"Good day."

He used the same tone as he used with the wagon driver-polite but businesslike. There were more wagons coming up behind her and he was busy. She returned the greeting in kind.

The dark Ander hair at his neck was damp from sweat. It was probably hot in his heavy uniform. He lifted a hand and pointed.

"Over there. Second building on the right." He gave her a wink. "Good luck."

She nodded her thanks and hurried between horses, before they closed up and she'd have to go all the way around. She narrowly missed stepping in fresh manure with her bare feet. Crowds of people were going in every direction. Horses and wagons made their way up and down the streets. It smelled of sweat, horses, leather, dust, dung, and the new wheat growing all around.

Beata had never been anyplace but Fairfield before. It was intimidating, but it was also exciting.

She found the second building on the right easy enough. Inside an Ander woman was sitting behind a desk writing on a rumpled, well-used piece of paper. She had a whole stack of papers to one side of her desk, some well worn and some fresh-looking. When the woman looked up, Beata curtsied.

"Afternoon, dear." She gave Beata a look up and down, as the guard had done. "Long walk?"

"From Fairfield, ma'am."

The woman set down her dipping pen. "Fairfield! Then it was a long walk. No wonder you're covered in dust."

Beata nodded. "Six days, ma'am." A frown crept onto the woman's face. She looked to be a woman who frowned a lot. "Why did you come here, then, if you're from Fairfield? There were any number of closer stations."

Beata knew that. She didn't want a closer station. She wanted to be far away from Fairfield. Far away from trouble. Inger had told her to come here, to the twenty-third.

"I worked for a man named Inger, ma'am. He's a butcher. When I told him what I wanted, he said he'd been here and knew there to be good people here. It was upon his counsel I came here, ma'am."

She smiled with one side of her mouth. "Don't recall a butcher named Inger, but he must have been here, because he's right about our people here."

Beata set down her bag and pulled out the letter. "Like I said, he counseled I come here, ma'am."

He counseled her to get far away from Fairfield, and this place was. She feared stepping closer to the desk, so she leaned forward and stretched to hand her precious letter to the woman.

"He sent this letter of introduction."

The woman unfolded the letter and leaned back to read it. Watching her eyes going along each line, Beata tried to remember Inger's words. She "was sorry to find the exact words fading. It wouldn't be long before she recalled only the main thrust of Inger's words.

The woman set down the letter. "Well, Master Inger seems to think a great deal of you, young lady. Why would you want to leave a job where you got along so well?"

Beata hadn't been expecting to have anyone ask her why she wanted to do this. She thought briefly, and quickly decided to be honest, but not too honest.

"This has always been my dream, ma'am. I guess that a person has to try out their dream sometime. No use in living your life and never trying your dream."

"And why is it your dream?"

"Because I want to do good. And because the Mi… the Minister made it so, women would be respected here. So they'd be equal."

"The Minister is a great man."

Beata swallowed her pride. Pride did a person no good; it only held them back.

"Yes, ma'am. He is. Everyone respects the Minister. He passed the law allowing Haken women to serve along with the Ander men and women. That law also says all must show respect to those Haken women who serve our land. Haken women owe him a great debt. Minister Chanboor is a hero to all Haken women."

The woman regarded her without emotion. "And you had man trouble. Am I right? Some man wouldn't keep his 'hands off you, and you finally had enough and finally got up the courage to leave."

Beata cleared her throat. "Yes, ma'am. That's true. But what I told you about this always being my dream is true, too. The man just decided it for me sooner, that's all. It's still my dream, if you'll have me."

The woman smiled. "Very good. What's your name, then?"

"Beata, ma'am."

"Very good, Beata. We try to follow Minister Chanboor's example here, and do good."

"That's why I came, ma'am; so I could do good."

"I'm Lieutenant Yarrow. You call me Lieutenant."

"Yes, ma-Lieutenant. So… may I join?"

Lieutenant Yarrow pointed with her pen. "Pick up that sack over there."

Beata hoisted the burlap sack. It felt like it was loosely filled with firewood. She curled a wrist under it and held it against a hip with one arm.

"Yes, Lieutenant? What would you like done with it?"

"Put it up on your shoulder."

Beata hoisted it up and curved her arm around and forward over the sack so it would bulge up the muscle and the wood wouldn't rest on her shoulder bone. She stood waiting.

"All right," Lieutenant Yarrow said. "You can put it down."

Beata set it back where it had been.

"You pass," the lieutenant said. "Congratulations. Your dream just came true. You're in the Anderith army. Hakens can never be completely cleansed of their nature, but here you will be valued and be able to do good."

Beata felt a sudden swell of pride. She couldn't help it.

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

The lieutenant waggled her pen, pointing it back over her shoulder. "Out back, down the alleyway to the end, just below the rampart, you will find a midden heap. Take your bag out there and throw it on with the rest of the offal."

Beata stood in mute shock. Her mother's shoes were in there. They were expensive. Her mother and father had saved for years to buy those shoes. There were keepsakes in her bag, given by her friends. Beata held back tears.

"Am I to throw out the food Inger sent, too, Lieutenant?"

"The food, too."

Beata knew that if an Ander woman told her to do it, then it was right and she had to do it.

"Yes, Lieutenant. May I be excused, then, to see to it?"

The woman appraised her for a moment. Her tone softened a little. "It's for your own good, Beata. Those things are from your old life. It won't do you any good to be reminded of your old life. The sooner you forget it, food included, the better."

"Yes, Lieutenant, I understand." Beata forced herself to be bold. "The letter, ma'am? May I keep the letter Inger sent with me?"

Lieutenant Yarrow looked down at the letter on her desk. She finally folded it twice and handed it back.

"Since it's a letter of recommendation and not a memento of your old life, you may keep it. You earned it with your years of service to the man."

Beata touched the pin that held closed her collar at her throat-the one with the spiral end, the one Pitch had returned to her. Her father had given it to her when she was young, before he had died from a fever. She had lost it when the Minister and that beast, Stein, pulled it out and tossed it away into the hall so they could open her dress and have a look at her.

'The pin, Lieutenant Yarrow? Should I throw it away, too?"

As she had watched her father making the simple pin, he had told — her it represented how everything was all connected, even if you couldn't see it from where you stood, and how if you could follow everything round and round, someday it would all come to a point. He told her to always keep her dreams, and if she did good, the dreams would come round to her, even if it was in the afterlife and it was the good spirits themselves answered the wishes. She knew it was a silly children's story, but she liked it.

The lieutenant squinted as she peered at the pin. "Yes. From now on, the people of Anderith will provide everything you require."