What struck Eddie with the most force was how goddam civilized this part of the world was. It made Lud, with its warring Grays and Pubes, look like the Cannibal Isles in a boy’s sea-story. These people had roads, law enforcement, and a system of government that made Eddie think of New England town meetings. There was a Town Gathering Hall and a feather which seemed to be some sort of authority symbol. If you wanted to call a meeting, you had to send the feather around. If enough people touched it when it came to their place, there was a meeting. If they didn’t, there wasn’t. Two people were sent to carry the feather, and their count was trusted without question. Eddie doubted if it would work in New York, but for a place like this it seemed a fine way to run things.

There were at least seventy other Callas, stretching in a mild arc north and south of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Calla Bryn Lockwood to the south and Calla Amity to the north were also farms and ranches. They also had to endure the periodic depredations of the Wolves. Farther south were Calla Bryn Bouse and Calla Staffel, containing vast tracts of ranchland, and Jaffords said they suffered the Wolves as well…at least he thought so. Farther north, Calla Sen Pinder and Calla Sen Chre, which were farms and sheep.

“Farms of a good size,” Tian said, “but they’re smaller as ye go north, kennit, until ye’re in the lands where the snows fall—so I’m told; I’ve never seen it myself—and wonderful cheese is made.”

“Those of the north wear wooden shoes, or so ’tis said,” Zalia told Eddie, looking a little wistful. She herself wore scuffed clodhoppers called shor’boots.

The people of the Callas traveled little, but the roads were there if they wanted to travel, and trade was brisk. In addition to them, there was the Whye, sometimes called Big River. This ran south of Calla Bryn Sturgis all the way to the South Seas, or so ’twas said. There were mining Callas and manufacturing Callas (where things were made by steam-press and even, aye, by electricity) and even one Calla devoted to nothing but pleasure: gambling and wild, amusing rides, and…

But here Tian, who had been talking, felt Zalia’s eyes on him and went back to the pot for more beans. And a conciliatory dish of his wife’s slaw.

“So,” Eddie said, and drew a curve in the dirt. “These are the borderlands. The Callas. An arc that goes north and south for…how far, Zalia?”

“ ’Tis men’s business, so it is,” she said. Then, seeing her own man was still at the embering fire, inspecting the pots, she leaned forward a bit toward Eddie. “Do you speak in miles or wheels?”

“A little of both, but I’m better with miles.”