked Pau what he knew of Chaldez. Pau told him that he had heard that someone claiming to be a Prince Chaldez had been travelling with the fair. "I never saw him," he said, and the captain, shaking his head at his extraordinary discovery of a minstrel with two slaves, shouted an order, spurred his horse and galloped off, followed by his men.
When they were safely out of ear-shot, Pau, Dan and Chaldez burst out laughing, and for a while afterwards repeated to each other the conversation, and remarked on the captain's astonished expression, and laughed more.
Tassin did not join in. She had been terrified, and was still pale. Finally she brought their hilarity to an end when she said: "We can't go to Sorrin. That idiot was taken in but no one else will be."
Chaldez shrugged. "Where can I go?" he asked. "The world is full of my enemies."
"We are your friends," Tassin insisted. "And there are many, many people like us. Sigmar is a tyrant, and I assure you he has more enemies than you do. They are dispersed now, and weak. They need a leader, that is all."
"You make it sound easy," said Dan. "But where are we going to go now?"
Chaldez said: "Do you remember, Dan, what your mother told us about a Sair Jy-Din prince who helped her? What was the name of his province . . . Istin, was it?"

"Could have been."
"I'm sure it was. Istin, that was it. Why don't we go there?" he suggested, brightening up.
"Sigmar," said Tassin, "is master now of nearly all the Sair Jy-Din provinces. If you had a friend in Istin I doubt that he will still be there. I am told that Sigmar has not troubled the Soans. You would find sanctuary with them, I am sure of it."
"Kivaddabron is a Soan," Chaldez pointed out. "I expect it was he who betrayed me."
"No no!" snapped Pau. "Idle chatter in the taverns betrayed you. Every ruler has his informers, and the king here is no different. Kivaddabron would not have betrayed you, I'd put my life on it."
Lacking any other ideas, Chaldez and Dan agreed to make their way to the territory of the Soans, and Pau and Tassin promised to conduct them there.
"Where do they live?" Chaldez asked. "Which way do we go?"
"Well . . . " said Pau after an awkward pause. "I'm not too sure of that. I believe we need to follow the river."
He referred to the River So beside which stands the near-by town from where the king's men had ridden.