I swap everything into my new pockets. It’s tricky trying to get the shoulder ribbons and armbands to look convincing. Finally the unfortunate hat. I carefully pack away my former clothes, put the parcel under my arm, step out through the flap. Feeling strange and self-conscious I cross the camp looking for Silichieh. Passing the darkened window of one of the warehouses I glimpse myself and the sight jars me—my uniform is so complete that I am vanishing into it. If I’m going to appear at all, then I’ll have to insert something discordant. I take off my hat and at once the figure in the glass, performing the same action, becomes me again.

“You want replacement? Talk to Tabliq Quibli.” Silichieh points to the man in the floppy turban.

Turban looks at my hat, pushing his cheek out with his tongue.

“Something more, just a little maybe.”

I run back to the tent and return with my appalling boots. He takes them.

“Yeah,” he says, and staggers off with them. After a long time he comes back with a different one. It looks better, and doesn’t at all match my uniform. I put it on. It fits. Good. Swap is done.

Silichieh grabs the back of his seat behind him and gets up; with a bearlike wave he invites me to follow. He speaks familiarly in Chiprena to a drawn-faced man with fierce black stubble all over his jaw, and in a moment or two I am handed a sidearm and holster.

I pull out the heavy revolver. It has a fin running under the barrel, and a heavy hinge where the gun breaks open. The barrel is octagonal, and the grip is very curved and polished with long handling. Silichieh explains the gun to me, and gives me a hand-dragging leather case of shells. He watches as I load the gun. The shells go in my pack, although he tells me to keep another seven loose in my left outer lower jacket pocket. Good. I duck out of sight take off my belt holding my pants up by bowing my legs and string the holster onto it.

Silichieh shows me how to loop the barrel end to my thigh. I walk, and the holster does not impede my movement or slap against my leg. Good.

An Edek, maybe the Edek, is crossing the camp now behind her helper. Again I am clamped a moment by that gaze, and then the Edek moves on. A bolt of rage flashes through me—that Edek is here checking up on me. She stops at the edge of the camp, by a ruined arch delicate against the sky, bends her bound head to the ear of her helper, who in turn speaks morosely to Nikhinoch, who proceeds at once to speak to Makemin.