he didn't talk about the fighting at all. Every morning he rose early and practiced with his sword - finding a quiet place away from her. She knew about the need for quiet and let him be while she did her own practice.
When he wasn't talking he was humming or singing, but he seldom talked of important things, and when he did he used far fewer words. He didn't make her talk and didn't seem uncomfortable with her silence. When they passed other people on the road, he smiled or talked as it came to him. Even with Seraph's silent presence, a moment or two of Tier's patter and the other people opened up. No wonder she found herself liking him - everyone liked him. Isolated as most Ravens were kept, even within the clan, she'd never paid enough attention to anyone outside of her family to actually like them before.
"What are you smiling at?" he asked as he finished his story. "That poor goatherd had to live with a wealthy man's daughter for the rest of his life. Can you imagine a worse fate?"
"Traveling with a man who talks all the time," she replied, trying her hand at teasing.
Thankfully, he grinned.
It was evening the first time Seraph laid eyes on Redern, a middling-size village carved into the eastern face of a steep-sided mountain that rose ponderously from the icy fury of the Silver River. The settling sun lent a red cast to the uniform grey stones of the buildings that zigzagged up from the road.
Tier slowed to look, and Skew bumped him. He patted the horse's head absently, then continued at his normal, brisk pace. The road they were on continued past the base of the mountain and then veered abruptly toward a narrow stone bridge that crossed the Silver at the foot of the village.
"The Silver is narrowest here," he said. "There used to be a ferry, but a few generations ago the Sept ordered a bridge built."
Seraph thought he was going to begin another story, but he fell silent. He bypassed the bridge by taking a narrow track that continued along the river's edge. A few donkeys and a couple of mules occupied a series of pens just a few dozen yards beyond the bridge.
He found an empty pen and began to separate Skew from the cart. Seraph climbed down and helped him.
A boy appeared out of one of the pens. "I'll find some hay for 'em, sir," he said briskly. "You can store the cart in the shelter in the far pen." He took a better look at Skew and whistled, "Now that's an odd one. Never seen a horse with so many colors - like he was supposed to be a bay and someone painted him with big white patches."
"He's Fahlarn bred," said Tier. "Though most of them are bay or brown, I've seen a number of spotted horses."
"Fahlarn?" said the boy, and he looked closer at Tier. "You're a soldier then?"
"Was," agreed Tier as he led Skew into the pen. "Where did you say to put the cart?"
The boy turned to look at the cart and his gaze touched Seraph and stuck there. "You're Travelers?" The boy licked his lips nervously.
"She is," said Tier closing the pen. "I'm Rederni."
Tier was good with people: Seraph had every confidence that the boy wouldn't make them move on if she left Tier to talk to him.
"He said to put the cart in the far pen," murmured Seraph to that end. "I'll take it."
When she got back to Tier, the boy was gone, and Tier had his saddle and bridle on his shoulder.
"The boy's gone to get some hay for Skew," he said. "He'll be in good care here. They don't allow large animals on the streets - the streets are too steep anyway."
He didn't lie about that. The cobblestone village road followed the contours of the mountain for almost a quarter of a mile, with houses on the uppermost side of the road, and then swung abruptly back on itself like a snake, climbing rapidly to a new level as it did so. The second layer of road still had houses on the uphill side, but, looking toward the river, Seraph could see the roofs of the houses they'd just passed.
Stone benches lined the wide corner of the second bend of the zigzagging road, and an old man sat on one of them playing a wooden flute. Tier paused to listen, closing his eyes briefly. Seraph saw