I cast my thoughts desperately for an excuse to stay a bit longer in the light and warmth of the small home. “I’ve no real food to share. But I still have tea left in my panniers.”

“Tea?” Her eyes were distant. “I haven’t tasted tea since…well, since we left Old Thares to follow Rig’s coffle.”

“I’ll get it,” I offered instantly. I rose, moving my bulk carefully through the flimsy furnishings of the small room and out the rattly door into the chill night.

I’d left Clove picketed in an alley to get whatever graze he could on the coarse grass and weeds there. Now I moved him into what had once been someone’s home. He barely fit through the door, but he seemed grateful to be out of the wind and rain. I’d stowed my panniers and tack there earlier. Now, considering the desperate poverty of Amzil’s neighbors, I decided to take my panniers with me into the house.

I set them on the floor in the middle of her room, and knelt down beside them. Her children crowded close as I opened them and rummaged inside. Amzil stood back but looked no less curious. I found the block of black tea. As I opened its wrapper, Amzil caught her breath as if I were unveiling treasure. She had already put a kettle of water to heat, and it seemed a year before the water bubbled to a boil. She had no teapot, so we used my own small kettle to brew the tea. The children huddled around it as if they were worshipping it as Amzil poured the boiling water over the shriveled leaves. The delightful aroma of brewing tea blossomed with the steam. “The leaves are unrolling!” her son, Sem, exclaimed in wonder. We waited in silent anticipation for the tea to brew. Then Amzil ladled out bowls for each of us. I lowered myself carefully to the dirt floor, to join the children in their half-circle around the fire. I cupped the bowl in my hands, feeling the warmth of the liquid though the rough pottery.

Even the baby, Dia, had a small bowl of tea. She sampled it, scowled at its dark taste, and then watched the rest of us sipping. She sipped again, pursing pink baby lips over its bitterness. I smiled at her solemn expression as she imitated us. The child wore a simple robe, obviously sewn from the remnants of an adult’s garment. It was well made, but the rough cloth looked more suited to a man’s trousers than a little girl’s robe. Amzil cleared her throat. I looked away from her baby to find Amzil frowning at me warily.

“So. You came here from Old Thares,” I said, when the silence began to feel awkward.

“That we did.” She didn’t sound inclined to talk.

“You’re a long way from home, then. It must be very different for you here.” I prodded her with words, trying to start a conversation. She turned the tactic against me.

“Have you ever been to Old Thares?”

“I have. I went to school there for a season.” I would not mention the academy. I had no desire to tell the long tale of why I was no longer there.

“School. Ah. Never been myself. And if you were in a school, you never saw my city.” She was adamant.

“I didn’t?” I asked cautiously.

“Do you know the part of town down by the river docks? Some folk call it the Rats’ Nests?”

I shook my head, inviting her to go on.

“Well, that’s where I come from. I lived all my life there, until I come here. My father was a ragpicker. My mother sewed. She could take old rags my father gathered, wash and press them, and turn them into the best things you ever saw. She taught me. A lot of folks throw away stuff that just needs a good washing and a bit of mending to be fine again. Some will throw out a whole shirt for a stain down the sleeve, as if you couldn’t make something nice out of the part that was good. Rich people waste a lot of things.” She said it self-righteously, as if challenging me to disagree. I said nothing.

She sipped from her tea, then admitted, “My husband was a thief.” Her mouth twisted on the word. “He was a thief like his father and grandfather before him. He used to laugh and say that it was the good god’s will that he follow in his father’s footsteps. When our boy was born, he even talked about how he would teach him to cut purses when he was older. But then Rig was caught and the choice was put to him—lose his hand or come east to work on the King’s Road.”

She sighed. “It’s my fault we’re here. I talked him into coming east. They made it sound so good. Hard work for my husband for two years, but then our own home in the town that they’d build along the King’s Road. They made it sound so good. We’d have own little house and garden in town, and land of our own outside of town. They told us any man could learn to hunt and that made meat free, and with what we’d grow in our garden, we’d never be short of food again. And they said the King’s Road would flow golden with travelers and trade, right past our door. I imagined that we would have a wonderful new life.”

She pursed her lips and stared into the fire. For a moment, caught in that old dream, she looked much younger, and with a jolt I realized she probably wasn’t much older than I was. Her musing look changed to a scowl. “It’s getting late,” she warned me without looking at me.

It wasn’t just that I feared she would send me away from the fireside. I truly wanted to hear the rest of her tale. I steeled myself to the loss and then said, “I’ve a tiny bit of sugar left in my panniers. Shall we have one last cup of sweet tea to end the night?”

“Sugar!” the elder girl said in wonder. The other two children looked puzzled.

Thus I bought myself a longer stay by the fire. Amzil pulled her chair closer to the hearth and told out her sad tale: the long miserable journey east, camping each night by the road, the callousness of the guards who forced them on each day, the primitive conditions in the camps. I’d seen the shackled lines of prisoners moved past our home in Widevale. Summer after summer, the coffles of convict workers and their military guards had passed my home. I’d always suspected it was a miserable journey, but Amzil’s tale of hardship made it real. As she spoke, her elder daughter’s face grew grave, obviously reliving those memories with her mother.

“We traveled to the end of the road. There was just a work camp here, with other men working off their crimes. There was no town with little houses and gardens for us! Just canvas stretched over boards and rough huts and dirt and work. Tents to sleep in, ditches to piss in, and the river for hauling water. Some new life! But they told us we were ‘home’ now, that it was up to us to make it into a town. They gave each household some canvas and some basic food and tools, and my husband and I put up what shelter we could. And the next morning, they put the men to work on the King’s Road, and left the families to cope as best we could.”

By day, the men left their families to go to work on the road. By night, they returned, too tired to do anything more than sleep. “Or curse,” Amzil said wearily. “My husband often cursed the liars who’d brought us here. Toward the end, Rig cursed me, too, for believing their lies and wanting to come. It was all my fault, he said. He said that even with one hand, he could have provided better for us in Old Thares.

“While they were building this stretch of road, it wasn’t too bad. It was noisy and dusty, of course. Heavy wagons and big horses everywhere. They dug and scraped and leveled and measured the land over and over. It seemed silly to me, the way they dug down into the earth to set down big stones, and then filled up between them with smaller stuff. And the amount of time they spent tamping it down! Why the road couldn’t just be a wide path, I don’t know. But they built it up in what everyone started calling an agger, with a lot of gravel, and all sorts of men with measuring sticks, always worrying about leveling things and making drains. I never knew what all went into a road before then.” Amzil’s dark hair had pulled free of the string she used to tie it back. It was feathering around her face, blending her features with the shadows behind her.