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tiresome majestrix. You know that.”
    “Quidang, my lady!”
    With that settled, the corpses rifled — they turned up nothing of interest and six leather bags totaling a hundred and twenty-one gold pieces, two hundred and thirty-five silver pieces and not a copper ob among them — the two Djangs and their queen set the totrixes in motion. They walked the animals, husbanding them, and so took their way out of the Ochre Limits.
    As they rode Delia pondered. Portents in what had happened alarmed her. Affairs, in her half-brother’s kovnate province of Vindelka, were quite clearly not running smoothly.
    Flutsmen? Paid guards who attacked unfortunate women?
    One would think this was some wild and barbaric land instead of civilized Vallia!
    Of course, much of Vallia’s civilization had been stripped away during the Time of Troubles, and even now the country was not fully restored. But in Vindelka? She grew a trifle warm at the thought of some of the words she would use when she met Vomanus.
    When they reached the river she was again forcefully reminded that this latter-day Empire of Vallia was not the same as the Vallia into which she had been born. She could not plunge in and go for a good long cleansing swim. Jaws and claws... When she was a young girl the rivers had been made safe. Well, as in the case of the prowling leems and other savage animals, one day the rivers and the land would be made safe again.
    Reaching a pleasant glade above the riverbank, they camped and cooked a meal. The men brought up as much water as they could in every container that could be pressed into service, and the queen gave herself a thoroughly good wash. Trusting in the glowing radiance of Zim and Genodras, the twin suns, she washed her hair. Some of the scents and unguents that poor Pansi would have used had been smashed in the crash of the airboat; enough remained for her to perfume her hair — subtly — and to make herself feel a little more like Delia. Despite all the titles she had had hung about her, she tended to think of herself just as Delia. Some of her titles she loved; others she was ambivalent about, and a few — a very few — she could not summon up enthusiasm for. She was too sensitive of what they meant actively to despise any one of the collection.
    Tandu was fussing.
    Delia eyed him.
    He started to bang the fire out. “If we leave now, my lady, we will reach Mellinsmot before nightfall.”
    “Excellent! Then we leave now.”
    As the twin suns slid down the sky, and the western horizon smoked into jade and ruby flames, it was pleasant to jog along the riverbank, in the sweetness of the late afternoon and early evening, and see ahead the lights of the town waiting to welcome them.
    Jogging along, Delia thought of her husband. There was no particular reason not to think of him, and the time of day made no difference, for she thought of him at any time, as, he had told her, he thought of her. Each had to go one way, for a space, until all the dangers were past. Then they would be together and not let anyone or anything part them again, ever...
    Riding jolting along on a saddle animal all day, biting on sand and dust, fighting off murderous flutsmen, trying to keep clean and get enough to eat, all this took a toll, drained a girl, set a dull fatigue into her bones so that the prospect of bath and bed pleased her far more than they would ordinarily. Just to wash herself clean, eat a gargantuan supper, and then stretch out and go to sleep!
    Marvelous!
    Of course, one vital ingredient would be missing tonight; but then he was so often away she had fashioned a life for herself that, half of a full life though it might be, had, perforce, to suffice. He felt exactly the same way.
    In the last of the light as the totrixes quickened their six feet, some of the pleasure of the evening waned.
    They reached an avenue of tended trees; considerable cultivation had been passed in the gloaming and now they approached the northwest gate of