Marak, his voices said, beginning their normal litany. And the pitching feeling came, reliable as sunrise and destructive of balance. East, east, east.

He saw Lelie catch her balance, too, and sit afterward wide-eyed, her small mouth open in dazed startlement.

“It’s all right,” he told her: madness seemed to have grown in the child like a seed. “Your mama’s here. You’re all right.”

She cried. It was beyond him to pick her up. She reached up hands to be taken. It was the other priest who picked up the baby.

“She’s Norit’s,” Marak said. “My wife’s. Norit. Let the baby ride with her.” He had no idea where anyone was, but he wanted not to be left afoot. “Where’s my wife?”

They both, the one holding Lelie, and the other, looked at him as if they had seen the dead rise.

And perhaps, he thought, staggering into a first step, that was very nearly the case. He knew where east was. He knew that.

Then, arriving from behind, a rider shadowed them, and that was Hati, who slid down in a welter of windblown veils.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“These men have blisters,” he said, meaning the priests: he had seen their hands. But he saw her face all exhausted and worried, too, and added, “I’m all right, wife. Trust my judgment. I’m all right.”

Hati did not embrace him, not in front of strangers and priests, but she came and put an arm about him, guiding him along with the walkers, leading her besha with the other hand. Bosginde, one of the freedmen, had ridden near, too. “Get Osan,” Hati ordered him, looking up. “My husband will ride now.”

Bosginde left in haste, applying the quirt, and still the riders streamed past.

“Someone may have to put me up,” he admitted to Hati, for her alone, and again, having become sane again, saw something was clearly different about the company in which they rode. Around them were more riders, dark-clothed riders. Tribesmen. He had not been dreaming that.

And he stumbled, trying to walk.

“I don’t think I can hold on,” he said.

“Someone will help you,” she said. Her voice was tense. Her hand on his arm was gentle and anxious. She had changed her clothes for the dark-striped robes of her own tribe, and her arms flashed with gold and honor. “I thought you might die in spite of the makers.”

“Or to spite them.” It was a bad joke. He saw that in Hati’s worried face. And among the accumulated confusion in the world he was unsure how much time had passed. “The makers won’t let me die. Last night, it seemed a disadvantage. But I’m improving fast. I’ll ride. Where are we?”

“Two days from where you found us.”

“Toward Pori.”

“Toward Pori,” she confirmed, and relieved his anxiety on that score, at least.