He dropped the things back into the little green bag and crammed the bag into his pocket. “So you decided to sell the nivat on your own and jupe me out of my share. I thought I knew you, Valen. I thought you were my comrade.”

Rain pounded the soggy ground. My gut sent a warning, like a lightning flash beyond the hills. “I thought we could use the seeds to make feast bread come season’s turn. Offer it to the Danae. Change our luck. Come, you wouldn’t take everything.”

“Ye said yerself a man makes his own luck. I’m making mine.”

No plea could induce him to leave anything he thought he could sell. Nivat was very expensive, as were the quickened spells worked from it. Only nobles, pureblood sorcerers, or desperate twist-minds without any choice could afford either one.

Boreas straightened up and kicked the book parcel and the ragged rucksack toward my head. “The monks’ll heal your hurts if anyone can. Pay ’em with your valuable book.”

I dragged the rucksack under me, lest the slug-witted ox change his mind.

“You’re a coward and a thief, Boreas!” I shouted as he trudged off. “You stink like a pureblood’s midden!”

Only moments and he was gone, the heavy footsteps and ponderous breathing that had been a passing comfort at my side for a year’s turn swallowed up by the pounding deluge. He couldn’t go far. The light was failing. I could scarcely see the slender arches of the abbey church through the sheets of rain. Monks—especially these pious fellows out in the wilderness—put themselves to bed before a meadowlark could sing. Before a whore had her skirts up. Before an owl had its eyes open. Before…

Alehouse riddling threatened to squeeze out more useful thoughts. Shaking my head, I stretched out my forearms, dug my elbows into the muck, and dragged myself forward on my side perhaps one quat—the length of a man’s knucklebone. Ominous warmth oozed out of the gouge on my back. My leg felt like a molten sword blank awaiting the smith’s hammer.