Heavy eyelids cracked open, big brown eyes blinked once, twice, then opened fully. The small nose twitched and the lips moved once in the all too familiar sign of those in great thirst.

Water.

The little girl sat up stiffly. Dust covered her small brown face and arms and her pale green sari was caked in mud. The beautiful silk cloth was dirty, torn and wasted, just like the little girl. Mud and dust clung to her hair and her small feet. Her woven sandals were now gone, lost somewhere in this desert.

Desert.

The little girl was painful. She could see bruises on her arms, turning black and blue. She shuddered as she slowly caressed her left arm, her mind going back to reason she was out here. She gritted her teeth in fury, thinking.

The desert man was asking about the golden goblet that she held, holding out a handful of rupees to her. She was shaking her head, holding the goblet out of his grasp… now he was gesturing wildly, shouting silently, snatching for the cup, grabbing her wrist. Now she was tearing her wrist away from him, biting his own wrist hard… her father was snatching at them. The man suddenly drew his sword and…

The girl’s eyes snapped open and she was back to the present. No, she would not relive the past, for it was gone, gone… she silently shook her small fist at the sky. Oh Varuna, take these thoughts from me. Cleanse me, oh god of the universe… Now tears fell down her cheeks.

“You can’t stay here thinking about Papa Raziya,” she muttered to herself. Keep talking to yourself, she thought. Maybe now the thoughts will flee you and save you madness.

Madness.

“I’ll go mad out here Varuna, I’ll go mad!” she screamed suddenly at the sky. She leaped up, shaking violently, then fell back over. Her legs hurt too much to walk and tears of pain and anguish ran down her dusty cheeks, leaving fresh muddy trails.

Her father fell heavily. The desert man was laughing, slapping Raziya and shouting. She let go of his hand and was dragged backward. She began to fight hard, knowing her life depended on it. She jabbed her attackers with her sharp little elbows, crunched the foot of another attacker and twisting the thumb of a third savagely. Two let go of her, however, the second one hung onto her. She bit down into his hand, let go then turned and grabbing his nose, jerking it hard to the left. Bone splintering, screaming… now she was running…

 “Don’t think about it any more Raziya!”

Her eyes flew open and she staggered to her sore feet, startled by her own harsh voice in her ears. She wobbled unsteadily, but caught her balance. Glaring ahead of her, she could see, in the far, shimmering distance, mountain peaks rising to kiss the gray sky above. She could hear nothing but the austerity of her breathing. The silence hurt her small ears and she covered them. Still, the pounding of the silence resounded, as if trying to deafen her.

It was amazing what fear can do to you. Raziya found herself running from the tents of her grassland tribe, ever faster. Being the daughter of a raja, a respected tribe leader and Kshatriya, she wasn’t used to running, but riding on the backs of Lower Sudras, their slaves. But now her father lay lifeless back in the council tent and the raja of the Desert Tribe, Baylin, was raja of her tribe and after her. She could hear the pounding of hooves in the distance…

Raziya’s eyes had been open as she envisioned herself running from Baylin’s men. She shook herself slightly and began to walk. Where? Toward the distant mountain peaks.

Soon her side began to ache and the little girl collapsed. All she could think about was water and her breath came out in sharp, shallow gasps. The hoof beats were closer and she willed herself to stand and stumble on. She could hear men laughing and suddenly, she was swept off the ground by the back of her dress. The laughing was now in her ear, then a rough voice. “Look what I caught! The raja’s little monster!”

“I’m no monster! Lemme go!” Raziya shouted. “I want my daddy!”

The man holding her guffawed. “Aw, the monster wants ‘er daddy!” He shifted in his mount’s saddle. “What shall we do with ‘er Abdul?”

“Baylin said to finish the child off in the desert. It’s not too far ahead,” a hardened voice said.

“Huh, won’t be sad to see ‘er gone,” someone muttered. “She done gone and broke ole Boe’s thum’ an’ Valin’s nose!”

The second man snorted, then stirred his mount. “Yes, I agree Abdul. Okay men, move out!”

Raziya was tied swiftly and roughly to the horse’s saddle with thick, slicing rope and away they rode. Lying between the war-horse’s rump and the man’s broad back, bouncing up and down with every step, she screamed and kicked, howling to the skies that shut themselves to her…

Raziya sank onto the hard ground to rest. She had walked naught but a few feet and yet she was footsore and weary. “I’m not recovered from yesterday,” she grumbled, standing up again painfully. However, recovered or not, she was going to force herself on.

The men were well into the Thar Desert. Finally, Raziya was untied and thrown roughly to the ground. She painfully rose, only to find herself knocked down again as a sharp whack from a sword. Them men were laughing and jeering at her, hitting her with the ends of spears and flat sides of swords. She suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore. If they were going to kill her, she was going to take one of them with her.

She leaped at the nearest man, knocking him off his horse. The animal went wild and began to gallop about. Raziya heaved herself onto the horse’s back and taking the reins, willed it to turn. In its wild rush, the horse obeyed and ran right over the man. He screamed in agony and Raziya recognized the voice as the man who’d snatched her up. She grinned and turned the horse around again, running over him.

“Get her blockheads!” The shout was hoarse and tired, Raziya knew the horse had done fatal damage. She laughed to the skies, thanking Indra, god of war, in a loud, happy voice when...

Whack!

Stunned, Raziya fell off the horse and crumpled onto the hard ground. The last thing she heard before she fell out was these harsh words, “No little girl can live after a blow like that. C’mon men, gather Mil and let’s move out!”

Raziya shook herself, but grinned despite herself. No little girl could live after that blow? Well, he had underestimated the nine-year-old, for she lived.

However, the grin was wiped from her dusty young face when she remembered her father. She looked toward the mountain, gritting her small teeth. She had to get home and destroy Baylin… in memory of her father.

She smiled slightly, envisioning her sweet revenge on the wicked raja, and how his screams would last into eternity…

“Oof…”

The rock brought her back to reality. She had to get somewhere, fast. She needed food, water, shoes, another sari, or even better, a Sikh… maybe there would be a town near the mountains in the distance. Maybe.


That night, instead of finding a good place to lie down and rest, Raziya collapsed onto her side, breathing heavily, her small legs shaking. The temperature had dropped drastically and she huddled up on the ground, wrapping her rags not fit to be called clothes about her. She gazed up at the starlit sky, shuddering. Then, with a deep sigh, hoping to stop the pangs of hunger in her small stomach, she drifted off into a hard, dreamless sleep.


“Girl. You there. Get up.”

Raziya’s eyes flew open and she found herself staring into the kind brown eyes of a man. Behind him, the dark blue sky was once again light blue with the morning. The sun shone brightly down on her face and she squinted.

“Y-y-you h-h-have n-n-no right… right… t-t-ta talk to me that-“ She shuddered and tried to continue her little speech through violently chattering teeth.

The man smiled slightly. “Hush girl and get up. Yer nearly froze you are. Get on up, me an’ Matrika’ll take ya to our village.”

He hauled Raziya to her feet as she dusted herself off, she looked around for this Matrika. All she saw was a camel kneeling in the dust.

“Whose Matrika sir?” she asked, allowing the man lift her onto the camel’s back. The man smiled again and patted the camel’s back.

“This here be Matrika. She be a good girl, ain’t ya girl?”

The camel snorted as the man climbed onto her hump then kicked her slightly. “C’mon Matrika me girl, let’s go home.” The camel stood wobbly and Raziya gasped in fright and clung to the camel’s neck. The man laughed as he took up ropes about the camel’s neck.

“Ye never rode onna camel before, did’ja girl?”

“My name’s Raziya,” Raziya said coldly, though she didn’t mean it toward the man.

The man laughed, a high pitch of a thing that made the girl wince. “Eh, be that so? Well, my name be Skye. Strange name, ain’t it? Hut hut!” The camel twisted around to look at him, then started off at a slow rumble over the desert.


For two weeks, the three traversed the wide Thar Desert of India, stopping late at night to make camp. Skye had brought along one blanket and only enough food to last him from wherever he had been traveling from to his village, but he generously shared the food with Raziya and let her use the blanket as he curled up next to the camel at night.

The first time Raziya had been presented with food, she grabbed it from his hands and devoured it hungrily. By the time the man had finished his cold chepatis and was beginning to eat his bowl of saffron rice, Raziya had finished all of her food and was busily stuffing crumbs into her mouth. He looked at her and began to laugh.

“Well, you must be a hungry liddle girl. They didn’t feed ya where you come from?”

“They did,” was all the strange girl would say. She didn’t enlighten him on her past and he was kind enough not to pry. Skye smiled and reaching over to the camel, got a water bottle. He handed it to her and she sloshed water down her dry throat as she greedily guzzled the water. Remembering the man, she stopped and wiping the mouth, put the top back on and handed it back to him. He uncapped the bottle and drank some (keeping the mouthpiece far from his own mouth) then capped it again and set it beside the camel.

Raziya had already curled up near the fire and had wrapped the rags around her. She was sleep and shivering. The kind-hearted old man took the blanket from the knapsack on the camel and draped it over her small and terribly skinny frame. Immediately, her shivering stopped and her breathing became peaceful. Smiling, Skye lay next to the camel and fell asleep.


“D’ya see the village girl?” Skye asked one day. Raziya, used to the use of “girl” in place of her name, squinted into the distance. They had reached the grasslands of India, so as she stared, she could just make out, nestled in the gently flowing grass and framed by the tall, white-capped mountains, huts.

“Yes, I think I see it!” she said happily. Finally, civilization!

Skye smiled. “Aye, that’s it girl. Matrika! Faster girl, faster! Home’s ahead!”

It was noon by the time the camel stopped. Raziya leaped off her, but the man waited until Matrika was kneeling. He climbed off and taking the rope in his hand, led the camel into the village.

As they entered, people surrounded them. “Ole Skye, you’re back,” they greeted him. “How was Market? Get any good prices? Whose this?”

Suddenly, attention was on Raziya, who shrank nearer to the camel. After all that long time by herself and with Skye and Matrika, she wasn’t used to so much attention.

“Uh… hello… er…” Her voice failed her.

“Move please! Move you all! Make room for Skye’s wife!” Everyone, grinning, moved aside as a large, very large woman pushed her way through them and catching Skye up in a hug that had his feet in the air.

“Well…uh…hello…ack, yer smashin’ me… Latavia dear!” The great woman, Latavia, put her husband down, then turned to look at Raziya. “Oh Skye, who’s this?”

Raziya noticed how slender and short Skye appeared next to Latavia. Skye had more of a desert look, with his flowing robes and sandals and hat with a veil hanging down the back than Latavia, who wore a pleated skirt and a robe like shirt and had her short brown hair braided with colorful ribbons. They both had brown eyes and long noses, almost like beaks.

“I… I’m…” Raziya noticed people crowding around her as did Latavia, who scattered them with a wave of her fleshy arms. “I’m… Raziya. Daughter of the deceased raja of a desert tribe.”

Skye’s eyes went wide, but Latavia’s were even wider. “A raja’s daughter? Child, did you run away?” she asked. Raziya shook her head and said no more. She noticed, to her profound amusement, that villagers who’d stayed partially hidden to find out who she was were now gaping at her.

Latavia looked down at her attire. “Well, daughter of a raja or no, no child should go around sporting rags. Come with me child.” She grabbed Raziya’s hand (which disappeared into her big one) and led her away toward her house while Skye stayed behind to give to camel water at the village well.

The house turned out to be a rather large hut on top of a hill. The roof was made of grass and the walls of clay and mud. Raziya walked through the doorway covered with a cloth like a door, remembering how her tribe had lived in tents because they’d traveled so much. She’d always wondered what life in a permanent home was like. Maybe now she’d be able to…

“Welcome to my house child!” Latavia said happily and waved her arms about. The house was a three-room place. The main room where was everyone ate and cooked, the room to the left was the sleeping quarters for the owners of the hut and the back room was were the servants lived.

A young woman sat on a beautifully woven mat sewing something. When Latavia and Raziya entered, she looked up and stood swiftly. Latavia smiled. “Ayasha, have you finished with Imani?”

The servant girl nodded. “Yes mistress. I helped bathe him, gave him dinner him, then tolf him to sleep on your pallet. I also drew water from the well and put on some ri-“

Latavia waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal at her. “Okay girl. Please fetch me some water and warm it. Our guest needs a bath.”

Ayasha nodded and fetching a large metal tub, went outside to the well. On her way, she shot Raziya a look that clearly said, Poor little baby can’t wash herself? Raziya responded with a look so cold the servant girl shivered and ran out.

Raziya followed Latavia into the servants quarters. “What’re you doing?”

The big woman looked up from rooting through a trunk and smiled. “You can wear one of Ayasha’s nicer garments.” She looked back at the trunk and pulled out a white robe like shirt and matching white pants. Both where airy and light and went well with the sandals Latavia offered her. They looked like they would fit her wonderfully.

Ayasha brought water in and making a fire, set the tub over it and then went to inform her mistress. When she saw Raziya holding her clothes, her cheeks reddened and her eyes slit themselves quite similarly to snake’s. She turned to Latavia and said in clipped tones, “Her water is warming.” Then she turned and left the room, stomping and kicking the rugs as she went.

Latavia shrugged and folded the borrowed clothes up and handed them to Raziya. “Must be something that happened today.  She’s usually not moody. Aw well, come along.”

The water was nice and warm by the time Latavia and Raziya finished sizing the borrowed clothes up against the child’s small frame and trying on the sandals. Raziya stared at the water as Latavia moved it away from the fire, then beckoned to her. “Come child, undress yourself.”

Not used to undressing in front of anyone but her handmaids, the little girl did slowly, then quickly eased herself into the water. Immediately, she let out a sigh of pleasure. The water was warm and lapped against her tanned skin soothingly. Latavia helped scrub her, then washed her hair with the rest of the water. Then Raziya climbed out and dried herself while Latavia bade Ayasha, who was standing near the doorway, to pour the water out.

The shirt was two sizes two large for Raziya’s thin frame and the pants dragged, but she was warm and happy. Her hair was now the color of a raven’s wing, dirt and muck no longer hindering its shine. Latavia then fed her some saffron rice and goats milk, both which she bolted down. Then the good lady bade her to lie down on the pretty rug Ayasha had been sitting on hours before where she immediately fell asleep.


“D’ya think she’s a run away Skye?”

Raziya’s eye inched open. Skye and Latavia sat near the hearth, their rice, bread and milk untouched. There was no sign of Ayasha or Latavia’s four-year-old child Imani, though she could hear servants moving around in the back room.

Skye sighed heavily. “No me dear, for some reason I don’t think she be.”

“How can you tell?”

Skye frowned and played with his cup. “There be somethin’ about that girl. I can’t say what… exactly, but… I think it be her eyes that convinced me. Yeah, I believe so. Whenever she looked at me coldly when I ventured to ask her about ‘er past, them eyes would send icy shivers down me spine. There’s somethin’ about her Latavia. She ain’t no runaway. That look in her eyes tells me is has somethin’ to do with her raja father.”

Latavia sipped her milk. “I agree. I saw her castin’ a look at Ayasha that would send a wild beast screamin’.  I was shiverin’ myself. Like you said, her eyes hold some kind ‘o power.” Suddenly, the cup fell from Latavia’s grasp as she stared in disbelief at Skye. “No. Skye, doncha remember the legend? About… oh, I can’t remember, the one about the man in Harrappa! They said he had them eyes. D’ya suppose she’s…?”

The door suddenly burst open and the two stopped abruptly and looked up. Ayasha stood there, breathing hard and holding her sides.

Latavia sat up sharply, “Girl, what’s the matter?”

Ayasha looked wild. “Men… on… horses… carrying swords and torches… they say that a girl… about nine… they’re lookin’ for her… raja’s daughter-“ She suddenly froze and stared at Raziya, who’d leaped up.

“You!” she snarled. “The men will burn the village down because of you!”

Raziya stared levelly at her, though her heart beat frantically. “Not if you give me food, a horse and a sword.” Latavia, who was staring, suddenly leaped up.

“No child, you can’t go running out there!” she said, grasping the situation immediately. “They’ll kill you, they surely will!”

Raziya’s eyes were cold. “Give me what I ask for and all your lives will be spared.”

Latavia ran toward her. “No child, no!” she cried, but Skye leaped up and put a hand on her shoulder. “She’s determined Latavia,” he said softly. He suddenly looked up sharply at the servant girl. “Please Ayasha, go get the child what she needs.” Ayasha, looking relieved, raced outside.

Skye went into his room and after a second, Latavia, tears making tracks down her cheeks, went to fetch food. Soon she returned with a full haversack and Ayasha returned with a white horse whose bonds she’d cut in her haste.

“What’ll you do with the food?” Latavia sobbed. “You’ll be killed out there!”

Raziya mounted on the patient stallion. “No I won’t.”

Latavia sniffed. “You have so much confidence,” she sobbed.

Skye came back into the front room, carrying a sheath. Going outside, he handed it up to Raziya. “My grandfather’s sword child,” he said softly. “He never lost a battle with it. My the gods guide and protect you.”

Raziya nodded. “Thank you, all. I will miss your hospitality. Hya!”

The horse neighed and reared and the two sped off into the darkness.

As they neared where the Baylin’s men were, near the gate, she urged the horse. Going past them and silently out the gate, she suddenly shouted, “Hey! Here I am! Come and get me you sons of toads!”

There was a roar and suddenly everyone was after her. Horse hooves pounded the earth, flattening grass as they raced after their quarry on the white stallion. They urged their horses into breakneck speed while Raziya in turn urged her steed into a rapid gallop. The horses tore up the grasses and earth as they sprinted quickly across the dry grasslands.

Raziya could see the forest up ahead. She sent a quick prayer up to Varuna, hoping she could out ride her enemies and lose them in the tangled forest. Bending down toward the horse’s ear, she whispered, “Take care in the forest. Don’t trip.”

One minute, they were racing across the grasslands. The next minute they found themselves fighting the leafy trees and entangling vines. Roars of fury and curses floated up to the heavens as men and their horses fought violently to get through the top their quarry. Raziya had managed to gain a few yards through the entangling branches, but the stallion had tripped on a root and was struggling to free a hoof from a vine. In desperation, the little girl leaped down and drew her sword to slash it away.

Suddenly, she cried out in pain. The man raised his sword again, not aiming blindly, but at her head. “Varuna has certainly delivered you into my hands girl!” he snarled and drove the sword home.

The day Chevalier, son of the freeman Buiron, ruined the family carthorse was a day to behold.

It was midmorning, and pandemonium the order of the yard. The little girls were scattering and clustering like minnows, their faces red with tears. They moved in a group, kicking up red dust until their ranks were broken by Chevalier and his raging father, the latter who pursued his son with a bull whip. Perdita, the oldest of the girls, was having a difficult time rounding up the others, and moving them into the house. The wife was chasing after husband and son, bawling on her son’s behalf.

"For the love of heaven, Buiron, lay aside yer whip and doan beat the boy! Buiron? Buiron!"

Her cries were interrupted by a shriek; Buiron had flung the hefty whip forward, where it snapped at Chevalier's back with all the mortal intent of a viper. Chevalier, accustomed to dodging his father's fists and cudgels, flung himself to the ground violently. Chevalier was slight of build, for all his seventeen years, and had little bulk with which to check the bounces that nearly sent him into the wattle-and-daub wall of the family cottage.

Buiron bellowed, as the whip cut uselessly at the clear air, and turned clumsily to find his son. Chevalier had already rolled to his feet, and was running toward the barn.

"Get back here!" Buiron roared. "Get back here, you worthless dog! Get back—!"

Chevalier realized, yards away, that the barn—a small, thatched construction that barely kept out the rain—was no refuge. He skidded to a halt, spun around, and found it was too late. Buiron was upon him, and the whip was hissing. Chevalier, his gray eyes widening, found himself trapped in the doorway.

Buiron's shrieks grew horrendous, as he struck again and again at his son. It was all Chevalier could do to dodge the blows. Inevitably, the lashing tongue of the whip found its mark, and sliced mercilessly into Chevalier’s leg .

The little girls screamed. Chevalier, gasping with pain, fell to the ground. Perdita, despite herself, hid her face, and the wife gave a gargled yell. "Stop!" she cried. "Stop—!" She launched herself at her husband, and wrapped her great arms about him. Chevalier, crippled by his injury, rolled about, cringing. Desperately, he dragged himself to a corner of the barn, upsetting the lone cow as he went. Buiron bellowed again, as his quarry slithered away, and shook violently, trying to dislodge his wife. She held on to him tightly. Suddenly, the big man wilted, as though all the air had been squeezed from his lungs. His knees shook and buckled beneath him. The wife fell with him, and buried her face in his neck.

 “Worthless boy!” Buiron’s bellows were growing weak and guttural. “A plague take you!”
 
“You seemed content to do the Plague’s job a moment ago!” Chevalier replied, eyes fixed warily upon Buiron. His teeth were gritted against the pain in his leg.

 “You’ve destroyed us!” Buiron roared. “Destroyed us!”

 “A moment ago you were about to destroy me!” Chevalier said.

 “You’ve ruined our only carthorse!” Buiron shrieked.

 “And I am your only son,” said Chevalier.

Buiron stumbled upright, wife still hanging upon his neck. “A blight upon you!” he cried. “Insolent boy! I would that you were gone from here! Out of my house, you and your tongue! Out of my house!”
 
“Buiron!” cried the wife. He shook her from him.

Chevalier stumbled to his uninjured leg, and stared defiantly at Buiron. “’Twould be a pleasure,” he said, “to leave that hovel!” He stood unsteadily on one foot, blushing red in the butter-yellow sunlight.

Buiron’s chest heaved, and his mouth opened and shut several times, like the maw of a fish. He made several attempts to speak before managing, at last, in a low, strained voice, “Go then.”

The wife gave a cry, and buried her face in her large, doughy hands. Perdita put  an arm about her mother’s trunk, and guided her into the house. The little girls followed, a chorus of sniffling maidens.

The yard was empty now, empty for all except Buiron and his son. They stood gazing at one another—defiant—and then Buiron turned, and stalked away.

Chevalier turned his golden head, and would not watch his father go.


“Chevalier...”

A long, thin shadow fell upon the square of light that crept in from the barn door. It hung there for several minutes, as though waiting to be acknowledged by the barn’s lone occupant. Chevalier, wrapping his leg in a tattered rag, did not look up.
 
“Chevalier...” a girl’s voice murmured again.

He gritted his teeth, twitching involuntarily. “It’s just a barn, Perdita, not the manor of squire,” he snapped.

The shadow inclined its head, and entered slowly. Chevalier, consumed with his injury, did not look up. He could see the small bare feet of his sister pause before him. “I’ve brought a bandage,” she said.

She knelt, setting a little bundle down beside her. Chevalier glanced at her, as best he could without moving his head and betraying interest, as she examined his foot with a hint of a smile curling her thin, pale lips. He tried to help. Perdita pushed his hand away, unraveled the rag, and tossed it aside.

 “It shall be worse with you if you tie your injury with that,” she said, calmly.

She produced a strip of cloth that was only a little brown from her girdle, and proceeded to bind her brother’s leg. He hissed and grimaced, as the bandage grew tighter.
 
“At least the skin’s not deeply cut,” Perdita said. “This shall last till mama can look at it.”
 
“I’m not going back to the house,” Chevalier snapped.
 
“Why not?”
 
“He has no desire that I should.”

Perdita glanced dryly, for a moment, at her brother, and then proceeded to finish her work.
 
“There,” she said, sitting back. He looked at his leg and bandage, and leaned against the post behind his head without a trace of gratitude.

“What happened, Chevalier?” she asked, at length. “You never told me.”
 
“He never gave me a chance to say anything,” Chevalier replied, with a sneer.
 
“Please, Chevalier...”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t looking forward to fieldwork, nor helping Mama in the house this morning,” he began. “And so I left the bed and took the carthorse and went for a jaunt. I had the horse at a canter and was going along the road south of the holding when the dumb beast stumbled in a rut and injured its ankle. I tried whipping it, to get it on its feet, but it wouldn’t do anything. And I suppose one of our sisters saw me. I’m neither a housewife, nor a field hand,” he muttered.  “I’m as good as any squire in this province. I’m as decent, as elegant, as prosperous—if not in money, then in virtue—”

He misconstrued the blankness of her expression.
 
“You know I am nothing to him!” he cried suddenly. “To Father—he can’t comprehend my worth. He was disappointed in me, and disappointment is all he knows. I know—I don’t belong here—”
 
“God forbid,” whispered Perdita.

He looked at her, and saw agreement in her sunken brown eyes. It was quite true, then. Buiron had been disappointed in him, Chevalier, the youth whose hands and body where small, like a girl’s, whose ankles were commented upon by well-meaning alewives, whose build defied every edict of manliness. He would not grow brawny, as his mother had, nor strapping, in the manner of his father. He was delicate and graceful, his face sculpted and tapering where the faces of everyone else were like potatoes in composition. The only person who resembled him in any way was Perdita. She, however, was gaunt. The only thing lustrous about her was her black hair. Chevalier was brilliant—gleaming—a rustic Adonis whose unearthly beauty would not be hidden, despite the russet wool tunic. Perdita was the earth child, sprung from the gnarled trees, nurtured in the red dirt and clay. Yes, poor Buiron had been disappointed.

“Will you really go away?”

Perdita’s inquiry drew Chevalier abruptly from his thoughts. For a moment he was silent, as the words filled his mind, and then he said, his tone somewhat harsh, “Yes. I am going. I am going away.”
 
“What will you do?” she asked, falling back on her heels and gazing at him. Her eyes seemed wider, glowing with a liquid radiance in the murky shadow.

 
“I will,” began Chevalier, straightening, his tone dilating and waxing cavalier, “go and seek my fortune beyond the province today.”

 “It sounds like a fantasy.”
 
“It’s not. I shall.”
 
“Will you take much with you?”

 “Bah!” he cried, and was confounded by her question. What would he take with him?

“I... I thought you might go,” she said, quietly, and pulled the little bundle she had brought with her into view. “I brought the tunic Mama made for you,” she continued. “The one you were to wear when we go for prayers this Sunday. And some food—your shoes—a dirk—money.” She glanced quickly at him, as though to discover the effect her announcement upon him. “It’s what Mama gives me when I card wool. Six farthings. Perhaps they shall do you some good.”

Chevalier took the bundle, and rooted through it. He found it difficult to contain his surprise and irritation. Her perception was annoying.  “Ah,” he said, impassively. “Yes.”

“You truly mean to go?” she asked, sitting back on her heels. Chevalier glanced up irritably.
 
“Yes, I do. I will. And I won’t be back this night.”
 
“When, then?”

Chevalier was abruptly cognizant of what he was about to do, and gave a frivolous laugh of relief. His creamy hair danced like a curtain of gold as he shook his head. “It all depends!” he said. “Perhaps I shall be too wealthy, after my venture, to think of returning!” He saw her stiffen, and grinned the more.

He staggered to his feet, and assumed a valiant pose. Perdita stood also, her figure melting into the shadow of the barn. “I pray God will you keep you,” she whispered. “Come back, someday, Chevalier,”

He snapped around, and limped away. There were tears on her gaunt cheeks, and he couldn’t bear to see them. Perdita rarely cried. To watch her now was too painful.

The little girls were lined up before the door of the cottage as he left the barn. A thin chorus of wails suddenly sprang from their midst. He heard his mother, praying, entreating.

 “Good-bye Mother. Good-bye, girls!” he cried, turning his face to the north. “I am off to seek my fortune now! Good-bye!”

There was a bit of snuffling, a few muttered valedictions, and the mother’s heavy, wearied tone: “God keep you, my son. God keep you.”

He later wondered if this was how fairy tales began. And his heart clenched regretfully within him.

...

...

It is the simplest things that are often responsible for shattering this world time and time again, the simplest things that birth the ripples that shake the earth to its very core.
 
Consider, for example, the red cloak.
 
Through the fog of early morning, two girls ambled through the evergreens, one draped in brown, the other in red. The one in red chattered, swinging her cloak about like a troupe master at a show. The other watched her. Or perhaps she watched her cloak.
 
"I'm tellin' you," Griselda said, voice loud through the crunch and crackle of their feet in the pine needles, "there ain't no goblinman this side of the Conifer. Me gran'mum said so.” She punctuated the words with a twirl of the cloak.
 
Agatha’s eyes had been trained upon the wine-red hem of the cloak; she now transferred her glance to her companion. "Your gran'mum says a whole lot o' dung, that's what my uncle says," she retorted. "He says she's too old to have anything useful t' say 'cause it's all scrambled in her head."

Griselda pulled up short. Agatha turned to look at her. Or rather, at the hood shadowing Griselda’s face.
 
It was such a fine hood, she thought, edged in lace red as poisonberry, lovely like a flake of snow. She wished she might touch it.

Griselda snatched the hood back, to reveal a dangerous expression.

"You shut up," she said slowly.
 
Agatha grimaced. "They say the truth can't be shut up for long. Anyhow. What d'yer gran'mum know about goblinmen my uncle don't? He deals with them, he do."
 
Griselda raised one thin eyebrow and twined a finger in the cloak’s drawstrings. "My gran'mum's full o' the lore—" she began.
 
"Oh riiight,” Agatha sneered. “Your gran'mum’s full o' somethin', I'll give her that."
 
"I'll give your uncle full knowin' of the goblinmen, then," Griselda snarled. "More knowin' 'n any sane man could handle, but we ain't sayin' your uncle's sane now, are we? Or your mother, at that rate."
 
Agatha scowled. "What's she got to do with anything?"
 
Griselda’s smile was ruthless with triumph. "The world, ain't it? You must be half as crazy as her, you think there're goblinmen in the woods this time o' year. Spring thaw's barely come and you know they ain't comin' 'fore then. They like it in the south, while frost's still on the ground. They ain't here."
 
"It's not like I'm bad crazy, Selda, I just wanna go see. And what's it to you? No one's makin' you come with me."
 
Griselda eyed her. "That's my mum's basket you've got on and her bread you're carryin', case you forgot."
 
Agatha glanced down at the basket, then began to wriggle free of it. "You take it to your gran'mum's then, by yourself," she snapped.
 
"You said you'd carry it 'cause the twine cuts my shoulder!"
 
"You said you'd come with me to the Goblin's Clearin' if I did." Agatha, free of the basket, held it out. "You givin' up?"
 
"It's stupid t' go t' Goblin's Clearin'," Griselda cried, recoiling. "There ain't no goblinmen there!"
 
"Might be."
 
"Might be not. Might be alfurs instead."
 
Agatha's expression cleared, and a laugh bubbled suddenly inside of her. A grin split her face in two; she let the hand holding the basket fall. "Alfurs?" she laughed. "You scared of alfurs?”
 
Griselda's eyes narrowed. "Who isn’t, they got their head screwed on right?"
 
"But they aren’t even real!”

“But my gran’mum—” Griselda broke off, confusion in her tone; her voice was growing shrill.

Agatha shot her sly look. “Your gran’mum don’t know nothing.” She swung the basket back over her arm, spun about, and began to stride down the slope. "And if she do—well then. Hurry an' we'll just go look. Alfurs! I’d like to see one." She took a running skip forward.
 
"We can't go look!" Griselda hissed. She bore down on Agatha and grabbed her arm.
 
"Why not? You can't be that scared. 'Sides, you don't know if there're alfurs in there or not. Who knows—if they’re real, they might be waitin’ for your spring thaw. Let me go!"
 
"It's too far down to the clearing," Griselda snapped. "Half a mile from here and ye don' have any idea what's down there and what'll get'chya. And besides, Agatha, I can't be lingerin'. I need to go to gran'mum's and give her her bread. Mum sent me faer that and that alone and if I don' get back in good time she'll flay me. And then she'll tell your uncle and he'll probably flay you." She seemed to take immense pleasure in making this pronouncement, for despite her urgency, her eyes narrowed a bit, and a strange smile touched her mouth.
 
Agatha saw her chance with the dawn of the smile. She tensed, then sprang back and around, tearing herself loose of Griselda's hold. Griselda flailed after her. Agatha only just dodged the cat's grace and cat's speed of Griselda's hands and ran.
 
The basket of sourdough swung wildly about her. Bits of plaited straw worked loose and stabbed at her; in the burning midst of adrenaline and stabs of pain, Agatha noticed the basket was lighter. She glanced down and saw its lid flapping crazily. A loaf had vanished.
 
She heard Griselda scream furiously behind her, and suddenly there was the crunch crunch crunch of Griselda on Agatha's trail. Agatha had had a few moment's head start, but in the end, she thought, this was Griselda, despite the cloak.
 
Griselda's footsteps became louder, and in a moment she had drawn level with Agatha's line of vision. Her skirts flapped and billowed like the wings of birds, her arms pumped. Agatha caught sight of the missing loaf of sourdough gripped into one merciless fist. Agatha felt the absurd urge to give a shriek of laughter.
 
Griselda drew one pace, two paces ahead, sprinted to five. And then she was sliding to a stop, pine needles arching in a shower about her, spinning about, stretching out her arms, lunging toward Agatha. The loaf of bread at the lead, misshapen from the strength of that clutching fist, too close to dodge.
 
Agatha attempted a dodge anyway.
 
She and Griselda collided like battling giants.
 
Griselda's arm caught her around the shoulder, and suddenly Agatha was flying backward, arms flailing. The twine holding the basket looped about her neck; the basket itself came around behind. The girls landed hard, and Agatha felt the basket and remaining loaf give way like an egg; the damp ice soaking through her clothes certainly aided the impression.
 
Griselda floundered upright, tearing free of the mesh of cloaks and skirts; for a moment, the mangled loaf was raised toward the canopy as if in triumph. Agatha began to squirm, hands raking the air as she struggled to free herself.
 
"Get off me, would you?"
 
Griselda staggered to her feet, clutching the loaf to her, raking the hair from her eyes. "What 'ave ye done with it?" she screeched. "The bread, where's that bread?"
 
They both knew quite well what had happened to the bread, but for a moment, there seemed, for Agatha, a bubble of safety in not admitting as much.
 
"You sat on it!" Griselda howled, advancing, her flushed and twisted face looming between Agatha and the forest.
 
"You pushed me." Agatha sat up, rolled to her feet, and scuttled back hastily. "You shouldn't've pushed me; it's your fault I fell."
 
"You were runnin' off with my gran'mum's bread!"
 
"I told you to carry it."
 
Griselda gaped furiously, uselessly, and Agatha was startled to see a gleam of moisture in her eyes.
 
"My mum'll have my head." Griselda muttered, looking down at the loaf in her arms. Agatha snorted and Griselda's head shot up; she fixed her slit eyes of Agatha and added, "And she'll have yours too, count on that."
 
It was a very real threat, Agatha knew, for there was nothing idle in invoking the name of Griselda's mater in matters of punishment.
 
"Not if I don't let her." The taunt came inexorably, like a reflex. "Not if I don't go back with you."
 
"You'll have t' come back home sometime." Griselda titled her head, eyes narrowing, voice chilling. "Though if you don't, all's the better."
 
They stared at one another for a moment and then Agatha shrugged and said, "We can't do nothin' about it, the bread. No use moanin' over it."
 
If such was possible, Griselda's eyes grew more narrow.
 
Agatha tried again. "Your mater won't flay you alive." Useless assurance, yes, but it was time to move on. "We'll think of something—"
 
"It's your fault, remember," Griselda said, voice cold.
 
Agatha realized the uselessness of protesting the charge even before she could open her mouth to argue; she put her tongue to better use. "So it's my fault. Fine. I'll think of something then. They won't flay either of use, I promise."
 
Griselda snorted. The sound was entirely without humour.
 
Agatha wrinkled her nose at her, smiled wryly. "Since we're in trouble, we might as well make use of it and go down to the Clearing."
 
"We're the only ones who're aware we're in trouble now and going down to the Clearin' ain't goin' t' help matters."
 
"It can't hurt 'em too much, anyway." Agatha punctuated the thought with a shrug, and then grinned. "I'm going. T' see if there are alfurs."
 
Griselda's lip pushed out, and she folded in to herself, cradled the loaf near her chest. Agatha took a step away, glanced back. Griselda stayed put, as though she had willed roots from her feet, and dug herself deep into the ground.
 
"Coming?" Agatha called.

But Griselda only folded even further in on herself, then flopped down on the needles, pulling her cloak about her, and turning her head away.

She had a profile as proud and imperious as any aristocratic portrait, in that lovely red cloak.
 

It was a good distance to the clearing, as Griselda, with all her complaining, had made clear, but Agatha made good time, never walking more slowly than a lope, and breaking into a run now and again. She detoured whenever she came upon a boulder, leapt the mossy sides and scrambled to the top before throwing herself from it, hitting the ground hard, and bounding on. An odd, springy happiness bubbled all through her, driving her deeper into the wood, to take the rocks, to kick up the earth about her.

The clearing was upon her before she was aware of it.

And as Griselda, with all her complaining, had predicted, it was empty.

Agatha drooped. It seemed so alien, so quiet, in here, with nothing but the echo of her feet through the pine needles, the vaguest whisper of wind ruffling boughs. And that there was nothing to be had here—that there was still Griselda and the shattered creel and mangled loaves to deal with! A keen sense of disappointment welled in her belly.
 
“Anyone?” she called into the silence. It swallowed her words, and she wilted even further. Of course she should not have expected any goblinmen, any alfurs—nothing ever came until the Thaw—

Agatha turned, back in the direction from which she had come, and this was when she saw the dog.

It sat in a circle of white pebbles, with its head hung low and a rusted collar, connected to a chain of links as thick around as Agatha's thumb, trapping it there. Had Agatha been a lesser girl, she might have screamed.
 
But as it was, she smiled.
 
The dog was red. Red as blood, red as wine, red as a cloak she could not have.
 
Though that depended on whether she played her cards right or not.
 
Red was the colour of the goodfolk.
 
She said, without preamble, "Fairy dog."
 
And the dog raised its great head, and looked up at her.
 
Agatha had never seen a dog like it before—sleek and long, with the spine jutting against the skin and the face groomed so completely it seemed deprived. It looked remarkably pitiful, contrasted with the shaggy and good-naturedly panting sheepdogs she was accustomed to seeing. The red dog was so thin that she could see a tremble shaking its haunches. Its eyes were liquid amber, drooping and dull, its mouth strangely shut and not a hint of tongue in evidence. This could not be natural. She thought of the goblinmen, and hoped the dog was not.
 
She stepped closer, and knelt to one knee. "How did you come to be chained?" she asked. If there were proper ways of addressing unnatural looking creatures in equally unnatural places, she did not know them. But her mother had once said that the goodfolk valued forthrightness, for it was better than scrabbling for formality that one had no knowledge of and could therefore make a mess of. She hoped this would be enough.
 
The dog tilted its head at her, and its eyes narrowed, shockingly Griselda-like, Agatha thought, vaguely. And then it spoke.
 
"A wicked witch did this to me." It's voice was oddly womanish, wholly unnatural floating from between jaws that opened as if the dog would pant, bizarre enough that Agatha blinked, and pulled back. It is one thing to expect a phenomenon, and another thing entirely to actually witness it.
 
"A wi—a wicked witch?"
 
"There's a holy lot of them around," the dog said dryly. "Always doing something to poor, innocent creatures: surely you've run into an enchanted toad or damned prince by another name before now?"
 
"Are you a damned prince, then?" Agatha did not think so, even as she asked the question, but it was often wise to ask after the obvious, just in case the obvious was not as obvious as people liked to pretend it was.
 
The dog blinked at her, then rolled its eyes toward the sky. "No, I am not a damned prince. I'm just a damned dog, that's all."
 
"And is that different from a damned prince?"
 
"I should hope so. One preserves the beauty of her appearance while the other loses it."
 
Agatha eyed the dog; as she was closer, she could make out tufts of fur torn away from the trembling skin, leaving behind pinkish patches that had scabbed over, and what looked like a brand—a circle of black with a dot in the middle—pressed into the dog's chest.
 
The dog noted the progress of her eyes. "Though there are some… sacrifices," it added, and pulled into itself just a bit.
 
Agatha glanced up to meet its gaze yet again. "What'd she do to you?" she asked.
 
"Same as any witch does—bound me with enchantments and abandoned me to wind, rain, and sky—and not to mention the fates."
 
"Why?"
 
"She wanted my name, why else?"
 
Agatha tilted her head. "Your name? She wanted to take your name? But she can’t take your name; isn't that—I dunno—illegal? We've all only got one name, and its all anyone can have; that's what they say up at the parish church."
 
The dog gave her a look that in a human might have been called disdain and in a dog did not have a name but was unpleasant to have directed at you all the same. "You recall she is a witch. She doesn't particularly care for what they say up at any parish church."
 
"But it's not just the parish church as says it, it's—well—" Agatha shrugged and gestured uselessly toward the sky. "Everyone."
 
"If it was everyone, do you think she would have attempted to steal my name?"
 
Agatha looked askance at the creature. "How d' you go about stealin' a name anyway?"
 
The dog gaped at her. "And why should I tell you that?"
 
It seemed vaguely anticlimactic to blame the question at this point on mere curiosity. Agatha instead changed the subject. "How long have you been here?"
 
"Nigh on twenty-eight days, without a bite of food or sip of water to my name."
 
Agatha reached behind her, and drew the ruined creel to the fore. "I've got food," she said.
 
The dog snorted. "In that? That's as good as matchwood; I doubt it's got a crumb inside it."
 
Agatha smirked, but peeled back a flap of slat despite herself, just to make sure that the dog was wrong and she was right and that the balance of the world was still intact. The loaf was still there, in all its smashed glory, and she gathered it up, chunks and pine needles and splinters and all.
 
"I'll give you this," she told the dog, gesturing with the hand heaped with bread.
 
That disdainful look passed again over the dog's face, marred slightly by the ragged thump its tail gave as if it had a mind and life of its own, and the fraction of a tilt the dog gave of its head.
 
"You want it," Agatha observed.
 
"You are kind to offer that," said the dog, in a tone halfway between disgust and gratitude. It was shedding its pride, and admitting to the desperation of its situation, Agatha realized. So much the better.
 
"And you'll be good to your stomach, you get this food in you," she prompted, pushing the hand out toward it.
 
The dog leaned forward, nosed the air. It was careful not to let an inch of its muzzle cross the line drawn by the white circle of pebbles in which it sat.
 
"I'll give it to you—" Agatha began.
 
The dog snapped back, and its eyes met hers, balefully. "For what?" it asked, its voice full again of resentment.
 
Agatha's eyes widened; she imagined she looked innocent. "Is everyone you meet so mercenary?" she asked, guilelessly.
 
"I should say so, if you’re anything to judge by," the dog snapped.
 
Agatha could not help it; a small grin spread across her face. "I'll give you that, then. Though you will admit, I ain't asked for a request so—"
 
"But a request is coming and so whether you've made it yet or not makes no difference!"
 
"I'll give you that to. I'll give you this bread if you give me a cloak."
 
The dog was stretching its neck toward her hand yet again, but at her words it paused, and flicked its eyes toward her face. "A cloak?" It looked her up and down, then returned its gaze to hers. "You have a cloak."
 
"I want a red one," Agatha said, her smile widening. "Red and warm and long, past my feet with fleece on its inside and silk on the outside and lace on the hood."
 
The dog blinked. "You're… particular," it said, after a pause. "You've thought a great deal about it?"
 
"Maybe," said Agatha, folding her hand back into her lap. The dog jerked forward, as if on desperate reflex, toward the vanishing food, and the chain sprang taut. The collar dragged the dog back and for a moment, Agatha saw how it bit into the already bruised and darkening throat. She winced.
 
The dog staggered and fell heavily to its side, only to wriggle upright again, all the while rattling the chain and sending an eerie noise all through the clearing.
 
"You won't take that away, will you?" it asked, casting its wide, frightened eyes upon the hand she hid in her apron.
 
"Give me a cloak and I'll give it to you."
 
The dog's eyes rolled to meet her own. It was beginning to look like a cow in frenzy, less like the impassive sufferer it had been when she first saw it, taking its misfortune in stoic silence, resigned to its lot. She wondered vaguely if it was cruel to taunt it so with bread. But only think! She had within her reach a cloak fairy-made and fairy-given. The jaunt was turning out a better profit than she had first imagined.
   
"Such a cloak seems a marvelous thing to trade for a paltry bit of bread," the dog wheezed, gulping, and bending back its head to ease the pull of the chain. It rolled its eyes down to look at her, and she could see its whites, streaked with a brownish-red like old, drying blood.
 
"The way you jumped for it didn't look too paltry," Agatha said. But it was one thing to speak with bravado and mean it, and another to feel the pulse of one's heart thrumming painfully in one's chest. The dog's sudden reluctance quickened her terror—the kind of terror that is an almost uncontainable joy mixed with sickening fear. Doubt began to pull at her mind, though she shook her head to drive it away.
 
Goodfolk drove hard bargains, her uncle sometimes said. You haggled at your risk, and if you loved life a little less or a little more than was good for living.
 
"Tell you this, instead," the dog said, breaking in on her thoughts. "You let me go, and I'll show you where a red cloak may be hidden."
 
Agatha considered. "You say may be hidden."
 
The dog rolled its eyes and shook itself a bit, the canine equivalent of a shrug. "You can't—you can't count on the earth being so generous. She hides many things, yes, anything a man might wish for the moment he wishes it, but she stores it in the places one might least expect—you wish a thing up on the moorland and it appears beneath the sands of a Menorian desert. You see?"
 
"I want a guaranteed cloak," Agatha said. "I won't even give you this bread, you don't guarantee it."
 
"I can't guarantee it; the stones hinder my ability to sense things as I normally would." The dog spoke desperately, its voice strained. "But if you let me go, I will be free of the witch's curse—"
 
"And free t' shank me and run off to wherever you goodfolk go," Agatha interrupted. She stood, sliding the bread into her apron pocket. "It's the cloak for bread or nothing."
 
"If I can't eat it, the bread will count for nothing anyhow!" the dog cried. "But let me go—"
 
Agatha took a step back and shrugged. Her heart drummed so hard that she felt she would gag on it.
 
"I think you could eat it," she said. "And you probably should eat it; it's do you good, to get some food in you. But if that's how you feel…" She drifted off, and invited the dog with her silence to take her offer.
 
The dog looked from her apron to her face and back to her apron again. It tongue slid from between the white teeth, lapped the muzzle. Agatha took another stepped back and turned partially on her heel; she called, over her shoulder, "And I will be truthful with you, fairy dog, but I don't know where the witch is and I don't wish to tempt her wrath by freeing you. There's myself to think of, you know."
 
The dog fell back, lifted a lip in a snarl. "If there was not yourself to think of, you hardly would have bothered," it growled.
 
Agatha was still walking, though she now turned and lifted her hands, helplessly. "So let's pretend I'm not a selfish chit then, hmm? There's still the enchantments t' think about. What'll they do t' me, I try and free you, and I not bein' the one who put 'm on you to begin with? Can you answer that for me, fairy dog?"
 
The dog leant forward, momentarily, then back, narrowed its eyes and finally said, "She has laid but enchantments on me and my circle. Surely you know the stories—kiss the damned prince and no harm will come to you."
 
"But like you said, you ain't no damned prince."
 
"It's iron," the dog whispered, and dragged tellingly at the chain.
 
This was a card played for compassion, Agatha realized, but the sympathetic twinge in her stomach was delayed, as she sorted through her memories and suddenly understood the black burns around the dog's throat. Iron and the goodfolk did not, could not, get along.
 
And that, Agatha thought, ruefully, was why the town in which she lived stank so of iron.
 
"But I can't help you with it," she said to the dog, and turning fully, began to walk away.
 
She hoped the dog would call her back. A word would stop her, for she was good-natured, and didn't need pleading as some people did.
 
But the dog did not call.
 
She came to the edge of the clearing and turned around; the dog still sat in her circle of stones, head strangely bent half in pride and half in strain, her thin sides heaving, her haunches, even at this distance, trembling.
 
Agatha trotted back over and knelt beside the stones.
 
"You could've just said you're hungry." And as she spoke, she took from her pocket the handful of bread.
 
The dog looked balefully at her. "You could have just said you were desperate. Not, of course, that that changes anything—we're all either hungry or desperate whether we trumpet it to the world or not."
 
"I want the guarantee of the cloak," Agatha said, "and you want something to fill your belly with."
 
"I want to be out of this chain," the dog snarled. Her breath was hot, the saliva tinged with heat, as she spat her words.
 
"Take it as it comes. Food first, freedom next."
 
"What next?" The dog gave a whuffling sound. Agatha supposed it the canine equivalent of a bitter laugh.
 
"Tell you this. I'll give you bread in exchange for your directions to the cloak. And if it is there, I'll come straight back and free you of your chain."
 
The dog's eyes were level with hers, amber burning into her vision. The dog did not blink, nor speak, just gazed.
 
Agatha's heart hammered. "What d'ye say to that?" she concluded, and the words came with difficulty around her dry and heavy tongue.
 
"Straight back," the dog said.
 
Agatha winced, wishing she had not said that, but realizing that this would perhaps be her best card, outside that of the promised unchaining. It was a necessary compromise.
 
"Straight back," she said.
 
"I'm holding you to it."
 
"I'm holdin' you to your guarantee."
 
"You know I cannot guarantee the whereabouts of the cloak, girl."
 
"And you know without it, it's bread and nothin' else."
 
The dog's lip twitched. A flash of her canines, white over the black, wet wrinkle of her side lip.
 
"The bread, first."
 
"Swear, first."
 
"I swear it, you swear it, then the bread, then the directions."
 
"I swear, fairy dog."
 
The dog said nothing for a moment. And then she growled something, words that came so deeply from her belly that Agatha could at first not understand them.
 
"It is the name that binds," the dog said. "Call me Herlathing."
 
"I swear it, Herlathing."
 
"And your name?"
 
"Agatha."
 
"I swear it, Agatha."
 
They looked at each other. There was, to Agatha's slight disappointment, no thunderclap to mark the occasion.
 
"That all?" she asked, shifting on her knees and free hand.
 
Herlathing tilted her head. "What did you expect?"
 
"I—I dunno—something big t' happen or… something."
 
"Something will happen if you do not observe the bargain. Do you want to see what?"
 
Agatha's eyebrows rose and the dog added, "But you shouldn't want to see, if you've an ounce of wit to your name." The look she gave Agatha said clearly, stupid girl.
 
Agatha grinned. "I thought as much. Here." She tossed the bread into the ring.
 
It passed over the white stones without incident, and the pieces scattered upon impact. Herlathing whined, and shot Agatha an irritated look.
 
"Sorry," Agatha said, as the dog reached out a paw and scraped as many pieces as she could reach into a pile.
 
Herlathing ignored the blithe apology, and got down to her stomach in an attempt to eat. The chain was too short, and after some futile attempts, the dog lifted her rump into the air and with chin plowing the pine needles, opened her mouth, uncurled her tongue, and began to snatch at the pieces. Her tongue caught bread and splinters and pine needles, indifferently. Agatha stared. Herlathing's tongue was as wide and thick as her palm, and at least twice the length of any normal dog's.
 
Herlathing glanced at her. "Do you mind?" she huffed, before she opened her jaws and coughed up a pine needle.
 
Agatha shook her head and grinned. "Oh, not at all; I've got a strong stomach. You can keep on eating; don't mind me and sensibilities I ain't got." She cackled at her own wit. The dog looked disgusted.
 
When Herlathing was finished eating, she lowered her rump and stood awkwardly, head listing toward the chain.
 
"That was the most repulsive meal I have ever had," she said. "There were splinters and bits of pine smashed into the bread, what little there was of that."
 
"Take it as it comes," said Agatha, shrugging.
 
The dog peered narrowly at her. "You want to 'take it as it comes'?" she said, threateningly.
 
"Lead my wrong and you'll be here for much longer than you wanted to be," Agatha retorted, all cheer and grins.
 
Herlathing sighed. "I cannot sense with the strength that I would have outside this damned circle, and outside this iron chain, but I will do what I can do." She knelt back to the ground, sliding her tail into the air for a second time, and laid her black nose to the earth. She rooted into the leaves and shut her eyes. Agatha stared, fascinated.
 
Herlathing breathed, then lifted her head slowly. "Hidden in the peatlands, just beyond a village stinking of iron, I caught a scent of a cloak, musty with age, packed away in a chest, that chest buried in the earth."
 
"Musty with age?" Agatha leapt to her feet. "But I wanted a new cloak, a nice cloak!"
 
"You never specified," said Herlathing, glancing wryly at her. Agatha gaped.
 
"But let me finish," she continued, as Agatha regained the use of her jaw and made as if to speak. "There is, with the smell of peat, the smell of wood, worked by human hands—a house, I think, with a roof of peat. You will perhaps find it in a house."
 
"And what village do you mean?"
 
"It is a dead place. Abandoned and overgrown. The iron stench seems a part of the earth, it runs so deep. Perhaps, when the village still lived, the iron welled to the surface. Or perhaps its people sowed the ground with iron, and iron buried its roots deep into the soil."
 
" What direction is this iron village in?"
 
The dog nodded beyond the clearing, opposite the direction from which Agatha had earlier emerged. "It is that way. The old overgrown town, and the peatlands beyond it."
 
"Are the woods very deep, that way?"
 
"Go find out."
 
Agatha raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you want me to come back or not? I don't… I don't know this place."
 
Herlathing snorted. "No better time like present to learn it."
 
"If you wanna risk never getting out of here, sure…"
 
The dog considered. "It thins if you come at it from the northeast of this clearing, that way. It thins like the neck of a bottle, and right here we are at the shoulder of that bottle—walk twenty-eight swift paces at an angle and you'll clear the trees."
 
"Twenty-eight swift—"
 
"As quickly," Herlathing interrupted, "as the dog lopes."
 
Agatha frowned. "Right. Is that all you have for me?"
 
"All I have for you." The dog's expression was serene, but her body seemed to tense. "Northeast through the shoulder of the woods, to the dead town of iron fifty swift paces directly east of the break, and just beyond that, the peat house."
 
Agatha clapped her hands. "Wish me luck?"
 
"Straight back," the dog warned. "Just as you said."
 
She met Herlathing's stare with an imperturbable smile. "Cloak first, and then straight back," she corrected.
 
"As if," said Herlathing, moving closer to her chain that she might have leeway to settle down, "you would let me forget it."