There was a trog sitting opposite him. Rankail Werm, whose family had been friends with the Daliris’ for several generations. Rankail, a fold of cloth pulled away from his face to allow him to eat, leaned forward across the table to offer Thomas his own congratulations and they asked after each others’ fortunes and families. Then the trog, whom Thomas had only seen a handful of times since coming to the valley, seemed to lose interest in him, though, and struck up a conversation with Master Gammon instead. Thomas found himself talking to Flindar, another of Lirenna's cousins, and they exchanged trivialities for a few moments until Rankail asked the shae man for his opinion on something and Flindar was sucked into his conversation with Master Gammon.

     Left temporarily without a gossip partner, Thomas watched the three of them for a few moments, letting their conversation wash over him without the meaning of their words registering on his attention. A shae, a human and a trog. All friends of each others and chatting as casually and comfortably as though they were all the same race. As if race just didn't matter. Thomas found himself watching them with a sense of wonder that hadn't begun to fade despite the years he'd been here. How many places were there in the world where members of these three races could live together in peace and friendship like this? Not many, he was sure, and it was even possible that Haven was unique in this respect.

     He looked up, and wasn't surprised to see Kronos speeding across the sky, its movement easily perceptible to the naked eye against the few tiny wisps of cloud that were beginning to appear. He suddenly felt a deep sense of guilt and shame that he was among those who'd re-discovered the observatory, leading to the terrible threat that now hung over the secret valley. What would he do if an army of prospectors suddenly turned up, intent on tearing the valley apart for its wealth of iron and jewels? How would he be able to live with himself? And yet, what else could he have done? The observatory had been instrumental in the victory over the Shadowhordes, and in the wars against the Rak Kings that had followed. Without it, all of Tharia, including Haven, would probably be under the Shadow by now. He knew his feelings of guilt were irrational, and certainly neither the Queen nor the Elders blamed him for the situation, but even so they were still as strong as ever and there was nothing he could do to rid himself of them.

     “Penny for, er, your thoughts?” said Master Gammon, and Thomas was jolted out of his gloom and back to the party. Flindar and Rankail were still chatting, he saw, but the conversation had drifted into an area in which the human had little interest. Gammon had seen Thomas looking up at the smallest moon, though, and followed his gaze up to it before looking back at Thomas and smiling ruefully. “What will happen will happen,” he said. “Sufficient unto the day are the, er, the troubles thereof.”

     Thomas stared at him in astonishment. “Then you know about…” he said in a low voice, his eyes flicking briefly upwards.

     “Her Majesty occasionally asks for my advice on various matters,” Gammon replied in an equally low voice while glancing around to make sure none of the other guests were listening to him. “She does not hold you responsible for the present situation and neither do I. You played a part in defeating the greatest evil this world has ever known. Without you, this valley and everyone in it would be, ah, long dead by now.”

     “I know, but it doesn't help. Thanks for saying it, though.”

     “Just telling the truth, dear boy. Just telling it as it is.”

     Thomas smiled his gratitude and found himself beginning to relax. He was surrounded by friends, and so far none of them had asked him to make a speech. He decided he should circulate, so he stood and walked among the other guests. He came across some of Lirenna's more distant relatives, some of whom he’d only met once or twice since coming to the valley and some of whom he’d never met at all. The numbers of shae folk, all of whom bore a striking family resemblance to Lirenna, only highlighted the absence of Lirenna's parents, though. Cenna and Tiberion had both fought in the Second Shadowwar and had both been killed, by the same Shadowwizard, when their daughter had only been a child. A painting of them had been hung on one of the wooden supports of the canvas awning shielding the baked potato pit, though, and Thomas lifted a glass to it as he passed it by. He remembered Lirenna telling him that Tiberion had loved his buttered and spiced baked potatoes.

     As the evening wore on the party began to break up, as parties always do, into a number of small groups, each with two or three people who were doing all the talking and a number of others who were just listening, with people circulating from one group to another carrying a drink in one hand and a morsel of party food in the other. There was no central focus to it. The only people paying any attention to him were those in his own little group. He relaxed, therefore, and began to enjoy himself.

     Snatches of conversation came to him. Fragments of conversation that somehow managed to reach his ears despite the hubbub that was now all around him. "I hear Sally Thornhill's expecting again," an excited sounded middle aged woman was saying. "That'll be her fifth, and Father Dray says it may be twins."

     "...should have no problems," a man in another part of the party was saying, "providing the weather holds. The clerics of Nimbus are doing their best, but of course they can only do so much before the people outside begin noticing the change in the weather patterns. If only we could..."

     "...and we're thinking of having the thatch redone before winter comes. We've put up with the leak this long, but now..."

     "...took his first steps today! Three little steps across the floor!"

     "He didn't! But he's still so young! What is he, six months?"

     "The Alveres all learn to walk young. It runs in the family. Runs! Geddit?"

     "...if the nomes can be persuaded to move into north hollow. Perhaps if we offered them a greater percentage of the..."

     "but I really don't know anything about yetigons! Cows, yes. If you wanted to know anything about cows..."

     Thomas sat there and let the voices wash over him. He was the sort of man who preferred to listen. Engaging in small talk was not something that came easily to him. He found it an effort to hold up his end of the conversation. he kept finding himself drifting off into his own thoughts, losing track of what was being said to him, and when the time came for him to say something in reply he was frequently at a loss as to whether to say how good or how bad whatever they'd been talking about was. Such as the time, a few months ago, when a neighbour had been telling him about the sporadic cases of redeye that were cropping up in the poultry farms, and her fears that it might blow up into a full scale epidemic. Thomas had only had half an ear on what she'd been saying, having a half memorised spell on his mind, and had nodded at her and mumbled what a good thing that would be. He'd only realised his mistake when he saw her staring at him in astonishment, and had asked in embarrassment for her to repeat what she'd been saying. Fortunately, people seemed to expect wizards to be a bit absent minded, and it only seemed to increase the affection with which they held him.

     The ting, ting, ting of a spoon on a wine glass jolted him out of his reverie and silenced the crowd, although a couple of stubborn conversations carried on a small distance away, out in the open field. Thomas looked around, and his guts tightened with renewed fear when he saw that Dallon had risen to his feet and was trying to attract the crowd's attention. Oh Gods no! he thought in near desperation. Oh Gods, please no!

     The shae waited patiently while a young woman Thomas didn't know took him by the arm and guided him back to his seat between Lirenna and Gammon. Dallon smiled at him as he sat, then turned his attention back to the crowd, all of which was watching him silently and expectantly. He drew himself to his full height of four feet six and began to speak.

     "Ladies and gentlemen. My dear shae folk, humans and trogs. Today is the twentieth anniversary of the marriage between my granddaughter, Lirenna, and the human she loves, Thomas Gown." Had there been a slight emphasis on the word human? If there had been, no-one else seemed to have noticed. They were all applauding politely, except for a very few young men who were laughing and calling out bawdy comments. Thomas barely heard them, though. His brain was almost paralysed with fear and his body was trembling with adrenalin. He was tingling with energy, preparing him to meet the threat with brute force, as if the Gods had anticipated his needing to fight off leopards and sabre tooth tigers but not grandfathers in law asking him to make speeches. He felt a mad giggle building up inside him and forced it down with an effort.

     "Now as you know," continued Dallon when the crowd had quieted down. "When Lirenna first brought this young man to our beautiful valley, we all had our doubts about him. Myself included. The bringing of outsiders into Haven is a serious business, after all, and not to be undertaken lightly. You all know that I was one of those who counseled that his knowledge and memories of Haven be erased by an amnesia spell and that he be put out of the valley, but you also know that so great was Lirenna's love for him that she threatened to leave with him and never return; that they would live together in some other part of the world and that we would lose not only her, but also any children they might have. You all know how we reluctantly agreed to allow this young man to live with her in Haven, therefore, on probation, while we kept a constant eye on his conduct and behaviour.

     "The risk to our security was considerable. All our defences are keyed to prevent outsiders from entering. If he had decided to run off and betray the secret of our location to the rest of the world, we may not have been able to stop him. That is a measure of the trust that my granddaughter forced us to place in him.

     "Those first years were nervous ones for all of us, before we grew to know him as we do now, but look how he has repaid our trust. His magical powers have been of great benefit to us. There is hardly a man or a woman among us who has not, in one way or another, benefited from his help, and in addition he has given me a fine grandson. A charming boy whose mind and body already hint at the splendid and accomplished adult he is soon to be." He lifted his glass in Derrin's direction, and the dark haired boy flushed in pleasure and embarrassment.

     "Let us therefore lift our glasses to these fine young people, offer them our congratulations for the twenty years they have had together so far and wish them a long, long, happy life to come."

     Dallon lifted his glass, and was followed by every one of the guests, including Derrin, whose glass was filled with fruit juice. "Thomas and Lirenna!" the shae man cried out solemnly, and he took a tiny sip of the rich, amber coloured liquid.

     "Thomas and Lirenna!" repeated the crowd with considerably more enthusiasm. Thomas’s heart was now hammering with fear and apprehension. Everyone knew what had to come next, and sure enough people in the crowd were already calling out "Speech! Speech!" in delighted expectation.

     He looked this way and that, like a trapped animal searching for a way out, but it was hopeless. There was no escape. A speech was expected from him, not only by Dallon and the crowd but by Lirenna as well, who was looking at him with an expression that was at the same time reassuring and prompting. Et tu, bruté? thought the wizard with a pained sense of betrayal. It was something his old mentor Elmias Pastin had once said, although he had no idea what it meant. You also want me to stand up and make a complete idiot of myself.

     He looked out at the sea of faces, all of them looking back at him. All of them waiting with growing impatience. They're my friends, he told himself. And it's only a speech. People make speeches all the time. Dallon just made one, and it didn't kill him. He forced himself to stand, therefore, but as the crowd fell silent he realised with a growing sense of horror that he didn't have the slightest idea what he was going to say.