“You don’t have to be mixed up in this, Rache,” Ronica felt obliged to point out to her. “If you leave me, you could find refuge among the Tattooed. Roed has no reason to pursue you. You could be safe.”

“Nonsense,” the serving woman declared. “Besides, you don’t know the way to Sparse Kelter’s house. I’m convinced we should go there first. If he turns us away, we both may have to take shelter with the Tattooed.”

By midmorning, the rain eased. They came to a place where a trail angled down the steep slope of the ravine. Amidst the tracks of cloven hooves, Ronica saw the print of a bare foot in the slick mud. More than deer used this trail. She followed Rache awkwardly, catching at tree trunks and small bushes to keep from falling. By the time they reached the bottom, her scratched legs were muddy to the knees. It mattered little. There was no bridge across the wide, green sheet of water at the bottom of the ravine. The two women slogged through it silently. The bank on the opposite side was neither as steep nor as tall. Clutching at one another, they staggered up it and emerged into woods that were more open.

They were on a pathway now, and before they had gone much farther, it widened out into a beaten trail. Ronica began to catch glimpses of makeshift shelters back under the trees. Once she smelled woodsmoke and cooking porridge. It made her stomach growl. “Who lives back here?” she asked Rache as the serving woman hurried her on.

“People who cannot live anywhere else,” Rache answered her evasively. An instant later, as if ashamed to be so devious, she told her, “Slaves that escaped their New Trader owners, mostly. They had to remain in hiding. They could not seek work, nor leave town. The New Traders had watchers at the docks who stopped any slaves without documents. This is not the only shantytown hidden in the woods around Bingtown. There are others, and they have grown since Fire Night. There is a whole other Bingtown hidden here, Ronica. They live on the edges, on the crumbs of your town’s trade, but they are people all the same. They snare game, and have tiny hidden gardens, or harvest the wild nuts and fruits of the forest. They trade, mostly with the Three Ships folk, for fish and fabric and necessities.”

They passed two huts leaning together in the shadow of a stand of cedars. “I never knew there were so many,” Ronica faltered.

Rache gave a snort of amusement. “Every New Trader who came to your town brought at least ten slaves. Nannies, cooks and footmen for the household, and farmhands for fields and orchards: they didn’t come to town and walk amongst you, but they are here.” A faint smile rippled her tattoo. “Our numbers make us a force to reckon with, if nothing else. For good or for ill, Ronica, we are here, and here we will stay. Bingtown needs to recognize that. We cannot continue to live as hidden outcasts on your edges. We must be recognized and accepted.”

Ronica was silent. The former slave’s words were almost threatening. Down the path, she glimpsed a boy and a small girl, but an instant later they had vanished like panicked rabbits. Ronica began to wonder if Rache had deliberately steered her to this path. Certainly, she seemed at ease and familiar with her surroundings.

They climbed another hill, leaving the scattered settlement of hovels and huts behind them. Evergreens closed in around them, making the overcast day even darker. The path narrowed and appeared less used, but now that Ronica was looking for them, she saw other little paths branching away. Before the two women reached the Three Ships houses along the shale beach the trail looked like no more than an animal track. A chill wind off the open water rushed them along. Ronica winced at the tattered and muddy aspect she must present, but there was nothing she could do about it.

In this section of Bingtown, the houses hugged the contour of the beach, where the Three Ships families could watch for their fishing vessels to return. As Rache hurried her down the street, Ronica looked about with guarded interest. She had never been here before. The exposure to storms off the bay pitted the winding street with puddles. Children played on the long porches of the clapboard houses. The smells of burning driftwood and smoking fish rode the brisk wind. Nets stretched between the houses, waiting to be mended. The rioting and the desolation that had followed it had had small effect on this section of town. A woman, well hooded against the nasty weather, hastened past them, pushing a barrow full of flatfish. She nodded a greeting to them.

“Here, this is Sparse’s house,” Rache suddenly said. The rambling single-story structure looked little different from its neighbors. A recent coating of whitewash was the only indication of greater prosperity that Ronica could see. They stepped up onto the covered porch that ran the length of the house and Rache knocked firmly on the door.