Tiuri Reaches Menaures and Gains Piak as a Guide

Tiuri’s arrival at Menaures’s hut turns his solitary mission into a guarded mountain journey. There, at the source of the Blue River, Tiuri confirms Knight Edwinem’s death and explains that he carries a letter for King Unauwen. Menaures cannot guide him himself, so he entrusts the route to Piak, a boy born and raised in the mountains. The meeting also settles the fate of Edwinem’s ring and forces Tiuri to decide whether Jaro may travel with them, even though the hermit suspects that Jaro could be a spy.

Arrival at the River’s Source

The meeting takes place at a small spring rising between stones on a plateau. Above it, on a grassy slope, stands Menaures’s hut, built from weathered beams and roofed with flat grey stones; a short wooden stair leads to its open door. Tiuri pauses at the spring to wonder that this modest flow is the origin of the greatest river in the Kingdom of Dagonaut. The scene places the mission’s next turning point in a remote landscape whose small beginning contrasts with the scale of the journey ahead.

Piak first appears as the lively, brown-skinned boy who runs ahead to announce the visitors. Menaures welcomes both Tiuri and Jaro, but later closes the door and speaks with Tiuri privately. Tiuri gives his real name, explains that he must cross the mountains westward, and shows Menaures Edwinem’s ring as proof of the connection between his mission and the dead knight. When Menaures asks where Edwinem is, Tiuri answers plainly that he is dead. The ring thus carries the news of Edwinem’s death into the very place where the knight once sought guidance.

The Mission and Menaures’s Answer

Menaures says that he does not know what has happened, though he has suspected much. He recalls that Edwinem first came to him as a newly knighted youth, Tiuri’s age at the time, eager to perform great deeds. Menaures had feared even then that one of King Unauwen’s sons would threaten his father and brother. Now, after hearing Tiuri describe meeting Edwinem and receiving the letter for King Unauwen beyond the Great Mountain Range of Dagonaut and Unauwen, Menaures recognizes the danger in the news: the Lord of Eviellan and his followers are hostile. He urges Tiuri not to lose heart and promises to get him across the mountains quickly and safely.

The promise does not mean Menaures will lead the crossing himself. He is too old to take the route, but offers Tiuri a guide he says can be trusted as fully as oneself. Piak is fourteen, younger than Tiuri, yet Menaures considers him the best guide available: he was born and raised in the mountains, among people accustomed to climbing. The travelers are to leave at sunrise the next morning. Menaures’s judgment makes age secondary to local knowledge, and his confidence gives Piak responsibility for the most difficult terrain ahead.

Jaro, Precaution, and the Ring

Tiuri explains how he met Jaro and that the two have travelled together to the spring. Menaures cannot establish whether Jaro is truthful about having a son on the far side of the mountains. He considers the possibility that Jaro is a spy, while allowing that the story could be true. Since Jaro could not cross the mountains alone, Menaures leaves the decision to Tiuri. Tiuri concludes that he cannot refuse to let Jaro accompany them. Menaures agrees, but sets out practical safeguards: the three should take turns keeping watch at night, and Jaro should never be allowed to walk behind Tiuri. His warning is measured rather than absolute; he believes Jaro may not pose much danger, but uncertainty changes how the party must travel.

Menaures also tends to the immediate cost of Tiuri’s journey. Tiuri’s reopened arm wound has soaked its bandage with blood. Menaures treats it with liquid from a bottle that smells of resin and pine, then binds it again. He advises Tiuri to leave his chain mail behind because it will become heavy and obstructive higher in the mountains, and opens a chest so Tiuri can choose other clothes. The advice attends to the body as carefully as the route: getting the letter onward requires Tiuri to travel with less weight and a treated injury.

The ring’s purpose is clarified before Tiuri leaves. Menaures returns it, telling Tiuri to keep it and give it to King Unauwen, from whom Edwinem had received it. Tiuri hangs it on the cord around his neck. It has become a talisman to him, but it also remains a concrete obligation: the token links the dead knight, the letter’s destination, and the promise Tiuri made to take over Edwinem’s task.

Piak’s Charge and the Mountain Road

Piak knows more about Tiuri’s danger than Tiuri has told him. He has worked out that Tiuri carries a letter for King Unauwen, that Jaro or Jaro’s master does not want the king to receive it, and that Slupor has been sent after Tiuri. Rather than conceal this knowledge, Piak explains that he would rather Tiuri know where he stands. His information does not amount to a disclosure of the letter’s contents; it gives Tiuri a clearer account of the threat surrounding the delivery.

Piak also explains why he has been listening and staying close. Menaures assigned him to guide Tiuri by a short route as safe as possible, prevent anyone from following, remain awake while Tiuri sleeps, and stay beside him while he is awake. Piak understands this duty to mean that Tiuri’s mission has become partly his own. Tiuri responds by offering his hand and entrusting him with the fact that enemies are trying to prevent the mission; he asks Piak not to let anyone else discover what he knows. Piak accepts, and the exchange establishes trust through a shared responsibility rather than through complete disclosure. Tiuri cannot yet tell him everything, but the guide is no longer merely a route-finder: he becomes a friend and watchful companion.

On the mountain journey, Piak’s guidance is practical and attentive to exposure. When mist conceals the landscape, the two wait by a sheltered stone rather than press on along the more exposed Green Ridge. They eat a little bread as the mist shifts, and after about half an hour the pale sun appears. At the ridge, Tiuri can distinguish two paths, but Piak rejects both: one ends blindly, while the other leads in the right direction but is not the route they will take, since their actual path will not be found by a pursuer. The episode gives tangible form to Menaures’s trust in Piak: his value lies not just in knowing where the mountains lead, but in choosing a way that can keep the party ahead of those hunting Tiuri.

From Vigil to Knighthood

The crossing assignment belongs to a larger passage in Tiuri’s development. His mission began when he broke the vigil required of candidates for knighthood. That vigil called for twenty-four hours without food or drink and a sleepless night in a small chapel, where the young men were to reflect on their duty, promise loyalty to King Dagonaut and his realm, and commit themselves to honesty, helpfulness, and the struggle for what is good. Tiuri’s journey replaces the quiet preparation of the chapel with danger, divided loyalties, and decisions made on the road. At Menaures’s hut, his conduct is already being tested in how he weighs the risks of taking Jaro along and how he places confidence in Piak.

Much later, King Dagonaut tells Tiuri that he has shown himself to be a knight by completing the mission and fulfilling his promise to Edwinem, even though he did not receive the customary accolade at the expected time. The king knights him and gives him a white shield as a sign that he will serve King Dagonaut and, at King Unauwen’s request, Unauwen as well, and as a reminder of Edwinem’s task. In the final vigil, Tiuri looks up to see that shield above the chapel altar and understands that the experiences and friendships of the journey have changed him. The meeting at the river’s source is one of the decisive beginnings of that change: Menaures supplies the guide and safeguards, but Tiuri must carry the trust, the ring, and the promise forward himself.