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Cass asked Josefia to find women to keep watch from the roof of the barge while she and Marrat unloaded the little stockpile of food that Marchella had insisted they should hoard. They began dividing the kranse into bite-size sections and laying it out on the flat housing of the bore. The able-bodied women queued to wash and drink at the small trough, scaring away the spiny lizard-brown checclias lurking around the pump.

Mira took her place in the line.

‘Shame we can’t eat ‘em,’ muttered the woman ahead of her. ‘Only meat in these Crux-forsaken plains and it’s poisonous.’

‘I have never seen so many,’ Mira said. ‘They were eradicated on Pell.’

‘Yeah, I hear you had purrcocks and laba-deer. Only civilised animals for you aristos,’ she jeered.

Mira wished she had not spoken. She waited in silence for her turn but sluicing the blood from her hands and fellala made her feel no less filthy. Afterwards, though, a peculiar and inexplicable vigour took hold of her. She sought out Marrat, who was checking the ammunition.

‘Which implement will allow me to dig?’ she asked abruptly.

Marrat gave her a curious look. ‘Tool compartment sits above the tracks. Help yourself but make sure you put it back when you’ve finished.’

Mira located the box and wrenched it open. She selected a long-handled tool with a sharp metal end and walked a short distance from the barge into the thorn scrub.

Kristo followed her. ‘What are you doing, Baronessa?’

‘We can’t take the dead with us when we move on.’

He glanced back towards the barge and the small row of lifeless bodies laid out underneath it. One was so much smaller than the rest. With a sigh he disappeared back to the barge and returned with another tool. ‘You loosen the ground with the pick, then I’ll shovel it away,’ he instructed.

They worked together in silence. After a while Mira insisted that Kristo should take the pick and she shovelled inexpertly until the shallow hole was wide enough to hold the dead, and her underliner was sweat-soaked beyond absorption. Her arms trembled fiercely with the exertion and she had to stop.

‘It’s right to respect the dead,’ said Kristo. ‘You thought well.’ His breathing rate had not altered with the digging. He was a strong man, Mira realised, and his few words lifted her spirit.

While he finished, Mira went to find Cass.

She was delving into the medico pack. ‘Precious little here,’ she grumbled.

‘We should bury the dead now, before the midday heat. Kristo and I have prepared a grave.’

‘You?’

Mira ignored her surprise. ‘Waiting . . . will make it worse.’

Cass nodded, put down the pack and climbed the open doorbridge to address the women. ‘We should bury our dead. Come.’

They assembled in an exhausted fashion along the sides of the single large grave. Kristo and Marrat laid the bodies next to each other. Davina’s was last.

Davina’s mama howled in sorrow and threw herself down among the bodies, pulling them apart from each other.

Cass, Kristo and Marrat—everyone—stared helplessly.

Only Mira reacted. She knelt down at the side of the grave and took the woman into her arms. ‘What is it?’

The woman slumped against her, sobbing. ‘You canna leave her on the edge. She’ll be scared. She’s just a ‘bino.’ She gripped Mira’s velum, pleading for understanding.

Mira looked to Kristo.

He nodded and lifted Davina into the middle of the grave.

‘Thank you,’ the mother whispered, weeping quietly into her fingers.

Mira helped her up and away from the grave. They leaned against each other in the shadow of the barge, listening to Cass.

‘Rest here in Araldis’s soil, mia sorellas. We will all be together again, soon enough . . .’

* * * *

They rested inside the barge and under the bore housing through the afternoon heat. At dusk, before the nightwinds sprang up, they ate small servings of kranse bread soaked in glutinous gravy.

Kristo and Marrat removed the barge’s outer canopy and settled it on the ground, pegging it down. When all were fed they spread across it and slept.

Tiesha