“It’s been a long, hard winter,” I agreed.

Livak pointed to a blue circle at the side of the road. “That’s a good place to stop and water the beasts; people tend to gather there before crossing the Heath.”

“I wonder if we might get some scent of the Elietimm there?” I wondered aloud.

“It’s a thought,” Shiv nodded. “They should be easy enough to trace; they’ll stick out like the stones on a stag hound in Caladhria.”

Livak shifted next to me. “Tell me, Shiv, do Caladhrians think it’s just unlucky to go beyond the district where you’re kin to at least half the population, or is it actually considered immoral?”

“Oh, both,” Shiv assured her cheerfully.

Livak sniffed but I saw a faint smile tease the corner of her lips. “Wizards travel in style, do they?” She stared disparagingly at the neat little vehicle. “Where did you get this?”

“Short Merrick,” Halice slapped the harness horse on the rump and climbed awkwardly up on the seat.

“So what was he doing with it? It doesn’t look as if he’s been using it to haul turnips.”

“It seems his late wife was from Abray, where the roads are rather better and she’d learned ambitions beyond her husband’s station in life,” Halice said dryly. I was relieved to see her and Livak share a tentative grin.

“It’s pretty gimcrack work,” Livak sniffed, picking at a piece of loose inlay.

“And who are you to say so?” Viltred looked down at Livak with patent irritation.

“A wagon is joinery, mage, only with wheels on it. I grew up polishing the most expensive furniture in Vanam and that makes me the best judge of woodwork you’ll find around here.” Livak set her hands on her hips and cocked her head back to stare boldly up at him.

“You’ll be riding Viltred’s horse, then, Livak,” Shiv said hurriedly. “Come on, the weather’s holding and we should make the high road by noon if we set off now.”

Halice soon had her hands full with the harness horse, which had evidently recovered from whatever it had been fed to sweeten its mood. Viltred proved not to have much of a sense of humor about nearly getting tipped into the hedge and to start we rode largely in silence. As the morning wore on, Halice got the measure of the beast and, to my relief, some conversation started. I was not looking forward to riding three hundred leagues with four people who weren’t talking to each other, and I was missing Aiten yet again.

“It’ll be a relief to get on to a decent highway,” I commented to Livak as we negotiated a particularly soggy slough under a canopy of early leaves.

“I’ll say,” she agreed, coaxing her mount around the puddles. “Anyone who let his trees overgrow the road like this back home would be paying the Merchants’ Conclave a hefty fine.”

With trade the life blood of Vanam and the other great city states of Ensaimin, that was hardly surprising. Still, she had a point; Messire D’Olbriot has a Highway Reeve who spends six seasons out of the eight criss-crossing his lands and making sure repairs are made to the roads, but Caladhrian Lords don’t seem to see their responsibilities in the same way, flapping their lips in that Parliament of theirs like blackfishers drying their wings on the quay side. On the other hand they’re quick enough to agree things like this new hearth tax of theirs, another way to plunder the peasantry and keep their ladies in satins.

“Shiv tells me it’s considered quite respectable for Caladhrian ladies to pay social calls in an ox-cart, the local tracks can be so bad.” I shook my head, still not quite sure if he had been tugging my hood with that one.

Livak smiled fleetingly. “Still, I do like to see trees left to grow tall, not always coppiced and confined.”

I nodded and wondered if that was a reflection of her Forest blood. It was always going to be an issue between us, one way or another, wasn’t it? It may be an old joke but, from everything I’ve seen, it’s undeniably true that the only way to get a Forest dweller stopped in one place is to nail his foot to the floor. The Great Forest may be clean across on the far side of the Old Empire, separating the western reaches of Ensaimin from the kingdom of Solura, but Forest minstrels have always been a common enough sight in Formalin. Few other people would travel that distance simply out of curiosity and wanderlust.

I remembered what she had told me the previous year, before questions of loyalty and independence had divided us. Livak’s father had been one of the Forest Folk, seducing her housemaid mother when the Western Road through Ensaimin brought him to the great city of Vanam. From what I had gathered he had stayed around while Livak was small, long enough to teach her more of her heritage than she seemed to realize through the songs of their race that would sing her to sleep. He had given up the struggle in her middle childhood though, leaving her mother with only the child as a reminder of the bitter loss of her lover, facing the derision of her family alone. It was no wonder that Livak had a jaundiced view of family life.

On reflection, Livak’s refusal to spend the Solstice with me had probably been for the best. Persuading my mother to calm down after hearing a highly edited version of our little excursion the previous year had been hard enough. I don’t really think it would have been the ideal time to introduce her to a lover dressed in my spare jerkin and breeches, with a past that defied polite description. Mother still hopes that one of us will bring home a gently reared girl, with her own embroidery on her skirts and suitably long plaits for Drianon’s altar. That’s fine by me, as long as it’s one of my brothers who does the honors. Hansey or Ridner can lay their mallets and chisels aside for long enough, if Mistal’s too busy with his studies.

“I have business of my own in Relshaz, you know,” said Livak abruptly, some while later. “If Shiv’s managed to talk Halice into his schemes, I might as well travel that far with you all. As you say, the roads can be risky on your own.”

This was none too convincing coming from a woman who’d left home barely out of girlhood with no more than the clothes on her back.

“What business, exactly?” I inquired, tone mildly interested. I hoped it wasn’t anything too dishonest. There were aspects of Livak’s livelihood that sat ill with my conscience.

“There’s a man called Arle Cordainer,” Livak’s eyes were distant and cold.

“What’s he to you?”

“He owes me,” replied Livak crisply. “He’s a deception man, one of the best because he makes sure he’s set someone else up in line for the pillory or the gallows if things go wrong. The four of us nearly ended up swinging for him in Selerima a year or so ago; he couldn’t have dropped us in more shit if he’d left us neck deep in a privy-pit.”

“You think you’ll find him in Relshaz?”

“I saw him on the River Road just after Equinox.” Livak’s face was intent. “He was all dressed up like a Formalin silk trader and wearing a full beard, but I never forget a pair of hands or ears.”

I nodded encouragingly and wondered if this Cordainer knew Raeponin was about to demand a reckoning from him to balance the ledgers of justice.

“I will come as far as Relshaz with you,” continued Livak briskly. “I want to make sure Shiv does right by Halice, if nothing else. I still don’t trust wizards, say what you like.”

Now we were getting to the truth of her change of heart, I decided.

“If we get a scent of these Ice Island thieves, I’ll do what I can to get Viltred’s treasures back, just as long as I’m sure it’s worth the risk. If the wizards owe me for that, they can pay the debt by straightening Halice’s leg.” Livak scowled at the pair of mages ahead of us but the anger in her eyes shaded to hurt when she gazed at Halice’s back. “That should settle any accounts between her and me. Shiv gets one draw of the runes and that’s it, though. If there’s any hint of the kind of trouble we were landed in last time, I’ll be out of there faster than a cat caught at the cream pan.”