While their mounts and the draft hinnies ate and drank, Jicks distributed hard sausage, cheese, and hard biscuit, which seemed like a perfectly good lunch to Abi. About half a candlemark later, they were back on the move, and they didn’t stop until dusk, when Jicks led them into a clearing at the side of the road.

The clearing looked like a place where people stopped to camp quite often. It had been grazed clean, and there was a firepit in the middle. They arranged the wagons in a triangle around the firepit, and unharnessed all the animals. Slipping the bits on the bridles—which essentially turned them into halters—Jicks picketed the hinnies out on a long line that allowed them to graze on anything within reach. The two “lads,” a couple of tall fellows alike enough to be brothers, poured out a very small measure of grain for them as well, and led them one at a time to a pond to drink, Stev got water for the camp with Abi’s help, while Jicks started a fire, slung a kettle over it and began making . . . something. Abi came over to watch when the water casks were full.

It was stew of some sort, from the root vegetables and dried meat she was putting into it. Abi took careful note. Jicks cocked an eye at her.

“Want to learn how to cook?” she asked.

Abi nodded.

“Just watch, then.” When she was done chopping vegetables and dried meat into the water, she gestured to Abi to follow. “See this, here?” she asked, opening a small box and taking out a tiny fabric packet. “All the herbs you need for one pot, plus salt. Already got them all done up, so no fussing when it comes time to stop. When I’m about to run out, I’ll take a candlemark or so to make more.”

She took the packet to the fire, shook out everything that was in it into the pot, and put the empty fabric back in the box. “That stew and traveler’s biscuit will be supper. When we’re done, I’ll clean out the pot, put in oats and water, and bury it in the coals and ash. That’ll be breakfast. I’ll put in raisins tonight. Tomorrow, it’ll be chopped cheese rinds. So we’ll get sweet one morning, savory the next.”

The lads’ names, as Abi learned over supper, were Bart and Bret, and they actually were brothers. They referred to Jicks as “Chief” and deferred to her in all things. Other than that, they were both brown, tall and broad, and looked like any of the Watch Abi had ever met. Purposeful men who knew their business.

With the meal, Jicks had supplied willowbark tea. As she sat down to eat, Abi suddenly understood why.