The gnome dematerialized as they hurried through the maze of round tents, as strangely silent as winter camps always were, with life moved so resolutely inside. As usual, the winter rains had washed off their painted decorations, leaving strange ghostly stains on the leather, outlines to be repainted once the weather turned towards summer. In the grey light it seemed that the camp lay caught between two worlds of water and earth, scarcely there. Since Branna was striding along just ahead of her, Dallandra noticed that the girl’s dress hung thick with yellow-brown mud about her ankles. Her clogs sank into the ground with every step.
‘You really need to wear leggings and boots,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’ll get the women to make you some.’
‘I suppose so,’ Branna said. ‘I’m just so used to dresses, but truly, it’s impossible to keep them clean out here.’ She paused for a sigh. ‘It sounded so exciting, coming to live among the Westfolk. I didn’t realize what the winters would be like.’
‘They can be a bit grim, truly.’
‘I understand now why Salamander wintered with my uncle. I thought he was daft for it, until the rains started.’
‘Do you want to go home?’
‘I don’t. There’s too much to learn here. I just wish I could get really dry and warm.’
‘Well, it’s almost spring. Things will be better then.’
‘The days are getting longer, truly.’ Branna paused to extricate a clog from a particularly sticky lump of mud.
‘And in a few days we’ll move camp,’ Dallandra continued. ‘The ground will be cleaner in the new site.’
Sidro and Pir had pitched their newly made tent on the edge of the camp, not far from the horse herd. When Dallandra ducked inside, she saw Vek kneeling on the floor cloth and leaning, face forward, onto a supporting heap of leather cushions. He’d come of age the summer past, and as was usual among the Horsekin, he’d been bald until that point in his life. Still short and straight, his black hair clung to his dead-white skin. Sidro knelt beside him and wiped his sweaty face with a damp rag. Drool laced with pink stained the neckline of his dirty linen tunic.
‘I do think the worst be done with,’ Sidro said. ‘But he did bite his tongue afore I could get him turned over and sitting up like this.’
Branna hovered back in the curve of the wall to watch. Dallandra laid her bag down, then knelt at Vek’s other side. When she laid her hand on his face, she found it cold and clammy. He looked at her out of one dark eye.
‘I’ve brought your drops,’ Dallandra said. ‘Let me just get them out.’
In response he let his mouth hang open. She rummaged through the tent bag and found the tiny glass vial, filled with an extremely potent tincture of valerian. It smelled horrible and must have tasted worse, but Vek neither squirmed nor made a face when she used the glass stopper to drip a small quantity into his mouth. She could see the cut on the side of his tongue – not big enough to worry about, she decided.
‘You know this will help. Good lad!’ Dallandra made her voice soothing and soft, as if she were speaking to a small child instead of a boy who was at least thirteen summers old. She was never sure how much he understood when he was in this condition. Afterwards he could never remember.
Sidro handed her a cup of spiced honey water. Dallandra helped Vek drink a few sips to wash the medicine down and the taste out of his mouth. She gave the cup back to Sidro, then patted him on the shoulder.
‘You just rest now,’ Dallandra said. ‘Sidro, will it be all right if he stays here with you?’
‘Of course. Help me lie him down on those blankets over there. Pir be out with the horses, but he’d not mind anyway were he here.’
‘I’ll help.’ Branna stepped forward. ‘Dalla, you shouldn’t lift anything heavy.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Dallandra laid her hands on her swollen stomach, hanging over the waist of her leather leggings – she no longer bothered to lace them up in front. ‘This is the part about being with child that I hated before, feeling so bloated and awkward.’
‘True spoken,’ Sidro said. ‘But I’d put up with that again gladly to give Pir a child. He does so want one.’ She smiled. ‘He’s not like Laz.’
‘I’ve no doubt you’ll get your wish soon. You’re both in good health.’
‘So did Exalted Mother Grallezar say. She did tell me that when one woman in a circle be with child, the rest be sure to follow. The smell in the air does induce fertility.’ Sidro grinned and took a deep breath. ‘I do hope she be right.’
‘She generally is,’ Dalla said.
As if she’d heard, the female child in Dallandra’s womb kicked her, an unpleasant sensation though not precisely a pain, as she’d missed the kidneys – this time. Soon, little one, Dallandra thought, soon you’ll be out, and we’ll both be free of this.
Between them Branna and Sidro hauled Vek to his feet. He threw an arm over each of their shoulders and let them drag him to the heap of blankets over by the wall of the tent. Once he was lying down comfortably, the two women came back to distribute the leather cushions and sit with Dallandra. Sidro ran both hands through her raven-dark hair, still too short to braid thanks to her humiliation of the summer before, and pushed it back from her face.
‘And what about you, Branna?’ Sidro said. ‘Do you too long for a child?’
Branna’s grey gnome popped into materialization and shook its head in a resounding no.
‘What’s this?’ Branna said to the gnome. ‘You’d be jealous, I suppose.’ She brought her attention back to Sidro. ‘I hope this doesn’t mean I’m an awful unnatural woman, but I don’t really want a child just now. I want to keep studying dweomer. A baby would be a nuisance.’
‘Not here,’ Dallandra said, ‘not among the Westfolk. We prize our children so much that you’ll have plenty of help when you do give birth.’
‘Good. If he got me with child, Neb doubtless would gloat over it, but I’ll wager he wouldn’t be any help with the baby. Although I might be doing him a disservice. He’s not like the men I grew up with.’
‘I’m glad you can see that.’ Dallandra smiled at her. ‘An honour-bound warrior he’s not.’
Over on the blankets Vek let out a long snore, then turned over on his side and nestled down, his back to the women.
‘Good, he’s asleep,’ Dallandra said. ‘That’s the best thing for him.’
‘So it is,’ Sidro said, then lowered her voice to a murmur. ‘He had one of his visions during the fit.’
‘Did he see Laz or the black stone?’ Dallandra leaned closer and spoke softly.
‘Alas, he did not. He spoke of a tower that reached to the sky, but it turned to smoke.’
‘The tower did?’
‘It turned to a pillar of smoke whilst it sent out
