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family and abundance, of celebrating the incredible wealth of autumnal colour that washed the open Varchinde. The crafters and the traders, the storytellers and the warriors of the city amassed their wares and moved to their tithehalls, waiting for the incoming wagons of meat and bone and clay and leather. The bookkeepers of the Terhnwood Harvesters’ Cartel went through their notes and records for the previous return, and stole down to the city’s sanctuary to assure themselves that the security stockpile, hoarded against crop failure or extreme winter weather, was enough to guarantee them safety.
    Harvest was also a time of sorrow, for the colours in the grass meant it would die, that the vast emptiness of the Varchinde would be scoured back to barren soil and bared rock and scattered scrub, waiting, bereft, until the spring growth came again. Everything the people of the Varchinde needed for the winter had to be gathered when the double harvest moons rose from the eastern sea. If they failed to gather enough to survive, there was no contingency plan.
    Like the ancient rule of Heal and Harm, the harvest was both life and death - and it told that there must be balance in all things. The people of the city’s manors knew this in their blood and bone.
    In the city herself, though, where the wild colours of the grasses were hung from garland-banners and woven into decorations, such traditions were sometimes easy to forget.
    Surrounded by the noise of Fhaveon’s bazaar, an ageing scribe sat beneath a pale awning, spectacles perched upon his nose. His parchment was pinned to its easel by ingenious fibre clips. He drew with a deft hand - not letters, but swift curves and features, charcoal lines of body and face. The parchment flapped occasionally as the wind chased through the tent, but the scribe continued with his work.
    Above him, upon one of his upright support-poles, a long pennon fluttered like a live thing, snapping in the salt wind. It bore a symbol advertising his skill to the people of the topmost streets of Fhaveon, the people who had left kiln and needle and hall and workshop to enjoy the festival. The scribe’s name was Mael, and he was a well-known character of the sunlit street-sides. Once, he had kept records for the hospice, but he was too restless for the methodical work. Now, he made his living raising a smile and a gift from those who watched him draw.
    Around him, Fhaveon’s decorous walls and shining, tumbling waterways shone with rare autumn warmth. Wreaths of grass, studded with berries like drops of blood, adorned the stonework proclaiming the city’s double holiday with indulgent glory. More garlands, red and yellow and umber and ochre, wove through the wide streets, covering the city’s topmost heights as if they’d grown from the very clifftop.
    Beneath them was the wine and food bazaar: stalls that offered gifts and jewellery, most made from ubiquitous and gloriously decorated terhnwood, some few pieces of real ravak, red-metal worked by the craftsman of the distant Kartiah. Gamblers called to passers-by to roll their dice, try their fortune. Storytellers flourished and boasted. Animals were here, too: exotic beasts in embroidered collars, doomed and squeaking esphen, bright birds in cages. The smells and the noise were incredible.
    Harvest time - the celebration of the Varchinde grass.
    And a perfect time for the city’s new powers to take advantage.
    The crowds stirred and eddied. In among them were performers, troubadours and jongleurs, attracting gatherings when they paused for a song and a jest. The tales they performed were carefully selected: the lineage and beauty of the new Lord Foundersdaughter, the necessity of trade and terhnwood, the long wisdom of the Council of Nine. Some sang of lively rogues and troublesome maidens, older tales chosen for both fiction and familiarity, each accompanied by the pulse of the drum or the skirl of pipes.
    The people gave them food and wine,