“Hot work, sister,” she said, grinning and wiping her forehead with one sleeve; it was still warm in the building, though cooling rapidly into the clear night air outside. “Hope there’s water enough for a bath?”

“Cold water, I am afraid, child,” the nun said.

“That’ll do fine, in summer,” Ritva said cheerfully. “Like to shake your hand in thanks for you folks’ kindness. Makes me think well of your religion, so to say.”

The nun beamed at her in a tired sort of way. Then her eyes widened very slightly as she felt the scrap of paper in Ritva’s palm. The corner was dark; she seized the Ranger’s hand for a moment, turning it over and examining the calluses before dropping it and casually tucking the folded note into a pocket in her habit. If you knew what you were looking for a person’s hands were one of the best indicators of what they were. Most people had calluses; even clerks usually developed one on their pen finger. The patterns were very distinctive, though.

You got a very particular set from drilling with the sword for hours a day nine days in ten from the time you were six or so. That was one of the things even a really skillful disguise couldn’t completely hide; Ritva had the swordsman’s ring of hardened skin running all the way from the tip of her right index finger around the web of her hand and up to the top of the thumb.

“Sleep well, my child,” the nun said smoothly. “May only good visions visit you.”

Ritva was tired, but she thought she might not have slept all that well even if she hadn’t been waiting. There had been a stress on the visit part of that.

Waiting for arrest, perhaps, she thought mordantly. I’d certainly be more comfortable out under the stars. Praise to the Valar I got the outside place!

The long tent was so old that it smelled of a pre-Change synthetic canvas, much patched over the years with this and that. It was also very crowded and too warm for blankets; all women, or older girls, but no children. Someone not far away had an alarmingly persistent cough, too. She found being confined with that rather more frightening than most straightforward dangers; you couldn’t shoot a germ with arrows or cut it with a sword.

A glimmer of starlight and lighter air, and a hand touched her shoulder.

“Come, my child,” the figure said very softly.

The dark habit disappeared in the moonless light, but the coif gave the face an eerie detached frame. It was the same nun she’d seen in the kitchens. She was glad that the Sisters weren’t so otherworldly that they let more people than absolutely must know a secret.

“I come,” Ritva replied as quietly.

She picked up her boots and followed that beckoning, walking a dozen paces with dew-wet grass soaking through her socks before she could stamp them in to the welcoming leather. The night smelled of green growing things and wetted dust, intensely clean and welcome.