I will see you safely to Stone, he thought, and when the walls of the city are in sight I will say farewell.

The wagon trundled on through the driving rain, the two weary horses moving slowly, heads down against the wind. The driver sat huddled below the canvas canopy, his right hand holding the reins, his left arm round the shoulders of the teenage girl beside him.

Despite the canopy the rain had soaked them both, and the girl shivered. 'How long, Father?' she asked.

'According to the map we're about a mile from the bridge,' the old man told her. 'After that maybe five miles. We should be there before dusk.'

He smiled as he said it. The sky was so dark now it already felt like night. Appius lifted his whip and cracked it over the heads of the team. They surged into the traces and the wagon picked up speed. His daughter snuggled in close. He patted her back and, reaching over, tugged her hood forward to try to protect her from the rain. The hood was already drenched. She looked up at him and smiled. His heart leapt. So like her mother, he thought. So beautiful.

Appius looked back at what the map indicated was a road. The thought made him shake his head in frustration. Road? It was a wide, muddy track, pitted and irregular, and his wagon was trundling along in the deep grooves made by other lumbering vehicles. Only an idiot or a barbarian could call this a road. Back in Stone there were roads! Roads of well-laid stone over gravel and sand.

He sighed. Back in Stone there were also the Crimson Priests, the Blood Trials, the burnings. The wind died down, and the rain began to ease. No longer did it lash into their faces, but now pattered against the canopy above their heads. To the west the sun broke through the clouds. Appius pushed back his hood, exposing his close-cropped white hair.

Lia looked up at him and smiled. 'Everything looks so wonderful when the sun shines,' she said.

'What would look wonderful right now is a bathhouse, with steam rising from perfumed water,' he said. 'And then a massage, and a long sleep.'

'Barus said the town was quite civilized. There should be a bathhouse.'

'Just so long as there's no temple,' he said, his good humour fading.