Her tribe had cast her out, he decided. They had kept what they wished, as they did the dead, from whom they stripped all ornament—silver being a useless distinction for the scavengers.

“Or will you stay?” he asked her, persisting in his attempt to draw her out. “I need your help. You know the Lakht better than any of us. Do you understand at all?”

The move of her head said yes.

“Then teach the rest of these villagers good sense. I see how you ride. Teach them.”

“Why?”

Why was a good question. “Because I asked the Ila for their lives. Because hanging in the holy city is easier than breaking a leg out here.”

She looked straight at him, hearing him, at least. All he could see was her eyes. She might be anything, think anything, beneath the veils. And she was as mad as he was. There was that.

“I’m Hati,” she said.

“Marak. Marak Trin.”

“I know.” She said not a thing more, nor did she encourage conversation. He left her, finally, and gave up on the attempt.

But during that night, by starlight, she rode by one and the other of the women, even the au’it, speaking in low tones, correcting posture, correcting a grip on the reins. The sun rose, and she spoke to men, more animated and more assured, even forceful in her corrections, even correcting the better riders. By midmorning the down-land men feared her direct reproof—never a loud reproof, but correct, and stinging, if she repeated it.

When they stopped to spread the tents at noon, Hati encouraged the wife, Norit, to ride the beast down to his sitting rest, and not to be handed off like baggage. Norit stayed in the saddle, and stepped off without help, and when the men still mounted saw that, they all did the same, though the orchardman was pitched off at the very last and sprawled gently flat on the sand.

Hati went and stood over the unfortunate man, hands on her hips, flung back her veil, and offered her sober opinion that he was learning, but should not have moved his hand from the saddlebow just yet.

Marak, just having slid down from his own beast, began to laugh then, a dazed, unanticipated laughter that seeped upward like water from the ground.

And once he laughed, others of the mad laughed. The orchardman got up and dusted himself off, taking the taunts of the potter in glowering good humor, and finally with a grin.

Then seeing the orchardman in better humor, madmen sat down on the burning hot sand and laughed until they rolled.

They were free. He had freed them all. Even the two who had walked off to die… they were free.

And once they had laughed, and wiped their eyes, then after all these days they began to talk to one another, except, always, the au’it.