The rangers had brought Mayen and Rowen to a suitable ground for setting camp, a small clearing near a river not shown on maps of the region for being too unimportant: that is to say, they were next to a stream. There, questions were asked and repeated in different order, for the rangers were decided to know what had truly transpired during the night.

-“So,” said one ranger with a feather moving from ink to book as he finished writing his last note, “let me get this straight… You two are wayside peasants from Gimvault. You left on Wednesday the nineteenth of the Summer month of Windor and reached your destination on Sunday the twenty-third and enter through the gates on the morrow. So far, so good?”

-“Yes,” said Rowen massaging his legs after all the running and exertion of the night, “you have it correct.”

-“And you tell me nothing in between happened, or any kind of dot to connect to the attempt at abducting you?”