“Boots?” Mam had stared at him in disbelief. “Fancy boots? How long will it take you to grow out of those? You couldn’t have asked for money? Grain to fill our bellies? Or firewood or warm blankets for our beds?” She’d advanced on him with the switch she always seemed to have close to hand. Han backed away from her, knowing from experience that a lifetime of hard work had given his mother a powerful arm.

She’d raised welts on his back and shoulders. But he kept the boots.

They were worth far more than what he’d given in trade, and he knew it. Willo had always been generous to Han and Mam and Mari, his sister, because there was no man in the house. Unless you counted Han, and most people didn’t. Even though he was already sixteen and nearly grown.

Dancer brought water from Firehole Spring and sloshed it over Han’s slimed boot. “Why is it that only nasty plants growing in nasty places are valuable?” Dancer said.

“If they’d grow in a garden, who’d pay good money for them?” Han growled, wiping his hands on his leggings. The silver cuffs around his wrists were caked with mud as well, deeply embedded in the delicate engraving. He’d better take a brush to them before he got home, or he’d hear about that too.

It was a fitting end to a frustrating day. They’d been out since dawn, and all he had to show for it were three sulfur lilies, a large bag of cinnamon bark, some razorleaf, and a handful of common snagwort that he could pass off as maidenweed at the Flatlander Market. His mother’s empty purse had sent him foraging in the mountains too early in the season.

“This is a waste of time,” Han said, though it had been his idea in the first place. He snatched up a rock and flung it into the mudpot, where it disappeared with a viscous plop. “Let’s do something else.”

Dancer cocked his head, his beaded braids swinging. “What would you…?”

“Let’s go hunting,” Han said, touching the bow slung across his back.

Dancer frowned, thinking. “We could try Burnt Tree Meadow. The fellsdeer are moving up from the flatlands. Bird saw them there day before yesterday.”

“Let’s go, then.” Han didn’t have to think long about it. It was the hunger moon. The crocks of beans and cabbage and dried fish his mother had laid up for the long winter had evaporated. Even if he’d fancied sitting down to another meal of beans and cabbage, lately there’d been nothing but porridge and more porridge, with the odd bit of salt meat for flavor. Meat for the table would more than make up for today’s meager gleanings.