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position, would you heed such advice?”
    Cadel stared at her, wondering if she asked the question in innocence, or had divined his thoughts. For he was in Tavis’s position.
    Grinsa jal Arriet. The name repeated itself in his head like the litany of some overzealous cleric, clouding his thoughts by day and keeping him from sleep at night. Cadel knew almost nothing about him except that he was a Revel gleaner who somehow had managed to kill Jedrek.
    He might have been more.
    The Qirsi woman, another gleaner, had told him as much in Noltierre several turns before, just moments after telling him of Jed’s death. Looking back on their conversation now, Cadel wished that he had stayed with her long enough to learn more. She had paid him for Brienne’s murder, and had admitted that she sent Jed after Grinsa when the gleaner left the Revel to go to Kentigern. He felt certain that she knew the man far better than she had let on. Still, even the little she did tell him should have been enough to keep Cadel from going after the gleaner.
    It’s possible that he had other powers. Mists and winds, perhaps others
. There were seven Qirsi standing among his dead. Three he had killed in their sleep, the others he had taken in the back. None of them had seen him coming. And in all these cases he knew what powers they possessed before he approached them. How was he supposed to fight Grinsa when he wasn’t certain what magic the man wielded? It was suicide. But Brienne was right. Like Lord Tavis of Curgh, who was already hunting the land for the lady’s killer, Cadel couldn’t keep himself from trying.
    “You see?” the wraith said. “You’re more like my lord than you care to admit.”
    “Perhaps,” Cadel said. “But if he finds me, I’ll still have to kill him.”
    “Have you ever fought a man who was intent on vengeance?” she asked.
    He considered this for some time. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t suppose I have.”
    She nodded sagely, as if death had given her wisdom beyond her years. “I see.”
    A number of the other wraiths laughed appreciatively.
    Cadel heard the city bells ringing in the distance. It was too early yet for the midnight tolling. This had to be the gate closing. The night was just starting, and already he was weary.
    “Perhaps you wish to sleep?” Brienne asked, sounding as innocent as a babe.
    He merely shook his head, as the wraiths leered at him hungrily. Few of the living ever slept on Pitch Night in Bian’s Turn. The dead could not touch a man to kill him, but there was nothing to keep them from huddling so close to his sleeping form that the slightest movement on his part-a mere gesture in the throes of some horrible dream-might send him to the god’s realm.
    “Well,” Bnenne said, “you won’t touch me, and you won’t sleep.” She flickered like a candle once again so that she stood before him as she had when she first appeared, scarred and half naked. “How do you propose we pass the rest of the night?”
    “You could leave me,” Cadel said. “Grant me peace and silence.”
    The ghost smiled. “Why would we want to do that?”
    The other wraiths came closer, crowding around him like eager buyers in a marketplace pressing to see some wares. Cadel held himself still, closing his eyes and readying himself for what he knew would come next. It was said to be common-something that all the wraiths did on this night. It even had a name: the Excoriation. Usually it began immediately, with nightfall and the appearance of the first wraiths. But tonight had been different, perhaps because of Brienne. Not that it mattered. This night’s Excoriation, like all of them, would last for hours.
    They all began to shout at him, berating him for what he had done, not only to them, but to their loved ones. Their voices buffeted him like storm winds on the Scabbard coast, the din they created making his head pound. Yet, perhaps due to some power the wraiths possessed, or through some trick of