'Could it be that you were just dreaming, Carthinal?' asked The Cat. 'You could have been thinking of them and hoping before you went to sleep.'
Carthinal had indeed been thinking of Asphodel just as sleep took him. He had been remembering the time they had made love in the loft of the cow shed on Grillon's Eve, over a year previously. Was this what had triggered the dream? He paused and thought. Then he decided that it was not connected with anything he had been thinking.
'No, Cat, I don't think it was as simple as that. I was indeed thinking of Asph…of the others before I fell asleep, but that place, and those people—I felt they were real.'
They discussed Carthinal's dream for a while longer until they heard the fourteenth hour ringing in the town. There was a knock on the door. Carth
