‘If so advised,’ the Beetle confirmed.

‘Then I’ll have some freight for you on your return,’ she promised him. ‘For now, come inside. Come talk, come drink.’ The Mole Cricket’s eyes flicked towards Tynisa. ‘Got yourself a wife there, Jons?’

‘Not likely,’ Allanbridge assured her. ‘Just…’ He looked at Tynisa as though suddenly unsure about her. ‘Just an old friend who needs help.’

Ma Leyd lived in the cave at the back of the Hitch. Indeed, Tynisa guessed the big woman’s hands had shaped it from the rock of the Barrier Ridge, using Mole Cricket Art to mould and carve the solid stone as she saw fit. Inside were high, groined ceilings, and oil lamps hanging from sculpted hands that reached out from the walls. The whole could have been one of the Great College’s grander cellars, an impression reinforced by a small stack of casks at the back.

The lanterns had been dark, but Ma Leyd lit them with a steel lighter without even having to stretch, for all that they were well above Tynisa’s head. The enormous woman then settled ponderously on to a threadbare cushion, and one of the Grasshopper-kinden locals hopped in a moment later with a steaming pot, before ladling some of the contents into three bowls.

‘Fortified tea,’ Allanbridge identified the liquid. ‘Not real Commonweal kadith, mind, because frankly that’s something of an acquired taste – the taste in question being gnat’s piss. This stuff is better.’

Tynisa sipped it, and used all her willpower to keep a polite expression. The fortification involved was plainly some type of harsh grain spirit, whose aftertaste destroyed any virtue in whatever it was fortifying, like a boisterous army sent to defend a small village.

‘Now, tell me how things stand, up top,’ Allanbridge prompted.