We came to the older, more prosperous section of Gettys. The main street was lined with stores and warehouses. Their proprietors had smelled a profit to be made off this ragtag town, and come east to take advantage of it. Their dwellings were neatly maintained and tightly roofed, with glass windows and rain gutters and sheltered porches. The side streets were straight, and I glimpsed well-built if poorly maintained houses. “The cavalla families live here,” Hitch told me. “This part of town was built a long time ago. Before the Specks turned against us.” Outside a tavern four men in cavalla uniforms sat on a bench, smoking and talking. They were all thin and hollow-eyed. I stared at them for a moment, and then grasped the reality of something I’d known for years. Plague regularly swept through this town. Most of the regiment would be plague survivors. We rode past a bake house, the clay ovens bulging from the side of the structure out into the street. For a few moments we were warmer as we passed. The aroma of fresh bread assailed me so strongly I nearly tumbled from Clove’s back. I imagined it so strongly that I could feel the chewy texture on my tongue, taste the golden butter that would melt as I troweled it onto the bread, even the rasp of the crust against my teeth. I gritted my teeth and rode on. Later, I promised my rumbling gut. Later.

We reached the wooden palisade. The skinned logs had been set vertically in the ground. Weathering had silvered them, and bits of moss and tiny plants had found purchase in the cracks. In a few places, ivylike vines were twining up the logs as if they were a trellis. The plants, I thought to myself, would devour those walls. Whoever had let them get started near the fort was a fool. The gates stood open, but the sentries on duty there possessed a military bearing that those at Franner’s Bend had lacked. I pulled in Clove, but Hitch lifted his head and rode around me. “Let us through,” he said gruffly. “I’m in a bad way and I need the doctor. And he’s with me.”

To my surprise, that was all that was needed. They did not salute the lieutenant or ask him any questions, but mutely nodded and let us pass.

Renegade and Hitch had taken the lead and we followed. A few heads turned to mark our passage, but no one impeded us. They seemed unsurprised to see Lt. Hitch in such dismal condition. I merited longer stares than he got.

The inner Gettys disappointed me as much as the outside had. Instead of crack soldiers, I saw men who wore their uniforms with days of dust settled in the wrinkles, and frayed cuffs and stained shirtfronts. Some of them wore their hair longer than mine. I saw no one walking with purposefulness, no troops drilling, and felt no sense of military preparedness. The men on the streets looked listless and unhealthy. I had expected to endure the avid curiosity of their stares. Instead they regarded me with an almost bovine acceptance. Lieutenant Hitch kept up his façade until we reached the doors of the infirmary. This structure appeared to be better maintained than the rest of the buildings inside the fort. I dismounted, exchanging the discomfort of riding for the new aches of standing on my own feet, and went to help Hitch. “I can do it myself,”