“Demizdor,” I said. I had long since got her name perfect. None of the others could speak it; they called her Demya, when they bothered with a name. I held her against me, and her eyes came up to mine, wide, cloudy with fever, greener than wild grasses. She heard it in my voice; I also. It had needed this to make me see where my path had led me.

I sat her on the bank, tore my cloak and sopped up the water with it to bathe the wound. She whimpered at the cold of the water, and I saw her clench her teeth beneath the veil of the shireen not to whimper again.

“You shall go to Kotta,” I said. “She will tend this better than I.”

I took her up in my arms; she was lighter than when I had raised her last and she had been nothing to carry then. She had starved as well as all the rest it seemed.

She lay against me, relaxed as death, and said, “Vazkor is generous to his slave.” There was still some acid in her tongue.

“Console yourself,” I said. “Chula shall suffer worse than you. I will ensure that. When I have lashed her, I shall cast her off, and her brats.”

“Only for correcting a slave? You are too harsh,” she murmured.

We had reached the tents now, black on the westering glare. The shireens were at the central fire and turned to stare at me; the warriors, lounging over their tackle or captives, stared too.

Through the sea of sunset and firelight and staring, I carried Demizdor. She was the only reality in the world at that hour.

Later, I took Chula to Finnuk’s tent.

She did not want to go.

The night had turned chill, blue-black as raven’s wings with stars caught in the feathers of it. Finnuk had a fire outside, and sat there with his two sons after his meat. I pushed her to him.

“Here is your daughter,” I said. “You may have her back.”

At first they were all mute with astonishment, their mouths open, only the flames speaking. Then Finnuk surged up, heavy with his anger as only old men can be, for he was old to be a warrior.

“Have her back? By the snake, I do not want her back.”

“Ah!” I roared. “So she was no use to your tent either?”

He floundered around a little, and the sons and their dogs growled and padded up and down, eyeing me. Chula meanwhile crouched there, crying inside her veil in loud, furious crowings. By now others had come to see, having followed our progress through the krarl.

“This is my daughter,” Finnuk finally informed me.

“Own her, then,” I said.

“I do. I do, by the snake. What wrong has she done? She is a good wife to the chief’s son. She has borne him three healthy boys.”

“She has borne me trouble,” I said.

“How has she done so?”