“I tell you, it’s the goose from the Gray Mastiff! I’ve seen it break men’s legs like kindling!”

“Fire that pistol, and everyone this side of the valley will hear it. Every farmstead, every Waterman between here and Fainbless. Tare, no!” A mighty thump, a muffled thrashing, a clatter.

“Well, that’s torn it. Did you see where that landed? White eyes of heaven, it’s coming for us!”

A twin splash. Splutters, swimming strokes receding, and then, a short time later, faint voices in muted conversation.

“The raft’ll tangle in that tree ahead. We’ll loop a towline and pull her in, then wait . . .”

Mosca’s limbs were still tender from her fall, and she hoped that all of the moisture on her hands was ink. Wriggling out sideways was no mean task, and once the print plate chafed her face. As she tried to climb the rag ladder, it swung foolishly and tried to steal her feet out from under her, but when she kicked off her clogs and tucked them under one arm, climbing became a lot easier.

After the darkness of the hold, the early light seemed like full morning. On a misty bank twenty yards away, two figures sat amid the blackberry bushes, wringing the river water out of their hats. Ahead, a fallen tree jutted from the bank and draggled in the water, bearded with dead leaves, foam, and flotsam. The pole rested within Mosca’s reach, cradled on two metal hooks, but it looked heavy and cumbersome. The paddle seemed a much better bet.

Mosca crouched behind the pile of rags and paddled like fury. At first it seemed she was doing nothing to change the course of the raft, but then, when she looked up, the tree that had been dead ahead had moved a little to the left, and it seemed the raft might just slide past its grasp.

The ragmen had seen her and were running along the bank. One of them—Tare, she thought—struggled through the tree’s earth-caked fan of roots and scrambled along its trunk on all fours. Just as Mosca was fearing that he might intercept her, he lost his balance sideways and disappeared into the water with a sound like a gulp, leaving his hat bobbing on the surface. By the time he reappeared, huffing and blowing spray, the farthest twigs of the tree were drawing their nails along the boards of the raft. Using all her might, Mosca pushed the boughs away with her paddle, and the raft was caught by the river’s current and swung away into the mist, while Saracen stood at the pinnacle of the rag mountain, his neck raised high and wings beating as if he could move the raft with his own wing strokes.

“But, Saracen,” Mosca whispered to him as the confused cries of the ragmen faded behind her, “after this we really got to stop stealing boats.”