He lit the cookfires with squirts from a squeeze bottle of starter fuel and a flint-and-steel lighter. “The lazy man’s way,” he admitted cheerfully. As with his skill on a donkey, that he could start a fire at all impressed the tourists. He went back to the donkeys, dug out ration packs which he tossed into the flames. When their tops popped and began to vent steam, he fished them out with a long-handled fork.

“Here we are,” he said. “Peel off the foil and you have Tarteshan food — not a banquet fit for the gods, perhaps, but plenty to keep you from starving and meeting them before your time.”

Evillia read the inscription on the side of her pack. “These are military rations,” she said suspiciously. Several people groaned.

Like any other Tarteshan freeman, Radnal had done his required two years in the Hereditary Tyrant’s Volunteer Guard. He came to the ration packs’ defense: “Like I said, they’ll keep you from starving.”

The packs — mutton and barley stew, with carrots, onions, and a heavy dose of ground pepper and garlic — weren’t too bad. The two Martoisi inhaled theirs and asked for more.

“I’m sorry,” Radnal said. “The donkeys carry only so many. If I give you another pack each, someone will go hungry before we reach the lodge.”

“We’re hungry now,” Nocso zev Martois said.

“That’s right,” Eltsac echoed. They stared at each other, perhaps surprised at agreeing.

“I’m sorry,” Radnal said again. He’d never had anyone ask for seconds before. Thinking that, he glanced over to see how Toglo zev Pamdal was faring with such basic fare. As his eyes flicked her way, she crumpled her empty pack and got up to throw it in a refuse bin.

She had a lithe walk, though he could tell little of the shape of her body because of her robes. As young — or even not so young — men will, he wandered into fantasy. Suppose he was dickering with her father over bride price instead of with Markaf vez Putun, who acted as if his daughter Wello shat silver and pissed petrol…