Yet it was more than that, surely, and more even than the leaden foreboding that had been weighing on him all day. It wasn’t the awful tension of pending battle — that, he was familiar with. It wasn’t even guilt at the deception he had left behind as an excuse for this strange journey, although this would have to be accounted for soon, and he did not relish the prospect. It occurred to him that in fact he had told no lie. The very abandoning of the old procedures within the village could only lead to a new destiny, a way which none could have imagined. Perhaps what was disturbing him was no more than as Isgyrn had said, a reluctance to accept that all ahead was unknowable.
But none of these carefully crafted arguments could bring him any peace, and he stood for a long time in the cool dar
