The next day I found such luck I could hardly credit it. Just past the brightest part of afternoon, I found a meadow and six goats.

It may not seem much of an event, but it froze me in place, stock-still and blinking, wary of leaving the shelter of the trees. The meadow lay dappled with sunshine, spring flowers carpeting its knee-high grass, and I heard the tinkle of a bell before the flock came into sight, driven by a dark-eyed boy in rough homespun with a long hazel switch he used to prod the wiry-haired creatures into motion.

I stared as if seeing a Court spectacular, then hastily made certain the Aryx was pushed below Tinan di Rocham’s shirt. He would not like the condition tis in now.

I stared at the small peasant boy with his mop of gingery-dark hair and coppery skin.

Where there was a young boy and a flock of goats, there had to be a steading nearby—or another bandit village? Perhaps. I had little choice.

I waited for the boy to notice me, but he did not. He merely prodded the goats about and then, satisfied, flung himself down on a small rise in the high grass. One of the goats wore a collar with a tiny bell, the source of a merry tinkling.

I had just relieved myself behind a tam tree, so I was relatively comfortable, if still hungry. I watched as the boy appeared to fall into a deep slumber in the sunlight. I stayed in the shade, watching as the flock browsed its well-mannered way through the meadow. The boy seemed supremely unconcerned.

Now I was to solve the problem of how to approach him.

I cleared my throat with a small mannerly noise, moving out from the shelter of the darker trees. The boy did not stir. I forged ahead, fighting the urge to plunge back into the forest. Who would have thought the Shirlstrienne so full of people? Or am I in the Alpeis now?

I reached what I judged was a safe distance from the boy and cleared my throat again.

Nothing. He appeared asleep.

I tried it again, and then managed to speak. “Sieur?”

The boy’s dark eyes drifted open.

For a moment we remained so, one battered noblewoman in men’s clothing and one small dark-skinned goatherd boy.

“Cor,” the boy said finally, “you doan look li’ no demieri di sorce.”

A wild braying laugh nearly choked me. If he thought me mad he might hesitate to render aid. “That is because I am not one. Please, can you tell me, is there a steading or a town nearby?”

I do not know whether to call it chance or luck that I met Avier in that meadow. I do know he took a great risk in bringing me to his family’s wagons.

Avier’s people were R’mini, traveling tinkers and hedgewitches famed for their red-brown hair and their skill in mending, be it pots and pans or wheels and cogs. The R’mini have traveled through Etharial, from Far Rus to Arquitaine to Tiberia, and mayhap even as far as Tifrimat, since anyone can remember. With their bright-painted wagons and large, patient horses or sleek oxen, they were a welcome sight in the depth of winter when amusement was hard to come by—though there are those who accuse them of bringing disease and ill-luck in their train wherever they roam.

I do not know why d’Arquitaines fear a wandering people so much. Mayhap because the Angoulême and his Companions had wandered before finding a home, and we fear to travel again. Who can guess?

I was brought to their headman, Avier’s uncle, after the women had finished poking and prodding at me. Adersahl’s dagger I surrendered to them with no demur. After all, I thought it unlikely they were loyal to d’Orlaans. And I could hardly blame them—I would have taken away my dagger, too.

Avier’s uncle Tozmil sat on a small, decorated wooden stool by the fire. His wife, a lean dark woman dressed in the bright reds and golds R’mini women favoured, gilt coins dripping from her cap of bright meshwork, leaned against him. His daughters whispered and pointed from behind their mother, and the rest of the R’mini pressed close.

“Who are you?” Tozmil asked, after making a number of odd gestures. I did not know whether to laugh or weep. I found later his armwaving and finger-jabbing was meant to make me vanish in a puff of smoke if I was demieri di sorce.

The R’mini are cautious of such things.

“My name is Vianne.” I had decided prudence was best. “I have become separated from my traveling companions. I must reach Arcenne, in the mountains, good sieur, and I—”

“You stink of smoke,” he interrupted briskly. “Are you banditti?”

I did not have to feign the start that gave me. “No, of course not.” I sounded indignant. I wished suddenly for Tristan, or Risaine, or anyone. At least with my Captain I had some chance at guessing what he would do with me. “If you cannot help me, I will go on my way. I will not be the cause of trouble to you or your wagons, sieur Tozmil.”

Tozmil’s dark eyes sparkled. I did not know it then, but twas exactly the right thing to say. R’mini are often shunned and driven out of towns, and they sometimes feel a kinship with others similarly hounded. Yet for all that, they have a fierce pride, and those who come to them humbly are not oft well-received. “And how will you reach Arzjhen alone, V’na?” His accent mangled both my name and the name of the town. “You have no water, no wagon, no horse. Bad luck.”

If you only knew how much luck I have had, both good and ill. I dug in my pocket while his eyes narrowed, and fished out my emerald ear-drops. “I have means to pay for passage.” I opened my hand to show the glitter of gems. “These are all I have left of my life, sieur Tozmil. If you will help me reach Arcenne I will gift you these, and there may well be other reward as well.”

He examined my face, and his wife leaned down to whisper in his ear. He nodded, slowly. Then his gaze left me and traveled in a slow arc over the rest of his troupe—perhaps thirty people, young and old. There were several children.

I tried not to think on it.

The silence stretched. I sought to keep my hand from trembling.

“Very well,” Tozmil said. “Keep your gauds, we don’ steal from th’ poor. But you travel with us, you travel as R’mini, and you wear a woman’s skirts. We’ll have no g’ji g’jai in our wagons.”

I nodded wearily, feeling filthy and very, very tired. “I could not agree more, sieur. If I could have been wearing skirts this past month, I would have much preferred it.”

He stared at me for another long moment, then his wife laughed, tossing her head back. It was the high-pitched giggle that R’mini women use among themselves, a sign of cameraderie, though I did not yet know it.

At the sound of the women’s laughter, it was as if I had passed some manner of test, for Tozmil clapped his hands and his daughters came forward, laughing and tossing liquid streams of their strange language back and forth, drawing me away. I tried to press my ear-drops on them, but they refused, shaking their heads. They exclaimed over my hair and my strange skin, so different from theirs, and I was at that moment made a lowly member of R’mini Tosh Tozmil’hai Jan.