Gahltha moved past me to a patch of sunlight where tiny white flowers grew in dazzling clumps, and after nuzzling at them, he lifted his head and gave a soft neigh. I recognised it as a summons even as I heard an answering neigh, and a moment later, three mares emerged from the trees on the far side of the clearing. I identified two Obernewtyn horses, and knew the coercers keeping watch must have ridden them to the watchhut, but the third was a dark stocky animal with a white blaze on her nose and unknown to me. Yet the Twentyfamilies favoured such sturdy horses, with strength enough to pull a laden gypsy wagon, and I guessed the mare had brought Iriny up from the White Valley.

I glanced around for her then I heard a low whistle from above. Squinting against the sunlight, I saw the statuesque gypsy leaning against a front porch post of the watchhut, gazing down at me. Her arm flashed with silver as she lifted a hand in greeting. I responded, noticing that she wore full gypsy skirts of green and orange and a loose green shirt under a thick coat. Her hair was the great wild dark mop that I remembered, bound at the brow with a woven thong. There was no sign of either of the coercers, but a faint smudge of blue smoke rising from the watchhut suggested one of them was preparing firstmeal. The other would be in the tower keeping watch on the pass, I realised.

I climbed the steep slope to the top of the knoll and Iriny came down from the porch a few steps to meet me. Panting, I apologised for arriving late and thanked her for waiting.

‘I told you I was at your service when I last saw you, Guildmistress of the Farseekers,’ she said. Then she broke off and looked behind me, lifting her brows. Suppressing a sigh, I turned resignedly to introduce her to Ahmedri who had followed me up the steep slope. I saw his eyes widen as he took in Iriny’s miscoloured eyes, one blue as the sky and the other brown as peat, but he returned her greeting with a perfunctory obeisance and a terse if polite-enough greeting. Then I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and saw that, although Avra and Falada were grazing with the other horses, Gahltha, too, was coming up the slope.

When he reached us, Iriny greeted him laboriously in fingerspeech.

‘You are getting better,’ I said aloud after he had answered her with grave, careful signals of his own.

‘Practice,’ she said and then fixed me with her gaze. ‘What do you want of me?’

I was not surprised by her forthrightness, but instead of answering, I shrugged off the pack I carried and held it out to Ahmedri, asking him to take it inside the hut to the coercer and tell her there was food in it that could be added to whatever was being prepared for firstmeal. The tribesman bridled, ignoring the proffered pack.