“The tribes are here.” It was assuredly the Ila’s caravan. Bosginde was here. He saw beasts he knew. His memory could not account for her gold and her change of robes. He himself stood in changed clothing, a loose shirt, trousers not tucked into the boots… they tagged loose about his ankles, and blew in the wind. “The Keran have joined the camp?”

“When you were shot. The Haga came in. They were angry because the Ila’s men couldn’t protect the camp. Then Aigyan heard the Haga were here, so he came, in the storm and all, and he and Menditak talked. Then they got to arguing with the Ila’s captain, and they got hot, but I said they were all fools.”

He could imagine the scene. Hati would say that. And Memnanan, who was not a fool, and Aigyan and Menditak, had all been in one council, while Hati had her say.

“Menditak gave you a gift,” Hati said, and let him go to pull rolled cloth down from her saddle ties. She shook it out, a coat of Haga colors, and held it out for him, while beshti passed them and passersby, the Ila’s servants, gazed at this private proceedings. He put it on, a heavy, warm coat, and was troubled about what it said, a declaration of tribal colors; but before he could half think the thought, Hati flung an aifad about his neck, a fine one, of Keran colors. “Aigyan’s gift,” she said.

They marked him with both sets of colors. It was without precedent that the tribes should mix camp with each other, let alone with the Ila’s men, the enemy, the lifelong enemy. But so was this journey without precedent. So was the Ila’s presence among the tribes unprecedented.

He fell to Tain’s bullet, and there was power, to be had, and both the Haga and the Keran moved in on it, possessed it, guarded it from mishap, supplied him with what he needed. Could he fault them for seeing to their own? Memnanan could only be grateful to have added their force around him, with Tain threatening the caravan, but he saw abundant reason Memnanan might not be easy with the situation, too, and had an idea now why Memnanan might have come to stand over his healing carcass… to estimate the chances of his recovery, and whether he might take that power back again, and whether he could.

He had to talk to Memnanan at the earliest opportunity—once his head stopped reeling.

“So how long will this truce among the tribes last?” he asked.