He grinned impishly. "Might make Brithanas take more notice of you."

"He takes notice enough already." She said softly, "They're far enough ahead now to follow." She loosened the thong over her knife.

Together, they toe-heeled it toward the camp, their feet almost silent on the ground. At the edge of the last turn, they dropped to a casual walk and came into sight of the gate guard.

"Aye, Ubo," Payne greeted the pudgy man.

"Aye, neBentar, Black Wolf." The man said speculatively, "Didn't see you leave."

Payne answered easily, "Went out the other way and took the bridle path around. Lots of traffic," he added. "Never knew so many merchants to get up this early when they didn't have to."

"You've the right of it there. Night guard said there's beenchovas coming and going like rasts in a fat bin."

Payne looked past the guard. "Shouldn'tChovas Murton be standing with you?"

Ubo shrugged. "He didn't show for duty. Dirvan is getting his backup."

Payne exchanged a glance with Nori. "We thought we saw a couple of outriders come in right before us."

"Aye. Twochovas from Vallier's train. They wanted to catch an early ring-runner on the road before we turned out for the day. Don't know their names, but they were headed into our quads, not their own wagon lines." Ubo gave him a thoughtful look. "That stuffy Rezuku and one of hischovas were asking after you two a bit ago." Nori stirred, and Ubo glanced at her. "Not you specifically, Black Wolf, but they wanted to know who was out. They seemed unhappy with the answer, as if they were expecting something different."

Payne shrugged nonchalantly. "They probably wanted to pick our brains for fireside."

"Probably," the guard agreed. "Best watch yourselves, though, even on the bridle trails. It's a bad-luck spring all around."

Payne grinned wryly. "You've the right of it there. My thanks."

"Anytime, neBentar. Black Wolf." He waved them into the camp.

There were too many people already moving within the circle to see where the two men had gone. They started down the first wagon aisle just in case, noting who was up. A dog growled briefly as they approached the wagon he crouched under, but fell silent when Nori shushed him. Payne gave her a wry look, and she shrugged.

They slipped past the message wagon with the rookery. The message master was already perched on her box. Her eyes were half closed, and her bony, two-hundred-year-old frame was wrapped in a thick blanket of chancloth while her great-great-grandchildren prepped the harness. She nodded to them and closed her eyes again, trying to recall the messages she'd somehow misplaced.

"Split up?" Nori asked in a low voice.

"Are you crazy?" Payne retorted. He took her hand to pull her along. They caught curious glances as they pa.s.sed fireside, where five women were huddled around their morning mugs of rou, and Payne murmured, "Let's stroll. Better yet, let's argue."

Nori eyed the wagon line. "About what?"

He snorted. "I still think you ought to Test."

She stiffened.

He grinned. "That'll do it."

She hid a sigh, but said obediently, "We've been over that a dozen times."

"A hundred, and it won't change my mind. If you don't Test, you can't Journey." He nodded toward another stovefire where the breakfast meal was already going strong.

She caught only the usual scents of food and dnu and sleep sweat, and she shook her head slightly in answer. Aloud, she said, "Test is to find out if you can survive on your own, and I've taught those cla.s.ses myself for years. There's no point in Testing myself."

"Without Test, you can't get rank, and without rank, you're offered only the worst of the county jobs."

He looked sharply left at a snapping sound, but it was just a st.u.r.dy woman in nightclothes struggling with a stiff window latch.

Nori tested the air again and listened for a second as they pa.s.sed another wagon. Almost automatically, she returned, "Journey is not some sort of religious quest, Payne. It only started as a way to keep the gene pool diverse. Now it's just a way to make us leave our homes and spread our skills around."

"I suppose you'll say next that rank is just a knot on the line, not anything important."

She shot him a glance. It had been hard for him, watching his friends Test for rank before him. He'd had to endure a dozen challenges a year from youths who taunted him about it, others from men who pushed him as being only a poor copy of his father. It was Nori's fault. The one year they had been separated hadn't been a good one. After that, Payne had been held back from rank so that he wouldn't Journey before she finished school, pa.s.sed her third bar, and was free to travel with him. She said lightly. "Rank isn't status, Payne. It's just a recognition that you've got enough judgment to leave home without putting others in danger. It's supposed to prove that you've learned enough, that you don't need a host of friends to save your rear end from some stupidity every time you set out on the road."

"Ah, now I see why you avoid it."

"Oh, spit in poolah's eye."

He hid a grin. It might be a forced argument, but her voice was growing sharp. He glanced between a quad of wagons, then ducked his head and looked underneath them to see who was walking on the other side. He motioned a small circle with his finger for her to continue. "If I want rank, I have to Test."

"Hah. Test has never been required for rank. I've been offered rank without Test since I was twenty.

Last year, the elders were begging me to take it-" She broke off and looked narrowly at a wagon, then shook her head shortly and moved on.

"I just want you to have your own Journey." He twisted, then walked backward a few steps to see who was up and around behind them.

"I'd rather tag along on yours," she muttered.

"Fat chance the elders will let you do that."

"Fat chance you'll get rank if you don't practice more-" She broke off.

Kevinel Runitdown opened his wagon door to the left, and shook out a blanket. "Aye, Black Wolf, neBentar," he greeted them cheerfully. A few wagons down, the caravan healer came out of Ed Proving's wagon, glanced around, nodded to the two scouts, then made his way swiftly back toward the cookfires. The curve of a bottle was clear in one of his pouches.

Payne spat to the side. "There's an easier treatment for hangover. Just stop drinking."

But Nori said slowly, "I don't think Proving's as much a drunk as you think." That healer had had uldori with him. The pungent painkiller was best taken orally, but it didn't go down or stay down well. Some healers mixed it with parskea or rootie or some other strong alcohol to make it more palatable, which would go far in explaining the flask Ed Proving always carried. "You said he was good on the search."

Payne nodded reluctantly. "He's half the reason we stayed with your trail."

"We should talk with him. He's still got sharp eyes, and he knows a lot of scouts. He might have seen-" She broke off and flicked Payne's sleeve. The slight movements two slots away had stilled as another cozar called a greeting. A second later, the people in the wagon began moving again, but almost too deliberately.

Payne walked closer, adding as if they hadn't paused, "I'd practice more if you'd stop running around by yourself in the forest. The Hafell was fit to flog you for that stunt."

She caught his determined gaze. "I had other things to do," she retorted.

Payne shot her a warning look.

"-And as usual, you were sleeping," she amended. She scuffed her moccasin, then stopped, bent down as if to adjust the lace, and looked along the undersides of the wagons. She nodded slightly to Payne.

When thechovas B'Kosan stepped out around the back of the wagon with his toothbrush, they broke off as if uncomfortable. The outrider looked at Nori with undisguised appreciation. "Out walking?"

Payne shrugged. "Wakje prefers that we argue elsewhere when he's still trying to sleep."

The outrider looked at Payne but spoke to Nori. "I'll be riding duty for Rezuku's wagon today. Perhaps Black Wolf would like to keep me company?"

She looked away.

B'Kosan grinned and made his way jauntily toward the bathhouse.

Nori muttered, "He knows I don't like him."

"Aye," said Payne with a frown. The gate guard had mentioned Murton, and Murton had been a.s.signed to Rezuku since the merchant joined them. Now B'Kosan was riding guard for the man from Sidisport.

Payne looked after thechovas. "Could you tell anything?"

She shook her head. "The cookfires are going now, and the scents are too mixed."

"So B'Kosan has Murton's duty for the day," he murmured. "And Murton didn't show up for gate guard."

"Who would want to take out achovas ?"

"No one." He kept his voice low. "Unless thechovas in question had seen or heard something he shouldn't have seen or heard."

"Murton could have jumped caravans," she countered. "He wasn't making friends here, and we've traded off at least half a dozenchovas with the last three trains we've camped with."

Payne noted the way she was focused on Rezuku's wagon. He said firmly, "You're not getting in there."

Not, at least, without him.

Her violet eyes sparked with sudden anger, but she kept her voice low. "They came after us, Payne.

They could have-should have-killed us on the road yesterday. What if they'd hit you? What if Rishte had been with me?" She looked back at the wagon. "He's got one of the few wagons you haven't been invited to, and Kettre could get me in there."

"Sure, if she wanted to risk a trial block. Besides, you think if Rezuku is involved, he's left his plans lying around for someone like you to find them? There's no way in the fifth h.e.l.l. Either Rezuku or his driver is always near the wagon. If not them, his guard stays close."

"Like Murton?"

He scowled.

"For someone who isn't carrying ores, this Rezuku seems awfully careful."

"That's too easy, Nori-girl. Lots of merchants are protective of their cargo."

She said slowly, "Aye, but he's not greedy enough."

Payne turned. "How do you figure that?"

"I watched him before at the lunch fireside. He might have been there for the business, but he didn't watch the trades as carefully as the others did. He watched the people instead."

"The mishaps started before he joined us."

She studied her brother. "But you're thinking about it now."

"Aye," he agreed again. "Now that the gelbug's in my head. I wonder how many messages he's received."

"There were two waiting for him at the message master when I checked the tower log last night."

"Two messages isn't excessive."

"No," she agreed. She waited half a heartbeat. "They were in code."

Payne gave her a sharp look. "What kind of code?"

"I only got a glimpse of it."

"But not the raider code."

"Not that I could tell."

It was frowned upon, but some scouts kept code fragments in their scout books, and pieces of messages they'd run across. They were puzzles that occupied the mind while they ran trail, rode long distances, or simply waited for the next job. Nori was no different in that respect. Over the years, she'd collected fragments from more than a dozen sources. Few people realized there was such a brisk trade in tower codes. Fewer still knew the places a scout could set up and read the signals freely. Long shields on the mirrors kept the signals focused toward the next tower and provided reasonable privacy, but decent scouts knew a few high places where they could read the signals. Nori had once gotten a b.l.o.o.d.y nose from two scouts who were fighting over a vantage point. She'd broken it up, sent them away with a threat of calling a badgerbear to the rock, and taken the vista point for herself. Payne had sat a few of those ridges with Nori. G.o.ds, they had been some of the most tedious days he'd ever survived. He'd gladly gone back to council duty and had been grateful ever since that he'd never been a.s.signed to the towers.

Tower teams had no days off during their duty. Two mirrormen, one to send, and one to receive, had to be on duty twenty-six hours a day, nine days a ninan, four ninans a month. Although some of the tower folk hunted or trapped on their off-shifts, most stayed close to home. The remote ridges made dangerous country in which to be out alone. All of which meant that scouts like Nori who brought in fresh meat or delicacies could trade for almost anything they wanted. Most traded for free messages sent to their families. Nori traded for code.

She followed his thoughts. "I've got tower duty for the next two days, and Jezeren is working one of those towers. I was going to send our message to Mama and Papa through him. I can check with him at the same time to see if he's seen any code like ours."

She knew she'd won when he said, "It'll be tricky, Nori-girl. Rezuku is more careful than some."

"Just let me know when."

"We might have to go to the Ell," he warned. "To arrange some sort of general search."

"That kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?"

"Depends. It would be interesting to see Rezuku's reaction to anyone getting into his wagon."

"Aye," she said softly. "It would."

XXI.

"Tower duty, that's when you leave the groomed roads And comfortable towns and better taverns- With fine ales, I might add- To ride muddy, rocky trails Up jagged mountains, While being chased by bihwadi, worlags and poolah, To reach some hermit sitting on a mirror, Who's going to hand you some sticks and tell you to Go right back down."

-Grasp, inPlaying with Swords, modern staging An hour after dawn, the caravan was rolling. Nori had avoided both Hunter and Fentris at breakfast.

She'd seen Hunter, but he'd been talking with some elders. When he'd gestured her over, she'd merely waved in response. The tall Tamrani had scowled after her, but had disappeared into the meeting wagon with Fentris, leaving Nori to stay with Wakje's driver on the wagon seat as the caravan rolled out.

That lasted barely two hours, until her legs had stiffened up in new and interesting ways. She went back to the saddle almost willingly to start working off herandyen duties, or debt ch.o.r.es, as Kettre called them.

She looked down the pale rootroad as she trotted. It was a dirty yellow-white ribbon under a thin canopy of branches that arched overhead. The forest would be much thicker and safer with its shadows and brush and soft trails. Here, where the sun hit, everything was exposed. She could even see the seams between the individual roots that made the planks of the road. Impact flattened and hardened the roots so that well-traveled roads were like warm stone. Only the edges and shoulders were spongy. She wished she could run on it barefoot. Her toes twitched in her boots. Her stomach growled, and she caught herself just before she snarled.