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Them ain’t fer tradin, she says She don’t even bother to look, she jest keeps on scribblin

As I go to drop ’em back, she says, They’re yers, meant fer you, kept fer you, put ’em on

I pause Cast a frown at her back Crazy old coot Then, Thanks, I says I slip the jerkin over my head, slide on the armbands an do up the buckles A perfect fit All of it

Emmi’s bin silent this whole tie that sits on top It’s tiny The size of ether Such dainty metalwork you wouldn’t think possible Vines twine the bars, burstin with leaf an fruit an flower Inside, there’s aScabs of colour tell of its painted beauty, once upon a long ago What kinda person in what kinda world had time or cause to make somethin like this?

Nero flaps onto the table He peers at the bird, his head tipped this way, that way He croaks Taps the bars gently with his beak

Nero, don’t, says E The key, the key is the key to a song She thron the chalk an comes over, swipin her hands on her britches Her crabby old fingers wind a key hid low on one side There’s a whisper of a clank Then the tinkle of ancient spiderweb music The finch’s beak opens an shuts It tips forwards an backwards, flickin its tail As the song ends, it sits back on the perch Its beak slowly closes Frozen till the next turn of the key

Oh, breathes Ein!

Please, I says

Sorry … please, she says

Peg waves consent Eh the dustbeaes, I says You should let ’eirlie, soon Me an the

A shadow falls over us Tommo stands in the doorway Sliives me a morsel of news on the quiet He made three stops on his way here One to pull the tooth at Willowbrook, one to lance a neck boil an one to treat a private coht He starts to regale ist of it is this

At each place he stopped, they told hihbour who heard frohost coht An the night before that She’s ridin the roads with her wolfdog an crow, seekin vengeance fer her death from any who cross her path They’re all unsettled Worried what it means Fearin it portends trouble soon to come

I don’t ever ride the roads Nobody’s seen me In starfall season folks see haunts where there ain’t none I’ll tell Jack about this when I see hiht Lanes There’s a little coldwater washpond too Round the back, through a woodland garden patch, an a nut glade an a stand of cottonwood We find Moses an Hermes an Bean there, nibblin at the bark Hermes would put up with anybody fer cottonbark Even a foul teive us direction to the pond Froer to water

Noith a ring of pale skin where her slave collar was--Peg had it off in a jiff, like Slied hemp tunic A shawl of thin whip scars shrouds her shoulders She folds the tunic with care

I’d of thought you’d wanna burn that thing, I says

The day there ain’t no slaves in New Eden, she says, I’ll build a pyre an watch it burn

She wades in fer a swim an a wash I toss her my soap-bundle I don’t look at her direct I cain’t bear to That Mercy should be brought so low The sight of her naked body, so scarred an gaunt, stabs otta remember that behind his clever words this is who he is Mercy, jest one slave a many such as her Like Slim’s friend, Billy Six His hard-worked land stolen an hih the throat, nailed to a post like a trophy rat Maev, dead Bram, dead The Free Hawks an Raiders, all dead