‘Well,’ Sabela said now, ‘I think what I’m going to like about this tavern is the drinks they serve. What a selection!’

The menu was inscribed into the oak surface of the table itself, in the loops and bars of the unique Northlander script. The three women chose drinks from across the eastern half of the planet: Albian ale for Xipuhl, a decent Gairan wine for Walks In Mist, and a fine potato spirit from Rus for Sabela. When the drinks arrived they knocked their cups together.

Xipuhl said briskly, ‘I imagine the next time we drink together we will be back on the ship, for it’s going to take me the rest of my time to get packed up.’

Sabela pulled a face. ‘Be grateful you don’t have children. I’ll swear my two support the economy of the local trinket makers single-handed.’ The breeze turned, an oddly chill wind blew in from the west, and they all reacted, shifting, pulling their wraps tighter. ‘It has been a cool summer,’ Sabela murmured. ‘My two have complained about that.’

Walks In Mist frowned. ‘I’ve heard mutterings about great meetings of scholars, discussions of the turning of the weather. Do you think there’s anything in it?’

‘I’ve not much truck for scholars,’ Xipuhl said firmly. ‘Who can know what the future holds?’

‘And we’ll not let it govern our lives,’ Sabela said.

The horn blasted for a third time, announcing the noisy eruptor display that would end the long day of celebration. People started to drift out of the tavern.

‘Let’s make a pact,’ Walks In Mist said impulsively. ‘We’ll keep in touch. Let’s meet when the Northland fleet comes again to the West, in three years’ time.’

Sabela laughed girlishly. ‘Oh, yes – what a lovely idea.’

Xipuhl grinned. ‘Well, as you are the only companions I’ve found on this trip who haven’t wanted to get some kind of business out of me, I’m for it.’

‘And we’ll come back to this very bar,’ Sabela said. ‘And order the same drinks, three years from now.’

‘Agreed,’ said Walks In Mist, and they raised their cups again and toasted the pact.

But the breeze gusted once more. The candles on the tables flickered, and around the bar people pulled cloaks over their shoulders. A few people laughed, and sent mock curses at the little mothers and other gods for their wilfulness.

‘That’s if we’re all still here in three years’ time,’ Xipuhl said with morbid humour.

6

Alxa stood with her brother on the roof of the Wall, surrounded by a crowd of Etxelur elite in their fancy ceremonial House robes, waiting for the wrestling princes to return to the parapet.

The sun was near the horizon now, and the day felt markedly colder, as if this were an autumn day, not midsummer. Lights sparked over the face of the Wall below, and in the curving reefs of the lower city. People had gathered on the plain beyond, filling the open spaces and lining the canals, waiting for the show. The crowds always came to the Giving at Etxelur, although this year, Alxa was sure, there were plenty of nestspills, that cruel Northland word, people displaced from their homes by flood or drought, by poverty or hunger or disease, here for handouts rather than celebration.