“Maybe you’re right. But she wanted that cloth.”

“They took Kontas.” Asya tugged on Mariya’s arm. The girl had a black eye, and the grime of tears and dirt smeared on her face and arms, as if she’d been pushed into the ground. “I tried to hit them, but I couldn’t stop them from taking him.”

“I know, dear one,” said Mari. “I know you did what you could. Now we’re going home.”

“I’m going after Kontas,” said Kirya. “We can’t abandon him, Mari. I can’t. How will my mother ever rest at peace among the gods?”

Mariya rubbed her forehead, pretty face creased, and Kirya saw suddenly how much effort it had cost her cousin to endure the taunts of the youth she had lain with, who had whispered endearments and promises which had all along meant nothing to him. How much courage it had taken her to stand in front of that crowd as if their sneers and scorn did not touch her, who had been taken so thoroughly for a love-struck fool and had her foolishness announced to everyone.

“Oh, Mari.” She dropped the gelding’s reins, and hugged her beloved cousin fiercely. “I have to go.”

Mari glanced in the direction of the camp, but no one had come after them, not yet. “Asya, you’ll walk with me. Stanyo and Danya will ride the bay, but we’ll saddle it first. Kiri, you’ll take the piebald, in the halter. Trade the gelding if you can, although why anyone would take that misbegotten beast I don’t know, not once they’ve seen his temper. Trade the piebald if you must.” She tugged the three lapis-lazuli nets off her braids, and wept as they kissed. “I don’t need these. Maybe they’ll be worth something. We’ll wait four days for you at the pond where we camped last night. Otherwise meet at the gar-deer sink. Now go. Go.”

24

Kirya’s tribe had never ridden south to see the Golden Road, but she had heard tales of a path on which foreigners traveled east and west along the southernmost range of the vast grasslands roamed by the tribes. East lay the brutal Qin, and south lay the mud-feet, people who stank from living in their own garbage all year around. Sometimes the tribes raided them, taking what they could grab. Sometimes the mud people marched into the grass to take vengeance, but any tribe could simply pack up and move; even a child like Danya could outride the mud-feet’s boldest warriors.

She paced the gelding, switching off to ride bareback on the piebald at intervals. South of the Vidrini camp, the hills flattened and the grass changed variety, turning brittle with heat. She had a pair of filled leather bottles, but anyway she knew the signs that revealed sinks of water waiting a short dig beneath the surface; she could smell a swale or rivulet before she saw it. Now that she thought about it, Orphan had taught them a lot about surviving in the wasteland. Poor tribes were always driven off the best pasturelands, pressed toward the deadlands, and maybe Orphan walking into their tribe two years ago had been the gift of the gods after all.