The southlands lie under the gentler stewardship of his beloved older sister. This part of the holy road still has many long, straight stretches and also a few intact holy “rings.” In the empire, we call these Halts, but in the nameless land, they have all become royal strongholds, like South Ring.

At the moment, Lady Eleawona’s court is in residence at Hazelberry Villa, where the recent harvest of nuts, berries, grain, and root crops has kept the court splendidly fed for an entire ten days. The lady plans to meet her mother’s court at South Ring for the harvest gathering.

But first, they have to get there.

At dawn, the advance party of twelve departs with El and Ao walking in the lead along a well-trammeled dirt lane. An advance party is sent ahead to alert the next villa’s caretakers and to help them get the extra hearths burning, an evening meal for two hundred started, and the royal chamber swept out and sweetened with herbal scents.

At the beginning of a long day, Ao usually chatters about food, which embroidered dress she saw the lady wearing, the gossip she overheard when she was using the latrine, but today, she is silent. El can always tell when Ao is scared because she rubs her fingers around and around the wooden badge, carved in the shape of a bear, that marks them as belonging to Lady Eleawona’s court.

“I don’t want to,” she whispers finally. “They say such ugly things to me. ‘I’ll stick my pig in your trough and you’ll squeal’ or ‘I like the fresh ones best but I suppose the sergeant will get first poke.’”

“You never told me they say those things.”

“I didn’t want you to worry. There’s nothing you can do. But I don’t want to.” Tears spill from her eyes, but she doesn’t cry out loud, in case the first rank of retainers, the four guardsmen riding behind them, might hear.

El thinks all day about the problem. It’s a clear, clean, hot day, muggy and windless. The dusty lane is easy on their bare feet as it winds in and out of shade. They ford two shallow streams, the water curling soothingly around their feet and calves. Ao snatches ripe berries from a laden bush, but they can’t pause to eat their fill since they are always in sight of the rest of the advance party. They’ve learned to savor what they can. The purple berries are sun-sweetened and delicious. Ao gobbles her handful all the way up in just a few bites, while El eats hers slowly to let the pleasure stretch on as long as possible. She gives the last berry to Ao, who hands it back and says, “No, I won’t take yours. You eat it.” So El does.