“Well,” said Rigg, “I’d better go back out before I lie down on this very hard stone floor to sleep. In fact, since it isn’t raining, I think I’ll sleep outside.”

“But . . .” Umbo began.

“You’ll be fine inside, if that’s where you want to be,” said Rigg. “And I’m used to sleeping outside.”

“You’re rejecting the hospitality of the saint?”

“On the contrary,” said Rigg. “I’m preserving the holiness. Of this place. Because I intend to poo and pee all night.”

Umbo stayed inside when Rigg came out and found a place to empty his bladder. He didn’t really need to do anything else, so he walked a quarter of the way around the shrine and found a place where, using his fingers, he could rake together a reasonably soft bed of soil and leaves.

But he couldn’t get to sleep because this was all too strange. He had never come to this place, but since they rarely traveled on the North Road that was no surprise. This business of saints and gods and demons—Rigg did not remember ever playing such games as Umbo described. And gods and demons were things that people invoked without actually seeming to believe much in them. I mean, when you curse “by Silbom’s left testicle” you can’t be terribly worried that the god might take offense and come and punish you—and that had always been the favorite oath of the blacksmith.

Yet Umbo seemed absolutely certain that he and Rigg had played these games, and that everyone—including Rigg—knew about saints. How could such a thing be? How could two people who had played together quite a lot as children have such completely different memories, but in just one area?

Rigg heard Umbo come out of the shrine. “Rigg?” he called out.

“I’m over here,” said Rigg. “You’re welcome to sleep outside near me—it’s a lot softer and it’s not a cold night.”

“No,” said Umbo. “Where did you pee and all?”

“You don’t have to use the same place.”

“I want to avoid the place,” said Umbo. “I don’t want to step in anything.”

“Oh—go away from the door to the left and you won’t be anywhere near my personal mud.”

Umbo gave a little hoot of laughter. “Personal mud.”

“That’s what . . .” but then Rigg didn’t finish the sentence. That’s what Father always called it. What would Umbo know—or care—about that?

Thinking about Father made Rigg sad all over again, and to keep himself from crying he shut his eyes and started working through some of the problems in topology that Father had been training him in. Visualizing a fractal landscape was always a surefire sleep inducer, Rigg had found—no matter how much you explored it, going in deeper or coming out to a wider view, there were always new forms to discover.

He woke up at the first light of dawn. He was a little stiff from the chill of the morning—it was cold, he could see his breath—but he had shaken out the kinks by the time he got back to his spot from the night before and added to the mud. Then he went across the clearing to the other side, where there was a burbling stream with clear water. He filled three smallish water bags—another habit he had learned from traveling with Father. “You never know when you might break a bone and have to go a long time before someone finds you.”

“You’ll find me, Father,” Rigg had replied, but Father would not find him now. And the water would be for two travelers, not one.

Umbo hadn’t stirred yet when Rigg got back to the shrine. Rigg got his little pack open and pulled out the food Nox had given him. Having accepted Umbo as a traveling companion, by the custom of the road the food belonged half to him. From his own half, then, Rigg ate only a little. He didn’t want to have to stop and hunt very much, this close to Fall Ford; he’d let the food linger as long as he could before he worked the setting of traps into the nightly routine.

It was full light before Umbo came out of the shrine, groaning and walking like a cripple.

“Stone floor,” said Rigg. “It’ll do it every time.”

“But it has walls,” said Umbo.

“And a door that doesn’t close.”

“It doesn’t have to close,” said Umbo, “with the saint’s protection.”

“So what happens if robbers come and decide to kill everyone and take what they have? This withering saint appears and stands in the doorway and withers at them?”

“Wandering Saint,” said Umbo, looking pained.

“I know, I was joking,” said Rigg.

“You shouldn’t joke about sacred things,” said Umbo.

“What’s happened to you?” asked Rigg.

“I need to make mud—is that what you call it? That’s what’s about to happen to me.”

Umbo went off for a while and then came back and said, “You have any food?”

“You didn’t bring any?” asked Rigg, assuming that he hadn’t.

“Just this sausage,” said Umbo. “My sister hid it in my hat—she rushed after me and gave me my hat. I think Father hit her for the hat—for giving me anything at all. But he might have killed her for the sausage. Well, not killed, but you know.”

“Share the sausage. Here’s what Nox gave me. Halves on everything.”

“I know the traveler rules,” said Umbo.

“This is your half.”

Umbo looked from half to half.

“It was even when I divided it,” said Rigg.

“It’s still even as far as I can tell. Haven’t you eaten?”

“I’ve eaten as much as I want. I want this food to last.”

“What good is it to make the food last? So the animals who find your starved corpse will have something delicious to eat and leave your flesh alone?”

“I had what I need,” said Rigg. “We often go for a few days on short rations, just for practice. You get so you kind of like the feeling of being hungry.”

“That is the sickest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Umbo.

And then, once again, Umbo was caught up in sobs. Only for a moment—just four great heaves of his chest, a brief storm of tears. “By the Wandering Saint,” said Umbo. “I just think of Kyokay and there it is.” He made some pretense at laughing. “It’s going to be really embarrassing if I ever do this in front of somebody.”

“What am I? A stump?” asked Rigg.

“I meant somebody who wouldn’t understand. Somebody who wasn’t there.”

By that system of thought, Umbo could mourn for his brother all he wanted, but Rigg had better not shed tears for Father, since nobody else was there. But Rigg wasn’t in the mood for a quarrel. They had a long way to walk today, and Umbo wasn’t used to walking, and the last thing they needed was to be snippy with each other from the start.

“Eat,” said Rigg. “Or smear the food into your hair, or whatever you intend to do, but let’s get it done. The sun’s up now, so we’ve already lost a half hour of traveling at least, and there’ll be other people on the road before long.”

“Oh, are we avoiding them?” asked Umbo.

“I am,” said Rigg. “If they come from Fall Ford, anyway. Looking for me. Or you, for that matter. And strangers coming the other way—what are they going to think of boys traveling without adults with them? We have to be ready to dodge into the woods whenever anybody’s coming. I don’t want a lot of conversations with strangers out here.”

“A lot of travelers come through Fall Ford,” said Umbo. “They never harm anybody.”

“In Fall Ford they’re outnumbered. They might act very differently when they outnumber us.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Well, let’s see. Death first—that’s a big one. And pain. And having somebody take away what pathetic few things I own.” He didn’t see any reason for Umbo to know about the jewels and the letter of credit. Travelers’ law of sharing didn’t extend to money or trade goods or other valuables.

“I’ve never even thought about that until . . .”

Rigg thought Umbo was going to cry again, but he didn’t after all.

“Well, Umbo,” said Rigg, “you’ve spent your whole life in a village. It’s a lot safer there, unless somebody accuses you of murder and they work up a mob to come and kill you.”