“All right,” said the magus at last. “All right. Let’s go.” But he still didn’t turn his horse away from the stream. In the distance we heard a shout. The stray horse had been found, but the magus sat, unwilling to give up. He looked at the streambank and the trees around him, as if for landmarks, as if there were some hope that he might return to the place to search again. My nerves communicated themselves to my horse, and it sidled and blew underneath me.

Finally the magus dragged himself away. We turned our horses down the track and kicked them into a gallop. The magus rode beside me, still looking stunned. I don’t know what the others were thinking; I was concentrating on my riding. This was no time to drop behind or, worse, fall off the horse.

When we’d covered some distance, we turned into the trees and rode more slowly for almost an hour until we came to another open path.

“They’ll track us,” Sophos said, looking over his shoulder.

“We’ll have to keep ahead of them,” said the magus. I swiveled my head around to look at him. He sounded almost cheerful. He looked cheerful.

“A little danger adds spice to life, Gen,” he told me.

I was stunned at his recovery, and it must have shown. “I’ve had some time to think, Gen. The stone itself isn’t important. Now that we have seen it for ourselves, as well as having the description, and we know that no one else can produce the original, we can make a copy.”

How someone could have held that stone in his hand and then say it wasn’t important, I didn’t know. I almost expected lightning to strike him dead.

“What about the fact that the stone is supposed to carry its own authority?” I snapped. “You’re supposed to look at it and know that it is Hamiathes’s Gift.” We’d all felt that, I’d thought, by the banks of the Aracthus.

But the magus had an answer. “That will be dismissed as superstition,” he said confidently. “We’ll manage just fine.”

All of my work could be thrown away. He would manage. I gritted my teeth.

The magus turned to speak to Pol. “We’ll follow this track into the cultivated groves, then cut through those toward the main road. If they haven’t seen us, we might hide in traffic; if they have, we’ll swing back under the olives and use the maintenance paths as much as possible.”

“What about food?” I asked. My tone nettled him.

“I guess we’ll try to get something in Pirrhea tonight,” he said vaguely.

“Tonight?” My exasperation pierced his bubble of false cheer.

“I’m sorry,” he snapped, “but I can’t pull food out of the sky for you.”

“You’re not going to pull it out of Pirrhea either,” I said. “What do you plan to do, knock on a door and say, ‘Excuse us, there are four of the Queen’s Guard dead, soldiers are searching every road for us, and I’d like to buy a few loaves of bread and some dried beef, please’?”

“And what do you suggest, O oracle of the gutter?”

“I suggest that you should have brought food for five people with this miserable traveling circus of yours. Alternatively, you should have left Useless the Elder and his younger brother at home!”

“He’s not my brother.” Ambiades was offended.

“That,” I snarled at him, “was a figure of speech. Now shut up.” He jumped in the saddle as if he’d been slapped. I turned back to the magus. “How do you propose to get food?”

But the magus had had a moment to think and had arrived at the obvious solution. “You,” he said, “are going to steal it.”

I threw up my hands.

Pirrhea was an old town. Like many, it had outgrown its walls and was surrounded by fields and farmhouses. I walked through kitchen gardens, harvesting whatever my hands found in the dark. I dropped what I gathered into a bag I had taken from a shed at the first house I passed. Once I got too close to a goat pen and the occupants bleated at me. When no one came out to check on them, I went in and collected two cans of goat milk from the settling shelf. I was thirsty as well as hungry and drank one of the cans while I considered burgling someone’s kitchen for leftover bread. I decided against it. Stale bread wasn’t worth the risk, but I did slip into the henhouse of the largest home I passed, to wring the necks of three chickens. I dropped them into a second bag and left town.

The magus and the others were waiting for me in the trees on the far side of an onion field. I hadn’t been keen to risk my neck for them. There had been recriminations of uselessness as we rode. Ambiades hadn’t liked it when I’d suggested he should have been left home. I pointed out that he’d been no help at the ford. He pointed out that I had climbed a tree. I pointed out that I had no sword. He offered to give me his, point first.

When I’d left the others in a rare grove of almond trees outside town, the magus had told me he’d give me an hour, and if I wasn’t back by then, he’d find the town center and shout “Thief!” at the top of his lungs.

In the dark he hadn’t been able to see the contempt on my face, but he could hear it in my voice. “Be sure to shout ‘Murderers! Murderers!’ too,” I said.

His answer had followed me as I walked away. “I’ll make sure that we all go to the block together.”

Everyone looked sadly at the chickens when the magus said there was no time to cook them. Pol tied them to his saddle, and we headed off into the dark, eating handfuls of raw vegetables and crunching grit in our teeth.

“There’s a livery stable on the main road at Kahlia,” the magus said. “We can steal a change of horses there.”

I choked on the spinach I was chewing. “We can what?”

“It’s another two hours’ ride if we push the horses.” He went on, ignoring my interruption. “We can find a place to camp by the road. There are enough travelers that we won’t be noticed. We’ll get a couple of hours’ sleep. Pol, you could put the chickens into the fire, and then we’ll get the horses and ride on. We should lose them when we cut away from the main road, away from the Seperchia’s pass to Eddis. They won’t expect that.”

“You are going to use the same trail back home? Why not just ride for the main pass?” Ambiades asked. “It’s closer, isn’t it? And once we’re in Eddis, we’re on neutral ground.”

“Once we get to Kahlia we’d be closer to the main pass,” the magus agreed. “But they’ll have all the roads blocked, and I’m not sure we could sneak through. The land around the pass is mostly open fields. They won’t expect us to cut back inland, and we should slip by them.”

“I think the main pass would be better,” Ambiades said hesitantly, giving the magus one last chance.

“It’s not your job to think,” the magus told him.

Ambiades tossed his head, and I thought he might say something, but he didn’t.

“About those horses . . . ,” I said.

“You’ll do your best, Gen,” said the magus, “and if your best isn’t good enough, we’ll all—”

“Go to the block together,” I grumbled. “You said that before.”