One seemed apt to be the next casualty, Proffa the tailor. Until the storm he had been strong enough, but when they had packed, and the time came, in the mid of the night, to get up on a beast and ride, Proffa was scarcely able to sit the saddle.

So they set him on like baggage, well padded with their mats, and cared for him on the march. It seemed to Marak that the tailor’s heart had failed him, perhaps as he understood the cost it was simply to go on living. The mad healed, but Proffa did not.

All these things the au’it wrote in her book the next day.

The caravan master, though rich by the desert’s standards, had never been written down in his life, and now an au’it from the holy city had written down his death.

“Have you written his name?” the boy asked earnestly. “It’s Obidhen Anfatin.”

The au’it wrote, and the boy gave her one of his treasures, one of his father’s bracelets.

Common folk had become uncommon, Marak thought, as they set up camp. Even the slaves had begun to grudge their own deaths, and now they had names: Mogar was the one Tofi had beaten, the least agile, but the strongest. The other slave was Bosginde.

They had begun to take note of one another. Friendships and enmities had formed. Certain ones rode together, like sisters, like brothers. Two women of the last tent, having suffered from rough men in their last camp, had armed themselves with knives and clung to Hati and Norit.

More, there had been a lengthy, angry conversation among the women the nature of which Marak did not inquire.

But once they camped, in consideration of possible violence, he suggested to Tofi they pitch only two tents for shade, and close to one another. The women who had suffered were out of the northwest lowlands and certainly had no idea how to manage in the desert. He suggested the women join Tofi and the two slaves, and keep Tofi comforted, while the two ex-soldiers went to Ontori’s tent.

The Lakht brought out the best or the worst in men, and men who had abused their tentmates for three days while they all were in danger of dying were fools. Likewise the women, who had lived through it all and still were on their feet, were not fools, and had gathered the means to defend themselves.

“If these women complain after this,” Marak said to Kassan, senior of the two ex-soldiers, the most likely instigators, in his opinion. “If they complain, you’ll never see the east.”

A suitable fear went across the man’s face. “It wasn’t me,” Kassan said. “It was Foragi.”

“Then change his mind,” Marak said, “or kill him. I’ve set the stonemason over you: Ontari. If either of you ever offends these women, I’ve given him authority to kill you both.”