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eBook Category: Fantasy Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: On a semi-civilized world with a strict social caste system, a group of high-born young men kidnap some "wild" girls to fulfill their long-term marriage plans ... but the plan goes awry, and the redemption of social law knows no boundaries.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's, 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2003

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [50 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [49 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [35 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [141 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [38 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [81 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [104 KB] , hiebook (KML) [116 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [59 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [32 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [40 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [68 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [56 KB]
Words: 13103
Reading time: 37-52 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Bela ten Belen went on a foray with five companions. There had been no nomads near the City for several years. Harvesters in the Eastern Fields reported seeing smoke of fires beyond the Dayward Hills, and the six young soldiers declared they would go see how many camps there were. They said nothing about attacking the camps. They took with them as guide a Dirt man, Bedh Handa, who had been born a nomad of the Dayward tribes, captured as a child and brought to the City as a slave. Bedh's sister Nata Belenda, famous for her beauty, was the wife of Bela's brother Alo ten Belen. Bedh had guided forays against the nomad tribes before.

The soldiers walked and ran all day following the course of the East River up into the hills. In the evening they came to the crest of the hills and saw on the plains below them, among the watermeadows and winding streams, three circles of the nomads' skin huts.

"They came to the marshes to gather mudroots," the guide, Bedh, said. "They're not planning a raid on the Fields of the City. If they were, the three camps would be close together."

"Who gathers the roots?" ten Belen asked.

"Men and women. Old people and children stay in the camps."

"When do the people go to the marshes?"

"Early in the morning."

"We'll go down to that nearest camp tomorrow after the gatherers are gone," said ten Belen.

"It would be better to go to the camp beyond that one, the one on the river," Bedh said.

Ten Belen did not answer the Dirt man. He said to his companions, "Those are his people. I think he should be shackled."

They agreed, but none of them had brought shackles. Ten Belen began to tear his cape into strips.

"Why do you want to tie me up, lord?" Bedh asked with his fist to his forehead to show respect. "Have I not guided you to the nomads? Am I not a man of the City? Is not my sister your brother's wife? Is not my nephew your nephew, and a god? Why would I run away from the great wealthy City to those ignorant people who starve in the wilderness, eating mudroots and crawling things?" But the Crown men did not answer the Dirt man. They tied his legs with the lengths of twisted cloth, pulling the knots in the silk so tight they could not be untied but only cut open. Ten Belen appointed three of them to keep watch in turn that night.