"Paks, do you know Eris here?" It was the same woman Paks had met in Council. Paks began to think Mal was even smarter than she'd thought.

"Yes, I remember you," said Paks, swinging down from the saddle. She was no longer afraid to mount and dismount in front of witnesses; the black was learning manners. "I didn't know this was your farm."

"It wasn't, a few years ago," said Eris, with a slow smile. "We used to be out there—" She pointed southwest. "But raiders—bandits—something—kept breaking our fences, and running off stock. Finally after my husband died, and the boys married, I bought this farm from a cousin, just to be closer to town."

"It looks good," said Paks. The small farmhouse looked in good repair, and the orchard next to it was obviously flourishing.

"Oh, it's a good farm," said Eris. "I miss the spring we had before—the best water I ever had, and only a few steps from the door. But when you find dead animals in it, day after day—"

"Ugh—" Paks shuddered.

"Do you like apples?" she went on. "The good ones are coming ripe now—I'd be glad for you to have some."

"Between me and the horses," said Paks, "we'd eat half your orchard full. I'll buy a measure of good ones for me, and a double measure of bruised ones for the horses."

"I would have given—"

"Eris," said Paks, wondering as she said it whether she should have given her the Council title, "I grew up on a farm myself. Right now I have the money, and you have apples to sell."

"Very well," said Eris. "When you come back by this evening—or whenever—I'll have them near the gate, under the hedge."

"And you know I want some, Eris," said Mal.

"You! I thought you lived on ale, Mal!" But she was laughing as she said it.

They continued down the road, chatting freely. Paks continued to lead the black horse, since Mal was walking beside the cart. He pointed out different trees, but Paks quickly grew confused with it: colors and patterns of bark, and shapes of leaves, and the form of the tree meant little to her. She could tell a star-shaped leaf from a lance-shaped one, and both those from the ferny-looking compounds, but that was her limit. Mal teased her gently. In the meantime, they both watched the road for the signs of the caravan—the fresh wheel ruts and narrow mule hoofmarks. These they did not mention.

Paks wondered what would be left at the ambush site, since Sir Felis had sent a troop of his soldiers out to retrieve the bodies. Would she even notice it? As the sun neared its height, she began to worry that they'd missed it. But it was clear, when they came to it. Deeper tracks, round-hoofed, of ridden horses, and the mules' tracks veering from side to side. Bloodstains on the fallen leaves, and on the rocks that edged the road. A few spent arrows, mostly broken. Mal pointed out the traces she missed, chatting the while about trees. In the end, Paks found the way the wagons had been taken. Freshly cut boughs, the leaves hardly withered, disguised the wagons' track into the woods; the brigands had chosen a stony outcrop for the turn off the road. It led, or so Paks thought, the wrong direction—north—but Mal looked grim when he saw it.