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To know the layout of Bingtown, Ronica reflected bitterly, was not the same as knowing its geography.

With a tearless sob, she caught her breath at the sight of the deep ravine that cut her path.

She had chosen to lead Rache this way, through the woods behind Davad’s house.

She knew that if they hiked straight through the woods to the sea, they would come to the humble section of Bingtown where the Three Ships families made their homes.

She had seen it often on the map in Ephron’s study.

But the map had not shown this ravine winding through the woods, nor the marshy trickle of water at the bottom of it.

She halted, staring down at it. ‘Perhaps we should have gone by the road,’ she offered Rache miserably.

She wrapped her dripping shawl more closely about her shoulders.

‘By the road, they’d have ridden us down in no time.

No. You were wise to come this way.’ The serving woman took Ronica’s hand suddenly, set it on her arm and patted it comfortingly.

‘Let’s follow the flow of the water. Either we will come to a place where animals cross this, or it will lead us to the beach.

From the beach, we can always follow the shoreline to where the fishing boats are hauled out. ’

Rache led the way and Ronica followed her gratefully.

Twiggy bushes, bare of leaves, caught at their skirts and shawls, but Rache pushed gamely onward through sword ferns and dripping salal.

Cedars towered overhead, catching most of the rain, but an occasional low bough dumped its load on them.

They carried nothing. There had been no time to pack anything.

If the Three Ships folk turned them away, they’d be sleeping outdoors tonight with no more shelter than their own skins.

‘You don’t have to be mixed up in this, Rache,’ Ronica felt obliged to point out to her. ‘If you leave me, you could find refuge among the Tattooed. Roed has no reason to pursue you. You could be safe.’

‘Nonsense,’ the serving woman declared. ‘Besides, you don’t know the way to Sparse Kelter’s house. I’m convinced we should go there first. If he turns us away, we both may have to take shelter with the Tattooed.’

By midmorning, the rain eased. They came to a place where a trail angled down the steep slope of the ravine.

Amidst the tracks of cloven hooves, Ronica saw the print of a bare foot in the slick mud.

More than deer used this trail. She followed Rache awkwardly, catching at tree trunks and small bushes to keep from falling.

By the time they reached the bottom, her scratched legs were muddy to the knees.

It mattered little. There was no bridge across the wide, green sheet of water at the bottom of the ravine.

The two women slogged through it silently.

The bank on the opposite side was neither as steep nor as tall.

Clutching at one another, they staggered up it and emerged into woods that were more open.

They were on a pathway now, and before they had gone much farther, it widened out into a beaten trail.

Ronica began to catch glimpses of makeshift shelters back under the trees.

Once she smelled wood-smoke and cooking porridge.

It made her stomach growl. ‘Who lives back here?’ she asked Rache as the serving woman hurried her on.

‘People who cannot live anywhere else,’ Rache answered her evasively.

An instant later, as if ashamed to be so devious, she told her, ‘Slaves that escaped their New Trader owners, mostly. They had to remain in hiding. They could not seek work, nor leave town. The New Traders had watchers at the docks who stopped any slaves without documents. This is not the only shantytown hidden in the woods around Bingtown. There are others, and they have grown since Fire Night. There is a whole other Bingtown hidden here, Ronica. They live on the edges, on the crumbs of your town’s trade, but they are people all the same.

They snare game, and have tiny hidden gardens, or harvest the wild nuts and fruits of the forest. They trade, mostly with the Three Ships folk, for fish and fabric and necessities. ’

They passed two huts leaning together in the shadow of a stand of cedars. ‘I never knew there were so many,’ Ronica faltered.

Rache gave a snort of amusement. ‘Every New Trader who came to your town brought at least ten slaves. Nannies, cooks, and footmen for the household, and farmhands for fields and orchards: they didn’t come to town and walk amongst you, but they are here.

’ A faint smile rippled her tattoo. ‘Our numbers make us a force to reckon with, if nothing else. For good or for ill, Ronica, we are here, and here we will stay. Bingtown needs to recognize that. We cannot continue to live as hidden outcasts on your edges. We must be recognized and accepted.’

Ronica was silent. The former slave’s words were almost threatening.

Down the path she glimpsed a boy and a small girl, but an instant later they had vanished like panicked rabbits.

Ronica began to wonder if Rache had deliberately steered her to this path.

Certainly she seemed at ease and familiar with her surroundings.

They climbed another hill, leaving the scattered settlement of hovels and huts behind them.

Evergreens closed in around them, making the overcast day even darker.

The path narrowed and appeared less used, but now that Ronica was looking for them, she saw other little paths branching away.

Before the two women reached the Three Ships houses along the shale beach the trail looked like no more than an animal track.

A chill wind off the open water rushed them along.

Ronica winced at the tattered and muddy aspect she must present, but there was nothing she could do about it.

In this section of Bingtown, the houses hugged the contour of the beach, where the Three Ships families could watch for their fishing vessels to return.

As Rache hurried her down the street, Ronica looked about with guarded interest. She had never been here before.

The exposure to storms off the bay pitted the winding street with puddles.

Children played on the long porches of the clapboard houses.

The smells of burning driftwood and smoking fish rode the brisk wind.

Nets stretched between the houses, waiting to be mended.

The rioting, and the desolation that had followed it had had small effect on this section of town.

A woman, well hooded against the nasty weather, hastened past them, pushing a barrow full of flat fish. She nodded a greeting to them.

‘Here, this is Sparse’s house,’ Rache suddenly said.

The rambling single-storey structure looked little different to its neighbours.

A recent coating of whitewash was the only indication of greater prosperity that Ronica could see.

They stepped up onto the covered porch that ran the length of the house and Rache knocked firmly on the door.

Ronica pushed her rain-soaked hair back from her face as the door swung open.

A tall woman stood in it, big-boned and hearty as many of the Three Ships settlers were.

She had freckles and a reddish hint in her sandy, weather-frazzled hair.

For a moment she stared at them suspiciously, then a smile softened her face.

‘I recall you,’ she said to Rache. ‘You’re that woman begged a bit of fish from Da. ’

Rache nodded, unoffended by this characterization. ‘I’ve been back to see him twice since then. Both times you were out in your boat, fishing flounder. You are Ekke, are you not?’

Ekke no longer hesitated. ‘Ah, come in with you, then. You both look wetter than water. No, no, never mind the mud on your shoes. If enough people track dirt in, someone will start tracking it out.’

From the look of the floor just inside the door, that would begin happening soon.

The floor was bare wood plank, worn by the passage of feet.

Within the house, the ceilings were low, and the small windows did not admit much light.

A cat sprawled sleeping beside a shaggy hound.

The dog opened one eye to acknowledge them as they stepped around him, then went back to sleep.

Just past the dozing dog was a stout table surrounded by sturdy chairs.

‘Do sit down,’ the woman invited them. ‘And take your wet things off. Da isn’t here just now, but I expect him back soon. Tea?’

‘I would be so grateful,’ Ronica told her.

Ekke dipped water from a barrel into a kettle. As she put it on the hearth to boil, she looked over her shoulder at them. ‘You look all done in. There’s a bit of the morning’s porridge left, sticky-thick, but filling all the same. Can I warm it for you?’

‘Please,’ Rache replied when Ronica could not find words.

The girl’s simple, open hospitality to two strangers brought tears to her eyes, even as she realized how bedraggled she must look to merit such charity.

It humbled her to know she had come to this: begging at a Three Ships door.

What would Ephron have thought of her now?

The leftover porridge was indeed sticky and thick.

Ronica devoured her share with a hot cup of a reddish tea, pleasantly spiced with cardamom in the Three Ships fashion.

Ekke seemed to sense they were both famished and exhausted.

She let them eat and made all the conversation herself, chatting of changing winter weather, of nets to be mended, and the quantity of salt they must buy somewhere to have enough to make ‘keeping fish’ for the stormy season.

To all of this, Ronica and Rache nodded as they chewed.