When they were not out running in someone else’s fields, churning up the soil with their snouts and disposing of anything not wanted by eating it, the pigs were in spacious pastures dotted with little shelters—made of the same stuff as the boat hulls—that would have served equally well for sheep. Today about half of those fields were empty, and by that, Kordas knew that the early cabbages, parsnips, broad beans, peas, and radishes had been harvested, and the pigs were out doing their duty, making the fields ready for the next round of crops. He rode up to the low, broad stone farmhouse with an eye out for Lesley’s distinctive yellow hat. Unlike most farmers, the wide-brimmed hat Lesley wore was never made of straw; after one too many incidences of his hat blowing off and a pig eating it, Lesley’s wife had made him one of yellow canvas, coated with a bitter wax that the pigs found too distasteful even to mouth.

Kordas spotted his target at the side of a very special pen. This beautifully crafted stone pen and stone pig-house was the home of his prize sow, the Empress.

Lesley’s prize sow was always named the Empress. If the name carved into the stone of the pig-pen was anything to go by, that had been the case for this Squire and probably his ancestors going back to when this farm had been established. The Empress was kept in conditions that matched any that Kordas provided for the Valdemar Golds. Her house had a thick bed of immaculately clean straw at all times. Her yard had a stone water trough filled with spring water, and a stone food trough filled with the best possible foods. There was both a dust-wallow and a mud-wallow, and the rest of the yard was covered in more straw. The yard was never allowed to get dirty.

Kordas tied up his horse in the shade next to the house, and rambled over to the Squire, who was leaning over the wall, talking to his pig. The unobservant would have said that Lesley was paying no attention whatsoever to his liege lord, but as Kordas got within range, he heard a very soft voice saying, “And there’s our Kordas, Empress, come to have an audience with you.”

“Heyla, Lesley,” said Kordas, just as softly.

“Heyla, Kordas,” Lesley replied, comfortable and calm. “Come have a piece of wall.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

He joined Lesley in laying both arms up on the top of the wall, gazing down at a sow that was easily the size of a sofa, surrounded by what looked like a sea of pretty pink piglets. “Farrowed, did she?” he observed.