“Likari will go with us. And he will be seen as one of my feeders, and treated as one of my feeders, with honor and respect.”

“What will they think of you, having a youngster in such an important position?” Olikea objected.

“They will think,” Soldier’s Boy replied heavily, “that I am a Great One who does things differently. One who has a different vision and would lead the People in a new direction. Now is not too soon for them to become accustomed to that idea.”

The tone he used effectively put an end to the conversation. Olikea sat back slightly and considered me as if she had never seen me before. Perhaps, I thought to myself, perhaps she knows now that it is not Nevare she speaks to, no matter how she names him.

The table servants reached us. We rose then, but slowly, stretching and telling one another what an excellent meal we had enjoyed. Olikea was very particular as she spoke to the servants who would carry our possessions. They had brought a beast of burden as she had charged them. It was a strange animal to my eyes, dun colored, with toes rather than hooves, a skinny body compared to a horse, a drooping sad face and long flopping ears. I heard her call it a quaya. When she was satisfied as to how they had loaded our possessions, she left them and walked ahead to our lantern bearer.

“You may guide us now,” she told him.

He gave us an uncertain look, as if he could not decide whether to be haughty or humble. When I got closer to him, I realized that although he was as tall as a grown man, he was still a youth. Soldier’s Boy frowned. Olikea was right. There was a slight insult in that they had not sent any full-fledged adult with the invitation.

Our bearers had brought their own lanterns, so Olikea deigned that Kinrove’s lantern carrier would walk well ahead of us. I think it was so that she could converse freely without worrying that he would eavesdrop.

He set an easy pace, perhaps because he was accustomed to the unhurried gait of a Great One. We followed, and once we had left the loose sand of the beach we struck a surprisingly good track. It was level and wide enough for a cart, let alone pedestrians.

“Are not you going to thank me?” Olikea asked after we had gone some small ways. Likari had fallen behind, fascinated with the quaya and its handler, so they had a small measure of privacy.

Her tone had made it plain that he owed her thanks for some special feat of cleverness. “For what would I be thanking you?” Soldier’s Boy demanded.

“For making Kinrove take notice of you so swiftly.”

Soldier’s Boy felt a prickle of surprise. “It was my intent that he notice me. For that reason only, I came here to trade.”

“And not because you might find yourself shivering in the cold as soon as the rains of winter began, of course!” Then she dropped her sarcasm and said, “No matter what you brought to trade, Kinrove would have remained aloof to you. No. It was not what we traded with or what we bought, but what we refused to trade that brought this swift invitation to meet him.”

He did not need to think long. “The Ivory Babe. The fertility charm.”

Olikea smiled smugly in the darkness. “Kinrove has six feeders. Six. But of them, there is only one who has been with him since the beginning of his days as a Great Man. It has taken her much work to remain his favorite and to keep his attentions to herself. But Galea grows older, and she has never borne him a child. She knows that if she does not soon produce the baby that he desires, he will turn to another feeder, to see if she cannot serve him better. She grows desperate with her need to become pregnant in order to keep his favor.”

Soldier’s Boy slowly processed this thought. “So we are invited tonight not because Kinrove wishes to meet me but so that his feeder can find a way to persuade you to give her the Ivory Child.”

“So she thinks!” Olikea exclaimed happily.

“I do not wish to part with that item,” he told her firmly. “It means much to me.”

She turned to look at him in the dim and shifting light cast by the lantern bearer. Soldier’s Boy glanced at her and away. “It would please you if I bore you a child?” she asked. Her delight was evident in her voice.

Soldier’s Boy was startled and spoke perhaps more harshly than he intended. “It would not please me to trade away something that Lisana treasured as much as she treasured the Ivory Child. It was important to her. I would keep it to honor her memory.”

Olikea took half a dozen more strides in silence and then said with sharp bitterness, “It would serve you better if you learned to value the efforts of a woman who is here rather than preferring your memories of someone who is a tree now.”

I heard the hurt behind her harsh words. Soldier’s Boy heard only the disrespect to Lisana and the other tree elders.

“I suppose you must strive to be important now,” he said sharply. “For you know you will never earn a tree for yourself.”

“And you think that you will?” she retorted angrily. “Remember, at the end, a Great One is at the mercy of his feeders. Perhaps you should seek to build a bond and some loyalty, so that when your time comes, there will be someone to take your body to a sapling and fasten it correctly and watch over you until the tree welcomes you.”

That was as savage a threat as any Speck could ever offer to a Great One. I felt his shock that she would dare say such a thing reverberate through our shared soul. I would have, I think, sought to mollify the woman, as much for the deep injury she obviously felt as for my own future well-being. But Soldier’s Boy said only, “You are not my only feeder, Olikea.”

They both fell silent. Darkness was closing in around us now, making it difficult to see the terrain we crossed. We followed the beach, but our path gradually led us farther and farther away from it until the crash of the incoming waves was a muted whisper. Our trail took us up a gentle rise through an open field, and still not a word was spoken between the two.

So it was that they were at odds as we approached Kinrove’s encampment. I had pictured a campsite with tents and cook fires. When we crested the small hill, what we looked down on was far more like the temporary encampments that a military force on the move might set up. It was a small town of folk, with a perimeter marked by torches and straight streets between the sturdy pavilions. It was also, I perceived, a substantial walk away, and even though our journey would be downhill, the darkness was deepening every moment and my legs were already weary from the long day of standing and walking. I could feel Soldier’s Boy’s displeasure at the situation. A sound like distant music, oddly muffled, reached us.

A few more steps, and the sensation was not mere displeasure. A sudden wave of dizziness swept over him, followed by the clench of nausea. He groaned suddenly and halted, swaying. Strange to say, the lantern bearer leading us had already stopped. Even as Soldier’s Boy took long, deep breaths to counteract his queasiness, the man lifted his lantern and waved it in three slow arcs over his head. Then he grounded it again and waited. The vertigo swirled Soldier’s Boy around again and then, just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Soldier’s Boy took a deep gasping breath of relief and next to me Olikea did the same. As he recovered, a question came to me, one that I thought desperately important. I pushed it strongly at Soldier’s Boy. “He guards his boundaries. Why? What does he fear?”

I could not tell if I’d reached him or not. He made no response to me.

For the first time, our lantern bearer spoke directly to us.

“Kinrove’s guardians will admit us now. Kinrove, Greatest of the Great Ones, will quick-walk all of us to his pavilion.”