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Some while since Sador at last evaded the vigilance of Harrenon, and departed from Ingold's Inn in the handsome barouche from Dol Amroth with a kinswoman on either side, the remaining noble lady of his family, Aerwen of Burlach, left the great royal library behind her with uncharacteristic pleasure.
A carriage, too, was at the service of her journey, though not such a grand, emblazoned affair as her married sister's vehicle; a lighter droshky, four wheeled and two-seated, decorated in much the same the sombre grey and dark blue in which Aerwen preferred to apparel herself, and without the flummery of a coat-of-arms. It was a fair-sized ride she had ahead of her now, from the Citadel to the Third Circle, but she was a sensible and careful lady and preferred a transport that, while fast enough for efficiency, was perfectly safe. As they left Minas Anor's castellar peak behind and began to negotiate between the tallest of the Sixth Circle merchant mansions - her elder brother Lord Ecsichil's not the least among them - Aerwen lowered a light grey muslin gause over half of her face to keep her large, overtired eyes from the dust. It was scarcely, the fairest observer would have admitted, a princess of beauty which this veil but slightly concealed.
The Healers, too, became long in their wake; with the Fifth Circle they left the school-houses and guild-halls, and through the Fourth little time was allowed for even the most cavalier evening glance among the bombast of the City's finest shops. Few of them, in any case, had ever boasted this generally reclusive and staid lady's custom.
At the Third Circle the droshky began to slow, its path more halting and deliberating; at last they paused altogether, behind a little crocodile of similar transports, in a crescent where several officers of the Guard were known to enjoy their residential pensions. Here the coachman got down to make a couple of enquiries; he was a devoted and skilful servant, and soon reattained his box with the knowledge his mistress had sent him out for at his command. With all its old verve, the manouevrable little carriage rounded the half-circle within the Circle and took a left and right; this left mistress and man in front of a modest lane to a respectable looking military billet. In this lane was pacing a lone man, young in looks but mature in bearing, serious-eyed, dark, as Numenorean to the spectacle, Aerwen thought a little unwillingly, as a lady of any breeding could wish to behold. At this point she herself, with dignity and precision, alighted on the cobbles.
"I believe," she asked with a caution that seemed really to be more about nerves than scepticism, "that you must be Galador's son, sir, late of the Swan Players? If you are he, then my younger brother has desired me to guide you. I am Aerwen, Lady of Burlach."
She really could not help the severity of the sound of her voice, and it had often caused her no little internal anguish...
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