“I don’t care. It’s warm enough.”

“It is not warm enough. As soon as you get it you’ll be complaining, so you can wait.”

“I should have pulled that spiteful tongue out of your head long ago.”

It was all she could do not to reply with something really unpleasant. She no longer feared the old man, but she did fear her husband, who was quick with a blow or even a kick and always took her father’s side. Her older sister saw her frustration and nodded toward the wagon’s main door. “Go outside, Hyara. Take them more yerut and bring in the bowls. I’ll deal with the old fool.”

Grateful, Hyara wiped her hands on her rough apron and went outside.

Her husband was out checking the paddocks to make sure the animals were secure, but the rest of his men, relatives and hangers-on, had finished their work and were gathered around the fire waiting for the thane to return. Her husband’s cousin Cudberj, who for at least this moment was the most important man in the compound, was holding forth about something that Hyara felt sure he knew little about. Her husband might be a brute, she might dream of him being gored by a bull or killed in a raid on one of the Erkynlandish settlements, but at least he was not a blatherer like his cousin.

“There you are!” Cudberj shouted when she stepped down from the wagon. “Bring us more drink, woman. My friends are thirsty.”

“I’ve sent our son to fetch more,” Hyara said. “You and the others have drained what we have, and my husband will want some when he gets back.”

The trees around the camp were full of crows, more than Hyara had seen gather at once in a long while. She thought they were much like her husband’s men, useless and loud.

“Well, then,” said another man, a young idiot with mustaches that almost reached his collar bone, “if you’ve no yerut, give us a kiss!”

Cudberj laughed loudly at this. “You’d better hope my cousin the thane doesn’t hear you say that to his wife, or he’ll have your guts for stirrups.”

Hyara couldn’t decide which she’d enjoy more at that moment, not being the thane’s wife or getting to see the thane make stirrups out of the young fool’s innards. “When the boy comes back with the jug,” she said, “make sure you leave enough for my husband or he’ll spill the offal out of all of you.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Cudberj slapped his leg and chortled. “Didn’t I say she had a sharp tongue on her? And her older sister is worse. The women in this family are part snake, I tell you!”

Hyara didn’t say anything, but concentrated on picking up the bowls and spoons that had been discarded without a second thought all over the area around the fire. Everybody thought that because she was the thane’s wife, with the largest wagon and the largest camp, her life must be enviable. But the largest wagon and camp needed the most work to keep them tidy, and her husband, his cousins, and her ancient father were like spoiled children, leaving messes and breakage behind them wherever they went.

As she thought of the heedless men she had to deal with every day, Hyara felt the darkness begin to flow over her again, as though clouds had swallowed the sun, even though the summer twilight was clear and cloudless. Sometimes the feeling was so strong that it was all she could do not to fall down and weep, to lie helpless and unmoving until the men dragged her away and ended her uselessness, as though she were a horse with a broken leg. Her sister knew this fearful, hopeless darkness too, although neither of them spoke of it. The two of them carried the secret between them, and if nothing made it stop, at least it was a tiny bit easier for Hyara knowing she was not the only one.

She stood up, stacking the bowl she had just found onto the others she had gathered, and saw that someone was approaching the camp—a man of good size, but too slender to be her burly husband. She shaded her eyes against the setting sun but still did not recognize him, though something about the way he moved caught her attention. The newcomer did not walk so much as he loped, body balanced, head steady, like a wolf calmly pacing a herd of deer.

Cudberj saw him too and stood up, his hand falling to the ax hung on his belt. A few of the other men saw this sudden movement and looked up. Hyara could feel a certain tightness in the air suddenly. A stranger was a rare thing on the High Thrithings.

The man stopped a dozen paces from the fire and calmly examined the half-dozen men sitting there. The stranger was tall and well-muscled but not as broad as Cudberj or the others, and certainly nowhere near as burly as Hyara’s own husband, the thane of the Stallion Clan. “I look for the camp of Thane Fikolmij,” he said. “Is this it?”

“Why?” Cudberj demanded. He had his ax out and was stroking it as though currying a prize horse. “Who are you, to walk into the March-thane’s camp so bold? I do not know your face, nor does any other man here, and you wear no clan badge.”

“My name is not important,” the stranger said. “Until a short time ago I was part of the Crane Clan from south of the Littlefeather, down in the Lake Thrithings. They called me Unver. But I have left them now. I have no clan.”

“No clan?” Cudberj shook his head and spat into the fire. “You might as well say you have no heart, no cock. What kind of man renounces his clan?”

“A man whose clan treats him badly.” The tall stranger had dark hair like a clansman, but even in the late daylight Hyara could see that his eyes were unusually pale, like someone from the far north, but more gray than blue. Something else about him caught her attention, too, something about his long, narrow face that seemed almost familiar. “But my leave-taking was not a pleasant one,” he went on, “and my mood is still foul, so do not keep me standing here when I have asked you a question. Is this the camp of Thane Fikolmij?” He looked past the men to the wagon. “Is that his?” He began to walk toward the steps, but Cudberj stepped out to block his path.

“Turn around,” Cudberj said, hefting his ax. He might have been no match for his cousin the March-thane, but he was still a dangerous man. “Turn around, or I will send you back to those Crane Clan cowards in pieces.”

The stranger ignored him and tried to walk past. Cudberj let out a hiss of rage and grabbed at the stranger’s arm, at the same time drawing back his ax to deal what would no doubt have been a mortal blow, but instead the dark-haired man grabbed Cudberj’s wrist and pivoted, twisting the arm until Cudberj shrieked in astonished pain and dropped his weapon. A moment later the stranger’s fist hit him full in the face, knocking him to the ground as though he had been slaughtered with a horse-maul.

The others leaped up to attack the stranger, but within a time so short it seemed to Hyara like some kind of magical vision, they were nearly all down, one with his head rammed between the spokes of the nearest wagon wheel, another with his jaw clacked violently shut by a blow from the stranger’s knee. A third managed to swing his curved sword once, but by the time he brought it around, the stranger was no longer where he had been. He kicked the swordsman hard behind the knee, then again in the other knee, so that the man dropped his sword and fell to the ground, howling and clutching his injured joints. The last of Cudberj’s companions had seen enough and did not attack the stranger, but sprinted away from the wagons, probably to find Hyara’s husband, the thane.

During the fighting Hyara herself had climbed up onto the wagon steps, and now she blocked the stranger’s way. “Do you mean harm to the women or children here?” she asked. “We will fight you if we must.”

“I do not hurt women,” he growled. “I do not hurt children. I want answers only. I seek my mother, the woman called Vorzheva.”

“By all the gods and all the saints of Sacred Mother Church!” Hyara was so astounded she muddled her prayers together again. “Vorzheva? You are my sister’s child?”