“Miserable beasts.” Marcovefa didn’t like dogs. There were none up on the Glacier. Her folk tamed voles and hares so they could have a more reliable food supply, but that was as far as they went along those lines. She asked, “Why keep them around, anyway?”

“They work. They guard,” Hamnet said. Two dogs tripped over each other’s feet. They both went sprawling. He added, “They give us something to laugh at.”

“I suppose so.” But Marcovefa didn’t seem convinced. She pointed to the running pack of boys and girls who followed the dogs. “Isn’t that why people have children?”

“One reason, I suppose.” Hamnet Thyssen had no children he knew of. A lot of things might have been different if he had.

“Have you got anything for us?” one of the boys yelled. He held out a grimy hand for whatever he could scrounge. Bizogots scrounged without shame, wherever and whenever they could. Where they couldn’t scrounge, they often stole.

“Don’t give him anything.” The girl who spoke used a dialect different from the boy’s. They came from separate clans, and never would have joined together if the Rulers hadn’t spread disaster across the Bizogot steppe. She added, “He’s nothing but a miserable nosepicker anyway.”

“Liar!” the boy shouted, and pitched into her. They were at an age where size mattered more than gender, and she had half a head on him. He might have been bold, but he was soon down on the ground and snuffling. By the way his nose ran, he hadn’t picked it any time lately.

“Serves him right for being stupid,” Marcovefa said.