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A young dryad brings a dish of roasted winterroot along the table. His hands shake as he serves Vai, and sauce splashes over her sleeve.

He stops with the serving dish still in his hands.

“I’m sorry, my lady.”

Outside, she had kept smoothing that sleeve. I reach for the cloth by my plate, but Reivaka has already passed her one. The young dryad is still holding the dish above Vai’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Vai says to her. Then she looks up at the young dryad. “Set that down before your arms give out. It looks heavy.”

He puts the dish on the table. Vai blots her sleeve while he apologizes again.

“I can wash it,” she says. “You haven’t spoiled the meal.”

He glances toward me.

“Bring her a clean napkin,” I tell him.

He goes, visibly relieved.

Vai tastes the winterroot, considers it, and takes another bite.

“Who made this?”

The alder woman by the kitchen arch lifts a hand.

“Does it always taste this bitter?” Vai asks. “I like it. I can’t decide what reminds me of home.”

“The leaves in the sauce,” the cook says. “Traders take them west to season broth.”

Vai takes another taste. “That’s it. Tovi puts them in the soup when Asha isn’t watching.”

“Who’s Tovi?” asks the elderly hazel lord opposite her.

“My sister’s husband. He believes most things improve if you add enough seasoning and avoid asking permission.”

The cook laughs. The hazel lord tells Vai about a winter when broth was the only hot meal his grove could offer travelers. The older factor remembers hearing the same story from his father.

Vai asks where his family traded. Soon the factor and the hazel lord are trying to work out whether their fathers met, and the cook has come closer to settle which winter they’re arguing about.

The younger factor tries twice to speak. Vai turns toward him on the third attempt, before the hazel lord can begin another story, and asks where he trades. The old lord takes another helping and lets him answer. I would have had to interrupt.

He works with merchants who use Surevai’s pass. When Vai mentions Tesseny, he asks whether she’s the woman who arranged the shared grain deliveries.

“I am,” she says. “That won’t be much of a recommendation.”

“I heard how you got the stallholders to buy together. Some of our merchants could use help agreeing on the price of a sack.”

“They’ll agree on a bad price if it stops a rival getting a better one,” Vai says. “Start by finding out who dislikes whom.”

The factor laughs. “I’ll remember that. I’m seeing Surevai’s road-master tomorrow.”

The factor repeats the advice to the man beside him. Surevai’s people will hear it tomorrow, and they will hear Vai’s name with it.

Vai asks the younger factor about the merchants at the pass, the stained sleeve forgotten. I finish my meal slowly. There is no hurry to leave while she is talking, and I begin to consider who else she might enjoy meeting over dinner.

Then the older factor turns to me.

“My next caravan leaves the clearing before dawn. Are your guards meeting us there or at the turn?”