“He’d not betray her, would he?”

“Hush, girl. He’ll do what he must to save us. Hush.”

The words, sounding so clearly in her own ears, evidently did not reach the captain, who rapped a metal blade on the counter. “I haven’t all day to wait! We gave you this chance to work with us rather than be cleaned out like the rest. I can burn down this shop if I’ve a wish to do so. Or take your daughter, like I did your son.”

“Peace! Peace! Just a cricket in my throat got me choked.” He made a business of clearing his throat. “There, it’s gone now.” Once started, the shopkeeper flowed like a stream at spring tide. “A merchant come through, a stout fellow headed southwest on the Lesser Walk and meaning to head onwards down the Rice Walk to Olo’osson. This was a few weeks after the new year’s festival. He was still wearing his fox ribbons, all silver, very fine quality and embroidered to show how rich he was.”

“I’m surprised a rich man chooses to strut his wealth these days. The roads aren’t safe.”

“Heh. Heh. You’d say so, ver, wouldn’t you? Eh, he wasn’t afraid. He was a cocky fellow, even if he did have that cursed sloppy borderlands way of speaking. He would sneer at our humble town, though he’d no reason to do so. He ordered me about when he could just have asked politely for the items he needed.”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“Oh, eh, it’s just I notice such things, being a shopkeeper. We have to size up our customers. So when I went into the back to fetch out another lead line, I heard him saying to his companion that he had powerful allies in the north. That they were going to march on Olossi later this year. He did like to hear himself talk. He was indignant, said it wasn’t his fault he’d had to make outside alliances. It was just that there were troublemakers in Olossi trying to elbow their way into power and push out those who had been good stewards for these many years, and he had to protect his clan.”

It was a common saying among the reeve halls that some came into service possessed of good instincts while some learned good instincts during service, and that those who neither possessed nor learned did not survive. Marit had good instincts, and had learned better ones in her ten years as a reeve, although not enough to save herself from a knife to the heart.

But ever since she’d woken, she heard and tasted and smelled with cleaner senses, as if the Four Mothers—the earth, water, fire, and wind that shape the land—had lent her a measure of their own essence.

The captain said, “Who else did you tell?”

He’s going to kill him. The air told her because of the way his sour scent sharpened. The earth told her because of the way his feet shifted on the floorboards, bracing for the thrust.