Ahead, Sword of Divine Fire could see the Flat Brown Rock, which—together with the Little Gray Rock, which stood about a hundred yards distant—accounted for most of the local topography. The Fourth Meander made a small excursion to go around it. The clan of the Flat Brown Rock Excursion were reputed to be the finest horticulturalists of the whole Ditch, and on cold nights were known to stay up sitting on their cabbages like hens warming their eggs. Normally, they would be turning round to smile proudly at their monarch. But today they squatted on the bank, hunched over with their backs turned to him, and refused to meet his gaze. Sword of Divine Fire could not fathom it until he noticed a gap forming in the line of persons. They were packed in nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, but still they were finding some way to shift sideways, creating an open space two yards across, which gradually expanded to three. In the center of that open space, a bony woman in a threadbare garment was hunched over a dead plant.