Despite herself, Mosca placed one hand over her heart, to find out whether it was giving off an icy draft. Certainly she felt as if there was a chill band around her chest obstructing her breathing. Was she being racked with guilt? If she was a diabolical criminal, then she must be due for her first rack round about now. And yes, when she thought of jolting her way by cart through hostile crowds, she felt a sickening throb of remorse.

However, when she imagined herself escaping justice her spirit became quite tranquil again. Ah, thought Mosca with grim satisfaction, as she fell into step behind her employer, I must be rotten to the core. The truth was, she felt less sorry about the fate of the mill than for giving Clent information he could use against her.

This I will never see again, nor this, nor this . . . It seemed to Mosca that she should take note when she left the paths she knew. However, the moment when her woods became strangers’ woods was lost in mist and haste. The early birds testing their voices sounded like the cries of distant pursuers.

The path was a troublesome, fretful thing. It worried that it was missing a view of the opposite hills and insisted on climbing for a better look. Then it found the breeze uncommonly chill and ducked back among the trees. It suddenly thought it had forgotten something and doubled back, then realized that it hadn’t and turned about again. At last it struggled free of the pines, plumped itself down by the riverside, complained of its aching stones, and refused to go any farther. A sensible, well-trodden track took over.

“Wait. Raise your chin, madam.” Clent dabbed at Mosca’s cheeks, rearranged her kerchief so as to hide the worst of the moss stains on her bodice, and sighed. “Well, there is little that can be done now. Let us hope that the good people of Kempe Teetering do not mistake you for some forest wight, come to bite the noses off their babies.”

“We’re going to Kempe Teetering?”

“Yes—everyone will expect us to make for Trambling Spike, where the main highways cross, then head toward the Capital or Pincaster. They will not expect us to head for a river port.”

“So we’re getting a boat then, are we?” asked Mosca.

Clent did not appear to hear her.

The forests were yielding to soft slopes of green, studded with conical haystacks gathered around central staves. Wide, shallow steps had been cut into the hillside to make it easier to farm, so that from a distance it seemed that a giant comb had been dragged sideways through the fields.