Effie watched his shoulders chuffing up and down with delight. It was enough to put you off boys for life.

More paddling was called for, and she took the wooden paddle from her lap and plunged it deep into the brown waist, She might have splashed Chedd on the first stroke, but not on the ones following. Paddling was too serious a business.

It was a calm but cold day and the sky was uniformly white. The Mouseweed was passing through a series of gorges and high-cut banks, and thin, silvery talk emptied into the river at every bend. The cliffs were red sandstone, mined with hollows and crevices, and grown over with chokeberries, black birch and vine. They had left the main artery of the Wolf three days back, following a long camp whilst Effie recu-perated from the near drowning, and without a doubt they'd passed beyond the Dhoonelands and into territory protected by Bludd.

As far as Effie could tell they were heading southeast. The Bitter Hills were a slowly lowering barrier to the south. Stony and jagged, their chutes pocked with new snow and their stiffs dark with hem-locks, they cast long shadows on the river as they dumped sowmelt into its depths. The most easterly section of Bitter Hills was called the Stone Hills by city men, and Effie had to admit it was a pretty decent name. When she was resting between paddles the imagined the city on the far side, Morning Star. Having no experience of citiai whatsoever, she fancied it as a grand collection of roundhouses wtth many outbuildings and several towers. The people would wear liners and silk, not wool and skins, and their voices would be high and fluting.

Ahead and to the north lay the Bluddsworn clans: HalfBludd, Haddo, Frees, Otler and Gray. Chedd said the only roundhouse they'd be likely to spot was Otler's and that was days east of here, but Effie thought he might be wrong. HalfBludd shared borders with Morning Star; depending upon what river branch they were on they might see it once the hills shrank away.

The Mouseweed felt different to Effie than the Wolf, older and more secretive. Last night she had seen a lynx withdrawing through the trees behind the camp. The wild and beautiful cat with its pointed ear tufts and blue-gray pelt did not seem to belong to the world of clan. She had tried explaining this to Chedd-who had rnatter-of-factly informed her the lynx was female-and Chedd had surprised her by agreeing. "Its the Sull who wear their pelts," he said. Sometimes he could say things that were exactly right. Clan did not wear lynx because they did not know how to trap or hunt them. Those skills belonged solely to the Sull.

Deciding she'd had enough of paddling, Effie shook the waer from her oar and rested it against the gunwales. Hands free, she reached for her lore.

It was someething she always did that absentminded checking, that quick motion upward to see how things stood in her world. Stupid Stupid. You'd think by now she'd have gotten used to the fact that her lore was gone, gobbled up by the pike that was more than a pike, lost for ever and eternity in the Wolf.

She had tried to make them go after it—spread nets, dive into the river, build dams—and in fairness to Waker Stone he had not dismissed her pleas out of hand. "Its gone," he had told her firmly. "Even if I dived for it how would I know the difference between that a thousand other stones?"

She had not told him about the pike. She had lived for a month with Mad Binny on Cold Lake, and knew the importance of sounding sane. The words A pike ate my lore were too close to My sheep knows how to fly for comfort. Instead she had commandeered Chedd Limehouse, forcing him to search the rivershore and set fishing lines. Guilt had prevented him from asking too many questions about the fishing lines—if he hadn't vomited the boat would never have capsized—and he had worked diligently for two whole days on the task of locating Effie's lore. On the third day she'd felt well enough to join the search and had waded thigh-deep into the now calm water, but her restored health had worked against her. When Waker saw her chastising Chedd for setting the lines in the wrong place, he had decided she was fit enough to return to the boat, and they were out upon the river by midday.

She held no ill feeling toward Waker for his haste. He had saved her life, and although she knew that he did so because she was in some way valuable to him—like gold—it didn't alter the fact that her life was saved. Effie was very much fond of her life. She wasn't one of those silly girls who heedlessly put their lives in danger by riding horses over high hedges, or sticking their heads underwater and counting how long they could hold their breath. Tree climbing, rock scaling, bridge swinging, roof walking, pool diving and even the wearing of insufficient layers in the cold were not things that Effie Sevrance did. Granted she used to sleep with the shankshounds, but even if they had torn out people's throats, they were good as lambs around her.

Waker had treated her a little differently since the near drowning and she had treated him a little differently back. She understood now that the abduction and journey were nothing personal. Waker Stone was doing his job. She and Chedd were cargo, and what a man wanted in his cargo was simply that it be easy to stow. If she did not fight against the stowing, which by her reckoning was the equivalent of getting into the boat promptly each morning, Waker was satisfied. Freedom could be had in a sideways kind of manner. She and Chedd could do whatever they wanted at the camp—as long as they remained in sight. They could now talk in the boat—as long as woodsmoke wasn't in the air. Nothing much was expected of them— they weren't even forced to paddle—and that meant they were free to enjoy the river and its sights. And as long as you ignored old crazy Waker Senior and forgot that you were being hauled east against your will the journey wasn't bad. She had even begun to think that she owed it to Waker to be good, what with him saving her life and all and she being precious cargo.

It was this realization that she ought to behave well that had made all the difference. Waker had recognized this shift in her, which was mostly detectable in fee quickness she responded to his requests and her determination to show him she was a good paddler, and he had responded in some kind back. Just this morning he had thrown her a small pouch of dried spiced peas. No word, barely any warning that she needed to get her hand ready to receive a catch, just a white bag chucked at her chest. Spiced peas were strange and set your gums tingling, and it took her a while to realize they were meant to be a treat. Once she understood their specialness they began to taste better.

She had the feeling now that if Waker had possessed a pick with the correct bore to knock out the pins in her leg irons he would have freed her.

"Stoney broke. Brokey stone. What's it like, girlie, to he all alone?"

Effie spun around in her seat and glared at Waker's father. He was sitting on the stern seat, calmly pulling his paddle through the water. His lips were closed and his green eyes sparkled with spite. He was wearing the shaggy brown otterskin jacket he always wore, but today he'd thrust a bunch of clubmoss though one of his string holes.

"I know what you said," she told him.

He looked at her and started moving his mouth like a fish. Spittle wetted his lips as his old pink tongue jabbed out.

Disgusted, she faced front.

"Nothing to like about pike."

She did not turn back. Suddenly cold, she decided to warm herself up with another bout of paddling. Mounds of hackled snow capped the rocks and gorges, and the river water had that thickness to it that meant it wasn't far above freezing. Chedd had fallen asleep in his seat and was snoring. Effie used her own paddle to hook his back in the boat. The clump of wood hitting the gunwales roused him, and he shook his head like a dog shedding water. Within five minutes he was back asleep.