His backpack was full. He pulled the drawstring tight. She’d never seen that pack before; probably ship’s gear. He picked another fruit, took a bite of it and then asked, ‘So, for you, it wasn’t about proving yourself and then being able to break their rules? Get married, have babies.’

She thought about it. ‘No. Not really. Just making them admit that I deserved to live might have been enough for me.’ She turned her head and added, ‘I don’t think I really focused on the “get married, have babies” part of it. The rules about us were just the rules about us.’

‘Not for Greft,’ he said, shaking his head. He’d finished the fruit. He put the whole seed in his mouth, chewed on it for a moment, and then spat it out.

‘Greft and his new rules,’ she muttered to herself.

‘You never wanted to live without the rules they put on you? Just do what you wanted to do?’

‘The rules are different for me than for him,’ she said slowly.

‘How?’

‘Well, he’s male. Women like me just about as often as we give birth to children that can’t or shouldn’t survive, we don’t survive ourselves. The rules about not having husbands or having children, my father said they were there to protect me as much as anything else.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘Greft changes the rules, it’s no risk for him, is it? He’s not the one who’s going to go into labour out here with no midwife. He’s not the one who’ll have to deal with a baby that can’t survive. I don’t think he’s ever wondered what he’s going to do with that baby if Jerd dies and the baby lives.’

‘How can you think of such things?’ Tats was aghast.

‘How can you not think of them?’ she retorted. She let go of the vine, and settled her carry-bag on her shoulder. She stared out through the leaves at the distant shore. After a time, in a quieter voice she said, ‘It’s all very well for Greft to talk about new rules. It infuriates me when he says that I “must make my choice soon” as if my only choice is choosing which male. To him, it probably seems so simple. There’s no authority out here to tell him that he can’t do a thing, so he does it. And he never thinks about the reason that rule came to be. To him, it’s just a bar that keeps him from doing what he wants.’

She turned her head to look at him. ‘Can you see that for me, it’s just another rule that he’s talking about putting on me? His rule is that I have to choose a mate. “For the good of all the keepers”, to keep boys from fighting over me. How is that better than the old rule?’

When he didn’t answer, she glanced back out over the river. ‘You know, I just now realized something, Jerd and Greft, they think that breaking the rules is the same as proving themselves. To me, breaking an old rule doesn’t mean anything except that they broke a rule. I don’t think Jerd is braver or stronger or more capable because she did it. In fact, right now, with a baby growing in her belly, she’s more vulnerable. More dependent on the rest of us, regardless of how hard it makes it. So. What does that prove about Jerd? Or the boys who slept with her?’

In unfolding her thought, she’d forgotten to whom she was speaking. The stunned look on Tats’ face stopped her words. She wanted to apologize, to say she hadn’t meant it. But her tongue couldn’t find the lie. After a few moment of his silence, she said quietly, ‘My bag is full. Let’s take what we have back to the barge.’

He bobbed his head in a brusque nod of agreement, not looking at her. Had she shamed him? Made him angry? Suddenly it all just made her tired, and she didn’t want to understand him or have him understand her. It was all too much trouble. It was so much easier being alone. She stood and led the way back.

She was only about three trees away from where they had left the boat when she saw Nortel coming up a trunk towards them. She halted where she was, moving back on the branch to make room for him. He came up fast and when he reached the branch he halted there, looking from her to Tats and back again, breathing hard with the effort of his climb. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded. Thymara bridled at the unexpected question.

‘Picking fruit,’ Tats replied before she could say anything.

‘How can you think that’s fair?’ he asked Tats. ‘You heard what Greft said. We all agreed. She gets to make her decision and then we all abide by it.’

‘I didn’t—’ Tats began, but Thymara raised a sudden hand, halting his words. She looked from one to the other. ‘What Greft said,’ she repeated, making the words a demand for clarification.

Nortel let his gaze settle on Thymara. ‘He said we all had to play fair, and not take advantage of your situation.’ He shifted his eyes back to Tats. ‘But that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Taking advantage of being old friends, of her mourning Rapskal. You’re using every excuse to be around her all the time. Not letting anyone else even get the chance to talk to her.’

‘I went with her to pick fruit. We’ve lost a lot of hunting equipment. We need to gather what food we can, while we can.’ Tats spoke in a flat voice. His words were reasonable but the sparks in his eyes were not. They were, she suddenly knew, a challenge. She saw how Nortel swelled his chest and she saw a pale lavender light kindle behind the green of his eyes. He reminded her, she suddenly thought, of his dragon and suddenly recognized what she was seeing; here was a male, come to challenge all comers for the right to be her mate. A strange thrill went through her. Her heart leapt and raced and she felt her skin flush.

‘Stop it,’ she growled low, to herself as much as to the males. She did not have to turn to know that Tats was responding to Nortel’s challenge. ‘I don’t care what stupid things Greft says. He can’t set rules about who talks to me or when. Nor can he insist that I make some “decision” that exists only in his mind. I have no intention of choosing anyone. Not now, perhaps not ever.’

Nortel licked his narrow lips and then accused Tats, ‘You said something to her, didn’t you? Something to set her against the idea.’

‘No I didn’t!’

‘Nortel! Talk to me, not him!’

His eyes shifted between them. ‘That’s exactly what I’d like to do. Leave, Tats. Thymara wants to talk with me.’

‘Make me.’

‘Stop it!’ She hated that her voice rose to a shriek and broke on the words. She sounded hysterical and frightened, when in truth she was angry. ‘I don’t want this,’ she said and tried to make her voice calm and reasonable. ‘This isn’t going to convince me of anything.’

It was as if she hadn’t spoken. Nortel squared his shoulders and leaned slightly to one side to stare past her at Tats. ‘I can make you, if that’s how you want it,’ he offered.

‘Let’s find out, then.’

She was suddenly disgusted with both of them. ‘Fight if you want to,’ she declared, it won’t prove anything to me or anyone else. And it won’t change anything.’

She tucked her carry-bag tight to her ribs, measured the distance to the next lower branch and leapt. It was not that far of a leap, and her claws were out and ready. Perhaps it was the bag that threw her balance off. In any case, she landed slightly off centre on the branch, slipped and, with an outraged cry, was suddenly falling.

She only fell perhaps a dozen feet before her outstretched hands caught another branch. With a practice born of years, she dug in claws, swung herself around and was suddenly up and on it. Even so, she hunkered down, teeth gritted against the pain in her back. When she’d missed her grip and twisted, in her panic her back muscles had spasmed. The wound on her back felt as if it had torn. Her injury had not been comfortable but at least it had been quiescent and perhaps beginning to heal. Now it felt not only torn but as if something were jammed in it. She reached back a cautious hand, but found that the motion hurt too badly for her to complete it. She couldn’t even touch it to see if it was bleeding.