‘Bingtown!’ Hetta was horrified. ‘That den of vice? Stay in the country, girl, where folks have hearts. No one will treat you well in the city.’

‘Stay,’ her husband urged me. His eyes decided me as he declared, ‘Live here, and I’ll treat you just like one of my own.’

And that night, he was as good as his word. As I slept on the hearth, I heard the scuff of his big bare feet as he came into the room. His children slept in the loft, and Hetta in their small bedchamber. In the past, he had done no more than stroke my buttock as I passed him, or casually brush my breast with the back of his hand as he reached past me, as if it were an accident. But I had never slept the night in his cottage. I smelled his sweat as he hunkered down beside me. ‘Cerise?’ he whispered in the darkness. I kept my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. My heart was hammering as I felt him lift the corner of the blanket Hetta had given me. His big hand came to rest on the angle of my neck. I gritted my teeth but could do no more than that. Useless to resist. Hetta and the children might wake, and then what would I say? I tried to be as stoic as my long-enduring grandmother. Let him touch me. If I refused to wake, surely he would leave me alone.

‘Cerise, honey;’ he whispered again, inching his fingers along my flesh.

‘Faithless man!’ a whisper answered him. Every muscle in my body tightened, for it seemed to come from my own throat. ‘Touch me, and I’ll rake your face with scratches that Hetta won’t ignore.’

He jerked his hand back from me as if scalded, so startled that he sat down hard on the floor behind me. I lay still, frozen in silent terror.

‘And that’s how you’d pay back my hospitality, is it? Go to Bingtown, then, you little baggage. There the men will take what they want of you, and not offer you a roof nor a bed in exchange for it.’

I said nothing, fearing his words were true. I heard him get to his feet and then shuffle back to his marriage bed. I lay still and sleepless the rest of the night, trying to pretend that I had said those words. The pendant lay against my skin like cold toad; I feared to touch it to remove it.

I left the next morning, though Hetta near wept as she urged me to stay. All my possessions still made a light load. Bingtown was only two days away by foot, but even so, I’d only been there twice in my life. Both times, I had gone with my parents. My father had carried me sometimes on his shoulder, and my mother had cooked food for us at night. But they were both long gone. Now I walked the road alone, and my heart pounded fearfully at the sight of every passing traveller. Even when I was alone, fear rode with me, dangling from the necklace about my neck.

That night I left the road, to unroll my blanket in the lee of some rocks. There were no trees for shelter, no friendly nearby stream, only a hillside of lichen-sided boulders and scrubby brush. Hetta had given me a little sack of meal-cakes to last me on my way. I was too frightened of thieves to build a fire that might draw them, so as the westering sun stole the colours from the day, I huddled in my blanket and nibbled on one of my meal-cakes.

‘A fine beginning to my new life,’ I muttered when the last dry crumbs of the cake were gone.

‘No worse than what other women of your line have faced,’ whispered a voice. It came from my shirtfront. In an instant, I had snatched off chain and pendant and flung it from me. It caught on a bush and hung there, silver chain glinting in the last of the sunset. The dangling pendant came to rest facing me. Even in the fading light, I could see that it had taken on lifelike colours. It raised tiny eyebrows at me in disdain. ‘It’s a foolish choice you’re making, girl,’ it warned me.

‘Throw me away, and you throw away your inheritance. Just as your grandmother did.’ Frightened as I was, the small voice was so like my grandmother’s that I could not ignore it. ‘What are you?’ I demanded.

‘Oh, come,’ the pendant exclaimed in disdain. ‘I am exactly what you see and know me to be. Let us not waste time on foolishness.’

‘You were grey and still when I took you from Grandmother’s jewellery box.’

‘She had not worn me for many a year. She put me aside, just as she put aside the rest of her life. But you have revived me. You are young and your anma rushes strong as your blood through your veins.’

The pendant had a tiny voice, and despite my fear, I drew closer to hear its words. The eyes that met mine held kindly amusement. A smile bent the mouth. ‘What are you afraid of?’ she demanded. ‘For generations I have been in your family, passed down from mother to daughter. With me comes all the wisdom of your line. You were wise enough to steal me. Are you so foolish that you will fear your fortune now that it is in your hands?’

‘You’re magic,’ I said. ‘You’re alive.’

‘I am. And so are you, if you would bother to find it in yourself. It’s part of your inheritance, and if you are wise, it will be the first part you reclaim.’

‘My inheritance?’ I asked quietly.

The little eyes narrowed. ‘What goes with the empty ring that you wear: that is your inheritance. As you have donned both it and me, I suggest that you reclaim all that went with it. All that your grandmother Aubretia possessed before she chose to set us aside and live quietly.’

It was growing darker. Strange as may be, the little carved face seemed like a companion in the night. I took up the pendant and held the carved face closer to my own so I could see it. ‘Tell me,’ I begged. ‘For all the years that I lived with my grandmother and cared for her, I know little of her past.’

‘Well.’ The small dark eyes, so like my own, flitted about consideringly. ‘Where shall I begin? Tell me what you do know of her.’

I cast my mind back. ‘She told me little. Mostly I have guessed. I think that when she was very small, her family was wealthy. She often warned me against trusting handsome young men. While I lived with her, she would not permit anyone to court me. So I think that-’

‘You think that her heart was broken when she was young. And you are correct. Aubretia did grow up in a family that had substance if not real wealth. Her father died when she was young. The Lantis family had little wealth save their name but her mother was wise, and set aside an inheritance for her youngest daughter. It was her intention that her child need never marry for wealth, only for love. I told them I did not see why the two could not go hand in hand, but they both dismissed it as a jest. When your great-grandmother was on her deathbed, she passed me to her daughter. And she left this world in peace, knowing she has passed on both worldly wealth and a secret counsellor to Aubretia.’

I tugged my blanket closer around my shoulders and leaned back against the largest rock. It still held some small heat from the day. I drew my knees up and set the pendant upon them to listen to her tale. Night crept closer around us.

‘For a time, she lived wisely and well. Then she met a young man, a lovely young man. He was new to Bingtown, come to the great trading city to make his fortune. Howarth was a younger son, with no fortune to his name but rich in ambition. Aubretia would have married him a day after she met him, but he would not take her so. ‘When I have made a fortune of my own, then I will claim you as a bride. I will not have folk say I wed you for your money.’ And so Howarth courted her with bouquets of simple wayside flowers, and sat in her house before her fire and told her daily of how hard he struggled to wrest out a living as a clerk in a mercantile. He often scoffed at the fellow who owned the store where he worked, for he said the man had no imagination in his dealings, and that he might easily be twice as successful if he had but a bit of daring and imagination. Howarth planned that as soon as he had money enough to finance it, he would go on a trading journey to far Jamaillia, and bring back fine goods such as all Bingtown would clamour to buy. On his dreams were your grandmother’s dreams founded.