Now, as Mosca and Clent fled Chough, the wind followed them like a helpful stranger, offering them the smell of smoke from the burning mill as if it thought it might belong to them.

At four o’clock the feverish wind sighed and settled. Mosca had always enjoyed clambering the cliff paths at this hour, watching the frogs bulging on their rocky pulpits while the trees lost their roots among the early-morning mist. When their path crossed the track down to Hummel, she halted nervously, but it was too early for any of Hummel’s red-scarfed women to be hefting sacks of grain to Chough’s mills.

“I suppose there is a good reason why you have paused to take in nature’s marvels? Perhaps your goose has entreated a moment to lay an egg for our breakfast?” For one of such portly build, Clent had kept a fast pace along the treacherous path.

Mosca stared at Clent.

“He’s a gander,” she exclaimed. She could not have been more amazed if Clent had mistaken Saracen for a cat.

“Really?” Clent pulled a shabby pair of chamois gloves from his waistcoat pocket, and used them to flick a few burrs from his shoulder. “Well, in that case, I recommend that you wring the bird’s neck and have done with it. It would be a pretty pass if our dinner were to get away from us, would it not? Besides, you will find a dead bird easier to carry and simpler to hide.”

Saracen shifted in Mosca’s grasp, and made small noises in his throat like water being poured from a jug. He understood nothing of Clent’s suggestion, but he resented the way Mosca’s arms were tightening around him.

“Saracen isn’t dinner.”

“Really? Then perhaps I may venture to ask what he is? Our guide through the mountains, perhaps? A bewitched relation? Or does our route cross a toll bridge where a payment must be made in waterfowl? May I point out that our provisions will be exhausted all the faster with an extra beak to feed?”

Mosca flushed.

Clent turned his head away slightly and examined her sideways along his cheek. Someone lean, clever, and watchful seemed to be peering out of his eyes. “I assume we do have provisions? I am sure that my new secretary would not have made fugitives of us without bringing more than an inedible goose? No? I see. Very well then, this way, if you please.”

He led her uphill along a tiny path that ended before a brightly painted shrine no bigger than a kennel. Beneath its sloping roof a wooden statue of a man held out his hands in stiff benediction.

“Mr. Clent!” Mosca reached the shrine in time to see her new employer scooping a handful of fat, golden berries from the pewter offering bowl.