Most of the carts were piled so high she didn’t even bother to approach. A converted carriage seemed a likely choice until she drew close enough to see the way the boards bowed at the sides, the warp of the wheels. She didn’t know much about transport, but the thing didn’t look as though it would make it past the Annurian walls, let alone all the way to Olon. She was sizing up a low farmer’s cart when a vicious cursing cut through the conversation around her.

“Ya’ve cross-lashed it, ya shriveled nutsack! Straight-lashed, I said. It’s t’be straight-lashed.”

Adare turned to find a tiny, wizened woman, well into her eighth decade judging from the bone-white hair pinned up on the back of her head and the wrinkles etched into her weathered skin. She was cursing at a crabbed, gray man in a voice so loud it seemed impossible such an instrument could issue from such a tiny form. Despite her stoop, the cane in her right hand appeared superfluous: rather than leaning on it, she used the worn length of wood to stab at the provocative lashings.

“I swear,” she continued, spitting as she spoke, “if our mother hadn’t’a squoze us out’a the same fuckin’ cunt, I’d knock ya on that fool fucking head of yours, take the cart my own self, and have done with ya.”

“Please, Nira,” the man replied, muddling with the straps. “We are part of a religious pilgrimage now. This is no way to speak among these devout folk.” His language was more precise than hers and a good deal more polite, but there was a vagueness to his voice when he spoke, an emptiness in the eyes, as though he had just woken up, or were immensely weary.

“Pilgrimage my withered, bony arse!” the woman replied. “It’s a bunch’a fucking cretins never spliced a yoke or mended an axle in their lives.”

The words produced an eddy of discontent in the crowd. People paused in their work or their farewells, turning toward her angrily. Several appeared on the verge of speech, but the woman’s advanced age seemed to earn her a reprieve. The old man had not so much as glanced at the other pilgrims or looked at his sister. He continued to tug with obvious futility at the wrong knot. His mind was going, Adare decided, irritated at the woman for so abusing him in his dotage.

“I will fix the lashing, sister,” he said quietly, “if you will cease prodding it for a moment.”

The old woman snorted, but she lowered her cane and turned from the wagon as though searching for another target. Her eyes lit on Adare.

“And what in the fine fuck is wrong with you?” she demanded, squinting beneath her wrinkled brow.

Adare froze, uncertain how to respond.