As Uriana and Carla organised themselves and set about their tasks for the day, neither noticed the thoughtful expression that settled on Danae’s face as she watched them leave.


It was dark, very dark, when she awoke. Danae’s hard finger in her ribs made her jump awake, with a sudden sharp remembrance of that first awakening in an alley inside Stonewall’s grey border. She did not know, really, how long she had been living outside Stonewall, sleeping on the ground. At least they had managed to acquire a heavier blanket, and a tough canvas to go on the ground underneath, even if they could not afford to trade away all their hard-found goods for a tent big enough to sleep the three of them. Carla had taken to sleeping outdoors, too, as the floor space under the rough canvas walls was given over to storing the poor commodities they were accumulating to take inside the city. Danae poked her again, and Uriana sat up. Danae put a hand over her mouth in the darkness, and pulled at her sleeve with the other hand. With eyes blind as if they had been bound, they crawled a short distance away from their little campsite. Danae pushed a bundle into Uriana’s hands.

“We’ll go in today,” she whispered hoarsely. “But you shouldn’t come, I think. You, girl, have been helpful, very helpful, but you should be about your own business. You won’t be arguing with me, no, you won’t – I might be an old woman, but that just means I’m old enough to know what I’m talking about. You head off now, while no-one’s about to see you go, and I’ll explain to Carla when she wakes. Hah! And don’t you worry about that fool of a husband of hers, I’ll see if we can’t talk some sense into that merchant and get him sprung, and we’ll be off out of here before the season ends – I know who to talk to, I surely do. Old enough to have a few strings to pull, that I am. And I’ll give one of them to you, for the help you’ve given my Carla, truly I thought she would just sit out here and pine ‘til one or both of us died, but with a little push from you we’re up and moving again. We don’t carry debt, the Travelling People, not carelessly, anyway – hard to travel with debt, it is, it weighs you down, but I’m old enough to know that it’s worth having some people in debt to you, so I’ve collected one or two favours over my years. Now, I’d not be carrying any debt to you, so I’m giving you one of the favours owing to me, that I am, one of my little strings to pull, as such. Here.” Danae pressed something into Uriana’s hand, a little pouch of soft leather. Uriana held it awkwardly in her palm until Danae pressed her fingers closed around it. “Hold onto that carefully, don’t lose it, and give it to the right one, and there’ll be a little help for you. It’s not too far from here, should only take you a day or two, or three if you’re slow, but I’d suggest you don’t be slow. Skirt around the outside of the camp to the forest edge, ‘til you reach the road in, then follow that through the forest. It’s only cobbled for a short way in the forest, and when you reach the edge of the stones – where the road becomes dirt only – keep walking until you pass the third marker stone. They’re hard to miss, big and grey and too heavy to move, with a number carved in them so those as can read will know how far they’ve got to go. Stupid idea, I must say, because there’s nowhere else to go in this direction except Stonewall, and nowhere to stop along the way, you just have to keep going until you get here. Anyway. After the third marker, keep an eye out for a track leading off to your left. Just a little tiny track, like a footpath for rabbits. Follow that along, and it leads you to a stream – then follow the stream upriver to find the pool. You’ll know the pool when you get to it, it’s a beautiful little pool, people don’t go in there, so no-one even knows it’s there. Except me, hah, but precious few besides me. Go there, and you’ll meet her. She’ll find you there, would be a better way of putting it. Tell her that the old sawteeth sent you, and show her what’s in that little pouch, and she’ll help you. But be of quick, so no-one sees you go, that’d be my suggestion, girl, and check that no-one sees you leave the road, either. Now, quick, I’ve been talking too long and the sun’ll be up before we know it.”

Uriana stood, looking down at her hand clenched around the pouch. In the darkness, she could barely make out the outline of her own fist – the moon was just the barest sliver of light, and clouds obscured most of the weak starlight. She stared at the shadows that were her fingers while she assembled the stream of speech from Danae into sense and constructed a question.

“But… why must I leave?” By the time Uriana whispered the question, there was no answer. Danae had crept back to the tent through the sleeping dark. Uriana looked around. It was dark, yes, but they had not come far from the camp. She should be able to stumble back easily enough. But Danae had sounded so certain, so decided, and so urgent that she should leave… a creeping sense of fear grew in Uriana. Why was Danae so concerned that she should leave at night? And what help could this mysterious forest-dwelling hermit character offer her? She should say goodbye to Carla, at least. Without her help Uriana did not know what she would have done.

There was a scuffling noise behind her – in the dark, a breeze picked up a stray leaf and brushed it against her ankles. The unexpected touch combined with the old woman’s urgency caused the fear in Uriana’s chest to solidify into decision – turning away, she began stumbling hurriedly toward the forest. She clutched the little pouch in one hand and the bundle Danae had given her under the other arm, and tripped and limped to the treeline, panic growing and crawling behind her in the thick dark. She stopped when her bare feet hit the rough leaf litter of the forest, and picked her way more carefully through the undergrowth until she bumped against a large tree. Unable to shake the nameless fear pursuing her, she huddled on the ground behind the trunk of the tree and waited for daylight.

She might have dozed a little, if it were not so cold. Sitting still in the frigid air, the panic receded slowly, and she wondered what had prompted her to suddenly flee the camp. Her feet ached from the hurried trip over uneven ground, and she had fallen at one point and grrazed her ankle. She wondered if she should not still return, to give her goodbyes to Carla and try to supply herself more for the upcoming hike – if it came to that, why was she leaving at all? Because an old woman came to her in the night and insisted she should? No – because that same old woman told her there was someone who might help… Uriana unfolded her hand to examine the little pouch more clearly. It was small and soft, and she could feel two tiny buttons fastening the flap closed. There was an uneven lump inside – only little, and completely unidentifiable through the leather. She did not open it, fearing that without light to see by, she might lose the contents on the ground and not be able to find them again. She turned her attention to the bundle Danae had pressed on her. Bulky fabric – a heavier, warmer dress that the tunic and skirt she had been wearing for most of her stay with Danae and Carla. Wrapped up inside the dress was a pair of shoes – tough soled walking boots like those worn by nearly all of the Travelling People. They had thick, strong soles with soft leather uppers that came half way up the calf, tied with laces. The soles of this pair felt worn – at a guess, Uriana decided they must have been Danae’s own shoes. A little light was beginning to creep between the trees, just barely improving her ability to see, so Uriana pulled the boots on and tied the laces. They did not fit well, being a little loose on her feet. Uriana’s feet had toughened over the weeks of wandering through the forest searching out anything edible or tradable, but she still didn’t care for the thought of a long walk in bare feet. And from the urgency in Danae’s instruction, Uriana decided that she didn’t want to go slowly, picking her way through undergrowth and over branches. If she was going to seek out Danae’s mysterious helper, she should take Danae’s instructions at face value, and move as quickly as she could. Pulling the knots on the laces tight and wondering if she would ever remember who taught her to tie laces, she stood and pulled the dress over the light shift she had been sleeping in. It was the same shift she had woken in, all those days ago inside Stonewall. There was no food included in the little bundle of cloth, but there was a small water flask on a belt. Uriana strapped the belt around her waist – she had seen enough new arrivals in the Travelling People camp to know how they carried their water while walking beside their carts – and tucked the pouch into a pocket on the dress. Then she set off in the direction of the road.