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my bride clothes and the furnishings I would take with me when Kerovan would send for me, as was the custom, in the next year or two.
    So we went on to Trevamper, that town set at the meeting of highway and river where all merchants in the north show their wares upon occasion. Even the Sulcarmen, who are searovers and seldom come far from wind and wave, travel to Trevamper. For there is the interior trade.And by chance we met there also my Aunt Islaugha, her son Toross, and her daughter Yngilda.
    She came to pay a call on Dame Math, but I felt it was one of duty only and there was little liking between these sisters. However the Lady Islaugha presented a smiling face and spoke us fair, congratulating me on the fine marriage that had united me to the House of Ulm.
    Yngilda pushed closer to me when our elders had turned their attention back to their own concerns, and I thought she stared rudely. She was a stout girl, bundled in rich clothing down which her braids rippled, their ends bound in ribbons hung with little silver bells meant to chime sweetly as she moved. Such a conceit did not suit her broad, flatfish face, with its too-small mouth always pursed a little as if she chewed upon a spicy secret she debated over sharing.
    “You have seen the likeness of your lord?” she asked almost abruptly.
    I stirred uneasily under the probing of her eyes. I knew her then for unfriend, though why she should be so when we hardly knew each other, I could not guess.
    “No.” As always when such uneasiness with others was in me, I was wary. But the truth is better than any evasion which may later trip one up. And for the first time I wondered.a little at a matter I had never considered before. Why had Kerovan not caused to be sent a likeness of himself? That such was done in axe marriages I knew.
    “A pity.” Her gaze seemed to have some manner of triumph in it now. “Look you here—this is my promised lord, Elvan of Rishdale.” She brought out of her belt pocket an oblong of wood with a face painted on it. “He sent it with his bride gift two years ago.”
    The painted face was that of a man of middle years, no boy. And it was not a pleasant countenance to my thinking, but perhaps the limner had either not been skillful orhad some reason not to flatter this Elvan. That Yngilda was proud of it was plain.
    “He would seem a man of authority.” I did the best I could in way of praise. My disliking for the pictured face grew stronger the longer I regarded it.
    She took that, as I had hoped, as a compliment to her promised lord.
    “Rishdale is an upper dale. They are wool people, and the trade is rich. Already my lord has sent me this and this—” She patted an amber necklace which lay above her tabard and thrust her hand out to me that I might look upon a massive thumb ring of a serpent with eyes that were flecks of red gem-fire.
    “The serpent is his House badge. This is his own ring, sent for a welcome gift. I go to him next harvest time.”
    “I wish you happy,” I answered.
    Her pale tongue swept out over her lower lip. Again she was in two minds over some speech to make. At last she brought herself to it, bending her head even closer, while I had all I could do not to withdraw at her approach, for her close company did not please me.
    “I would I could say the same to you, kinswoman.”
    I knew I should not encourage her now, yet something made me ask, “And why not, kinswoman?”
    “We are not so far from Ulmsdale as you. We have heard—much.” And she strove to give such a dire accent to that last word that she did indeed make an impression on me. For all my prudence and distrust, I could not now deny her this confidence.
    “Much of what, kinswoman?” My tone made a challenge of that, one she was quick to note and that pleased her, I am sure.
    “Of the curse, kinswoman. Did they not tell you that the Heir of Ulmsdale lies under a double cursing? Why, his own mother has refused to look upon his face since