At Menaures’s refuge, Tiuri discloses the mission Edwinem entrusted to him, and the hermit responds by arranging a trusted guide across the mountains: Piak, a boy of fourteen who knows that terrain as his home. The meeting also forces Tiuri to decide whether Jaro, a fellow traveler who may be a spy, can come along. Menaures does not remove the danger from the road; instead, he gives Tiuri a companion and practical counsel for facing it.

The Disclosure at the Refuge

Once Jaro has left the room, Menaures closes the door and invites Tiuri to speak without anyone else listening. Tiuri drops the assumed name Martijn and identifies himself as Tiuri, though he adds that his name does not matter. What matters is the charge he carries: he must cross the mountains westward, sent by the knight Edwinem with the White Shield. To establish the authority of that mission, he shows Menaures Edwinem’s ring, which he had been instructed to present.

Menaures receives the ring carefully and recognizes Edwinem as a Paladin of Unauwen and bearer of the White Shield. He asks where the knight is; Tiuri answers that Edwinem is dead. Menaures’s response is grave rather than startled. His composure does not mean the news is slight: he understands Edwinem’s death as the end of a sustained struggle against evil, and regards a different kind of fall—one outside that struggle—as the more grievous possibility.

Edwinem’s Mission and the Wider Threat

Menaures explains that he knows little for certain, although he has long had suspicions. He recalls that Edwinem first came to him at about Tiuri’s age, newly knighted and eager to accomplish great deeds. Edwinem’s wish was fulfilled, Menaures observes, though not necessarily in a way the young knight could have welcomed or foreseen. The recollection makes Tiuri’s appearance more than a new request for help: he is taking up a task first carried by a young man Menaures had known years before.

Tiuri then recounts how he met the knight with the White Shield and received a letter for King Unauwen, who rules west of the Great Mountain Range of Dagonaut and Unauwen. Menaures says that the tidings trouble him. He identifies the Lord of Eviellan and his followers as dangerous, and urges Tiuri not to lose heart, expressing confidence that evil will ultimately be defeated. The mission’s purpose is therefore set against a political threat, while its immediate requirement remains clear: Tiuri must deliver the letter. Menaures promises to help him get across the mountains quickly and safely.

Piak Becomes the Guide

Tiuri asks whether Menaures will show him the way himself. The hermit explains that he is too old for that, but can provide someone Tiuri may trust as himself. The guide is Piak, whom Tiuri has already seen outside. Menaures describes him as fourteen, younger than Tiuri, but born and raised in the mountains and descended from men with a natural aptitude for climbing. In Menaures’s judgment, Piak is the best guide Tiuri could have. They are to set out at sunrise the next morning.

The arrangement is confirmed in person. Menaures introduces Piak as the guide who will take Tiuri and Jaro over the mountains. Piak recognizes Tiuri by the name Martijn and makes himself available for the journey, saying they will leave in the morning. The assumed name thus persists in their first exchange even after Tiuri has privately told Menaures who he is. The important change is practical: the westward mission, until then dependent on Tiuri’s own uncertain passage, now has a guide whose experience is rooted in the landscape ahead.

Jaro and the Conditions of Trust

The plan cannot be made without addressing Jaro. Tiuri explains to Menaures how he met him and how they traveled together as far as the source. Menaures considers both possibilities: Jaro may have lied about having a son on the far side of the mountains and may be a spy, or he may have spoken truthfully. Menaures also says that he had a foreboding someone young would come that day, but Jaro was not the person in that intuition; he allows that his impression may be wrong. His uncertainty leaves the decision to Tiuri rather than turning suspicion into proof.

Tiuri decides that he cannot exclude Jaro from the journey. Menaures agrees, but gives concrete precautions: the three travelers should take turns keeping watch at night with Piak, and Jaro must never walk behind Tiuri. At the same time, Menaures says he does not think Tiuri has much to fear from him. The advice holds caution and qualified trust together. Piak’s appointment solves the problem of finding a route, but Tiuri remains responsible for judging the person who will travel beside him.

Menaures also attends to the physical demands of the crossing. Tiuri’s arm wound has reopened and soaked its bandage, so Menaures treats it with a substance from a bottle that smells of resin and pine, then binds it again. He advises Tiuri to leave his mail shirt behind because it will become heavy and obstructive at higher elevations, and offers him other clothes. Tiuri puts the mail shirt in a chest and changes into a faded blue tunic, keeping his robe over it. The guide’s appointment is therefore accompanied by a change in equipment and a reminder that survival on the mountain road depends on preparation as well as courage.

The First Test of the Arrangement

The journey later shows why Menaures chose Piak. When mist closes in, the travelers wait at a sheltered stone rather than pressing on along the more exposed Green Ridge. They eat bread while the shifting fog gradually reveals the surroundings. After about half an hour, the sun appears, pale and small, and they continue. At the ridge, Tiuri can make out two routes, but Piak rejects both: one ends blindly, while the other, though it leads in the right direction, is not the path their pursuers will find. The scene gives practical substance to Menaures’s confidence in his young guide: Piak reads not only terrain but the need to keep their route hidden.

The encounter at the refuge is a hinge in Tiuri’s mission. He arrives with Edwinem’s ring and a message for King Unauwen; he leaves with a guide, a companion whose intentions remain uncertain, and instructions for managing that uncertainty. The decision also fits the book’s wider movement from formal preparation toward earned responsibility. At the beginning, Tiuri’s vigil as a candidate for knighthood required fasting, silence, prayer, and reflection before a ceremony. Later, King Dagonaut judges that Tiuri has shown himself to be a knight by completing Edwinem’s mission and keeping his promise, even before the king formally knights him. Menaures’s trust in Tiuri to choose whether Jaro may join the party belongs to that developing test: Tiuri must exercise judgment, not merely follow a route laid out for him. After the journey, Tiuri reflects that his ordeals and the people he has met have changed him, and resolves to try to be a good knight. Piak’s appointment is one of the concrete beginnings of that road.