I promised to bring my own pack to him as soon as I had broken my fast. I barely tasted the porridge as I spooned it up, for I was thinking of my dream of Cassandra and wondering if it had been a past-dream or just a vivid but ordinary dream. As if aware that I was thinking of a kitten that bore a name like to his, Maruman came padding over to me and gave the bowl a pointed look. I set the remainder of the porridge down for him and went to roll up my blanket before I carried my pack to where Ahmedri and Swallow were loading up the horses.

‘I could carry my funaga and another,’ Faraf was beastspeaking Gahltha.

I was startled by her use of the possessive term when she spoke of Dameon.

‘Faraf has taken on the desert tradition that a human and an equine can bond out of friendship and mutual regard,’ Gahltha informed me, sensing my surprise. ‘She regards Dameon as her man in the way that Falada regards Ahmedri as hers. If I thought in that way, I would name you my Elspeth.’ He gave a soft whicker of amusement.

For some reason, I found myself thinking of what the tribesman had said about a plague of sleep.

‘Mornir will wake,’ Gahltha assured me, suddenly serious.

‘The last time she slept like this, it was for many long moons.’

‘This is not such a sleep as that, Elspethlnnle,’ Maruman sent crossly, coming to sit on a stone.

I wanted to ask what sort of sleep it was then, but I sensed he was in a cantankerous mood so I held my tongue. I would ask Rasial about Dragon when she and the boy returned. Ahmedri helped me fasten my pack and the stone sword and the bow and arrows to the webbing on Gahltha’s back as he explained that it had been decided by the horses that the grey’s gait was smoothest and so he would pull the travois.

‘I am the strongest of the equines,’ Gahltha added, ‘but strength is needed less than smoothness.’

Once the other horses were readied, Dragon’s travois was fastened to the webbing on Sendari’s back. While she helped with it, Analivia seemed very much her old self, but the moment it was done she moved away from the rest of us and stood gazing to the north. I wondered if she thought of her brother, or of the Blacklands that lay beyond the mountains.

I turned back to look at Dragon on her travois and had a sudden memory of Domick, stricken with plague and lashed to the back of Rolf’s enormous greathorse Golfur on a bier. Did the blacksmith still ride the horse, I wondered, though he was now chieftain of Halfmoon Bay? Rolf had come to Obernewtyn for the moon fair but that had long since ended and by now Rolf would be back in the Westland.