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Yvon and Xaragitte that they must do the same. "Please, continue."
    Yvon swallowed. "We've been afoot these four days, and I have no more food to gift her with, to my great shame. If you would be kind enough to provide my niece with a bite to eat, I will say prayers to Verlogh for you at the festival of justice."
    The eunuch lifted the carved horn to her lips and blew several short notes. When she was done, she lowered the horn and thrust out her hands. The intimate gesture surprised Yvon. He hesitated, then tucked his walking stick under his arm, extending his own hands. They gripped each other's wrists.
    "Well met, Bran. My name is Sebius. We cannot permit our new but beloved friends to venture so long afoot with neither sustenance nor drink."
    Two young, muddy boys, one dark-skinned and the other fair, ran up to Sebius. Others hurried over, but too late. She waved them off. The herder whispered her commands, and the two took off running in different directions.
    Xaragitte looked questioningly at Yvon, who made no response at all. She shifted Claye to her other hip and pulled the sweat-damp hair away from her face.
    "Aha," Sebius said, noticing the gesture. "The goddess Bwnte herself did not have tresses so red, nor skin as pale and freckled, when she walked disguised across the plains of Maedatup with her newborn son."
    A smile quirked across Xaragitte's lips. That resemblance was one of the chief reasons she'd been selected as nursemaid. Yvon felt worse and worse about this chance encounter. Three gods watching them.
    "Have you ever seen the mammuts before?" Sebius asked.
    "I have, a few times," Yvon answered, leaving off that he hated the beasts. There were only three things in the world he hated and feared, and war mammuts were one.
    "And you, m'lady Pwylla-you will not be offended if I address you so familiarly?"
    "N-no," Xaragitte answered. "I am honored."
    "Ah! Have you ever seen the mammuts before?"
    "No, never."
    Sebius clapped her hands together. "Today, you shall not only see one, you shall be conveyed like a princess upon one's back. It is my little gift to you, to ease your journey."
    "You do us too much honor," Yvon protested.
    "Not at all! For all I know, she is the goddess Bwnte, come in disguise once more, and I have a duty to help her."
    Xaragitte smiled at her. "Usually, men flatter me with that comparison when they seek the blessings of the goddess herself."
    "I am beyond reproach in that regard," the eunuch said, and they both laughed. "So it is agreed, then, yes?"
    Yvon wanted her to say no. A short time ago, she'd tried to stab him for suggesting they join the train of the army. Now she was ready to ride one of the Baron's mammuts. But the presence of the eunuch reassured her-she'd worked side by side with Kepit in Lady Gruethrist's service. She glanced at Yvon, her eyes as hard as steel.
    "We would love to ride on a mammut," she told Sebius. She tickled Claye beneath his chin. "Wouldn't we, darling?"
    Yvon's heart stopped in his throat as he half expected her to call the baby by his true name. Anyone who heard the name Claye would think of Gruethrist.
    At that moment, the first of the boys returned leading a mammut, a small beast, only ten feet tall and clearly old, no longer a fighting mammut. The red fur fell off in clumps, the way it always did in spring. Brass knobs covered the sawed-off tusks. Ropes girded about its waist held a bundle on its back. The handler was a slight lad not much older than the errand boys, which meant it was a trusted animal. But the shaggy beasts were too unpredictable, Yvon thought, no matter what their age or use.
    Sebius gestured to the handler, who clicked his teeth and gave a command with his feet behind the creature's ears. The mammut knelt to the ground.
    "This is Lady Pwylla," Sebius explained. "You will carry her today and ease her journey. Treat her as if she were the goddess herself."
    "It is my exquisite privilege, Lady," the handler said. Large ears stood out