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to Amber.”
    “Me been make offers to plenty young ladies,” cackled the Tallyman, and his two companions laughed, too. “You be surprised how come they take one up.”
    “He’s day-dreaming again,” said Jambol, chuckling.
    “Amber?” Flint insisted.
    The Tallyman turned and spat green slime into the dirt. “Is a grown woman,” he said. “As can make her own mind. As can make her own choices.”
    “Where is she?”
    “What should I know?” protested the Tallyman. He turned to his companions. “Why’s he bothering me like some dumb mutt?”
    Flint ignored the insult. “Have you seen her since we were at the Leaving Hill yesterday?”
    Tallyman glared at him. “Lose yourself,” he hissed. Another insult, that: as in, Go and join the Lost . “Forget her,” he went on. “Leave family business to family.”
    ~
    Leave family business to family.
    Why had he said that? Why had he put it that way? What had Amber’s disappearance to do with the family, with the clan?
    He found them in the yard, out at the back of the old Hall. Jescka lecturing Petria on something or other, Callum and Tarn watching over the newly changed stock and haggling over cane grafts.
    “No sign?” asked Callum. He looked as if he was about to go on, then stopped, sensing Flint’s mood.
    “I’ve been speaking to the Tallyman,” said Flint, squaring up to his father. “He told me I should keep out of family business. What kind of business have you been doing, Father? What’s happened to Amber?”
    There was violence in Tarn’s eyes, a rage he was trying hard to suppress. His public face.
    “What do you mean?” demanded Jescka. “What are you talking about?”
    “You’ve always treated her differently,” said Flint. “Always singled her out. She used to tell me you treated her worse than a mutt sometimes. And now she’s missing and what are you all doing to find her? So tell me: how much did you get for her?”
    He ducked under Tarn’s swinging fist, and before he could stop himself he lunged upwards.
    Tarn was off-balance, tipping forward, and Flint’s shoulder came up under his armpit.
    The older man grunted and staggered back, clutching at his shoulder.
    Flint was crouching low, arms spread, waiting for the next move.
    And then it started to sink in...
    He had never stood his ground like this before. He had always accepted the punishment, had always believed that somehow he really deserved it.
    He waited for his father’s next move, and it was not long coming.
    Overcoming his initial surprise, Tarn feinted to swing another blow but instead stepped forward and kicked Flint in the knee.
    The joint exploded in agony and Flint fell to the ground.
    Had that animal screech really been his own?
    Eyes squeezed shut in pain, he didn’t see the next blow, couldn’t be sure if it was a boot or a fist that slammed into his face and turned his world briefly dark.
    ~
    He learned later that it was Callum who stopped Tarn, stepping between the two of them, perhaps saving Flint’s life.
    Sitting in the dirt with his back against the bathing trough, Flint looked up at his cousin. There were many branches of lineage separating Flint from Callum, yet his older cousin had always been someone he trusted and turned to.
    Now, Callum thrust a wad of dampened sapwool at him. “Tarn has gone,” he said. “Clean yourself up, boy.”
    He seemed shaken by the fight, shocked at the public display of violence. “And then you can tell me what you think you’ve found out.”
    Flint pressed the wool to his face. When it came away it was dark red. The pain was dull, remote: his knee pulsing steadily; his face pulped and numb. It would get worse, he knew. It always did, before it got better.
    Normally, it was Amber who would look after him in the aftermath of Tarn’s rage. But now she had gone.
    He spoke, past the swelling. “They’ve always treated her differently. Father, especially. Ever since she was ill, even though Granny Han said it