The Sorcerer's Plague

Chapter 3

It began as a rumor passed among the children of the village. They spoke of it in hushed tones during their lessons in the small sanctuary at the north end of the marketplace; they conjured wild explanations for it as they walked together back to their homes. Before long their parents heard the whispers as well, and though the men and women of Kirayde might normally have frowned upon such gossip, in this case the tale told by their sons and daughters was so extraordinary that they couldn't resist.

Old Lici was gone.

Nobody could say with any certainty on what day she left the village. Such was the nature of the woman and her standing in Kirayde. Sometimes, even when she hadn't gone away, Besh went for ten or twelve days without seeing her. At other times it seemed that she was dogging his every step, so often did he cross her path. No doubt it was the same for the others in the village. He preferred to ignore and avoid her, and yet in a settlement so small that was not always his choice to make.

For his part, Besh heard of the old witch's disappearance only a few days after speaking of her with Mihas. He was working in his garden again, waiting for his grandson to meet him there after his lessons with the prior. Usually the boy could hardly draw breath for all the things he wished to tell Besh about what he had learned and what games he and his friends had played in between lessons, and this day was no different. Except, the old man soon realized, nothing that the boy was saying had anything to do with lessons or games or the other children.

"Slow down a moment, Mihas," he said at last, holding up a dirty hand to silence the boy and settling back on his heels. "What is it you're talking about?"

"Her house!" the boy said. "It's just empty!"

"Whose house?"

"Old Lici's!" he said, as if Besh were the most foolish man on Elined's earth.

"What were you doing at her house?"

"I told you, it wasn't me. It was Keff and Vad."

"And they are?"

Mihas rolled his eyes. "Nissa's brothers, the two oldest ones." Besh considered this for a moment. "She's gone, you say?"

"Yes! Her horse and cart are gone, too. No one's seen her in days." "How many days?"

The boy shrugged. "I don't know. A lot."

"She's left before, you know. There was a time when she'd go to other villages to sell her baskets. Sometimes she'd be gone for more than half a turn."

The boy frowned, his excitement dampened for the moment. "I didn't know that," he said.

And with good reason. She hadn't done it for many years, since well before Mihas was born. In truth, it struck Besh as odd that she'd leave her but at all. He'd never thought that he would see the day when she left the village for any length of time. It wasn't that she was bound to Kirayde or any of its people-aside from Sylpa, long dead and buried, Lici had no real friends, and of course, she'd lost her family before coming to the village. But had she wanted to leave, she would have done so long ago. Instead, she'd made a point of remaining, of enduring the taunts of children and the silence of their parents, of staying right here, just where she knew she wasn't wanted. Besh had assumed that she would die here, if for no other reason than to burden those who would have to dig her grave.

On the other hand, he'd heard of old men and women from other Mettai villages simply going off into the wilderness to die when they thought that their time had come. As far as Besh knew, that had never been common practice here in Kirayde, but perhaps it had been in whatever village she'd come from.

He shook his head slowly. He couldn't imagine Lici doing anything so… quiet. For years he had expected that when her time finally did come, the entire village would know about it.

"What is it, Grandfather?"

He looked at Mihas. "Nothing. I'm just not ready to assume that Lici is gone for good. Not after only a few days."

"Keff and Vad are. They think that her but is filled with gold and silver from all the baskets she used to make. They're talking about going there when both moons are full and searching for it."

"Are they?" Besh said. "Well, you tell them that if anyone-anyone at all-takes even one grain of river sand from Lici's hut, I'll hold the two of them responsible."

"But, Grandfather, if I say all that to them, they'll think that I told you everything!"

"You did tell me," he said mildly.

"Yes, but…" The boy shook his head. "Never mind." He started to walk away.

"Mihas."

The boy faced him again, looking sullen.

"If somehow those boys don't get my message, I'll hold you responsible. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Grandfather."

Besh chuckled as he watched the lad go. Next time, Mihas would think twice before relating to him all that he and his friends said. That was regrettable, but this was too important. Even if Lici had left the village for good, it was not the place of two boys to root through her belongings.

Over the next several days, the old man began to listen more closely to the tales bandied about in the village, hoping that he might hear something that would help him make sense of Lici's disappearance. But with each day that went by, the stories about her grew ever more wild. A man from her past, perhaps that Eandi merchant who had once tried so hard to win her affections, had returned one night and taken her away. Lici herself had used magic to shed the burdens of old age, transforming herself into a beautiful young woman who then ran off to find a new life in some other village. Sylpa, her old mentor, had returned from Bian's realm and had turned Lici into a wraith so that together they might haunt the woods surrounding Kirayde. One man, who was nearly as old as Lici, swore that he'd seen her in the forest late one night, running with a pack of wolves.

Half a turn went by, and still she did not return. Gradually the power of Besh's threat faded, and the older children began once more to eye the old witch's house, wondering what riches were hidden within. At Besh's urging, the village elders had a guard placed at the house day and night. Several of the men living in the village took turns at this, including Sirj, Elica's husband. But even this precaution, though extraordinary in such a small village, did little to ease the growing tension. If anything, it made matters worse, by drawing attention to the fact that Lici had gone, leaving a house filled with who knew what. Soon it wasn't just the children who were expressing eagerness to get inside.

"She's not coming back," Geovri, the wheelwright, was heard to say again and again.

Lerris, an older man, almost as old as Besh himself, was said to agree with the wheelwright. "She might well be dead by now. If she left gold in there it ought to be ours. All of ours," he was always quick to add. "It should be divided among all the families in Kirayde."

By the end of the Dreaming Moon's waxing, the village elders found themselves with little choice but to do something.

They met just before sundown on the last day of the waxing. Both moons would be full this night; only half a turn remained until the rise of the Reaping Moon and the beginning of the Harvest. This year's crops looked healthy; Besh was certain that his people had no cause to fear a bad Harvest. But this was always an anxious time in the village. The colder turns in the highlands could be harsh and a poor Harvest might mean lean, perhaps even desperate times when the Snows began. The clamor for Lici's supposed riches would only get worse. Walking past the marketplace on his way to the sanctuary, where the elders usually met, Besh couldn't help thinking it odd that a woman like Lici, who throughout her life had shunned the company of others and had been shunned in turn, should cause such a stir simply by leaving.

The elders had decided to meet in closed session, fearing that an open discussion attended by all in the village might turn ugly. As it was, a crowd had already gathered outside the sanctuary when Besh arrived, and though most of those milling about in the lane seemed more curious than angry, he was troubled by their presence.

"We know you'll do the right thing, Besh," someone called as he climbed the steps to the oaken doors.

Several others murmured their agreement.

He knew that he should let the remark pass-perhaps as a younger man he would have. But as he had lost his hair and his strength, he had also lost his ability to suffer fools.

"And what is the right thing?" he asked, turning to face them. "Do you mean the right thing for you, or for Lici?"

"But she's gone."

"Yes, Geovri, she's gone. I seem to remember that you ventured west last year to trade blankets to the Fal'Borna. You were gone more than a turn. Should we have divided up the goods in your house while you were gone?"

"That's different! I left Kisa here. And the children."

"So that's what gives you the right to take Lici's things? The fact that she wasn't blessed with a fine family as you were?"

"No, that's not…" He frowned. "That's not what I meant," he muttered.

"Remember," Besh said, raising his voice and looking at all of them. "Whatever we decide to do with Lici's things can one day be done with yours as well. What we do as a community we do to the community."

Silence. He turned once more and pulled open one of the double doors.

"She was a curse on this village from the moment she arrived here," someone shouted at his back, someone who sounded far too young to have known anything of her arrival.

Besh ignored the comment and entered the building.

The others were waiting for him in the main chamber, their chairs arranged in a tight circle beneath the small stained-glass window at the far end.

Pyav, the head of their council-eldest of the village, as he was called-turned in his chair and raised a meaty hand in greeting. He was a big man, a blacksmith. His shoulders and chest were broad, his arms and neck as thick as Besh's thighs. But for all his brawn, he had the temperament of a cleric. He spoke softly, even when angry, and while he might not have been the most learned man in Kirayde, he might well have been the wisest.

"We heard you talking to them," he said, as Besh took his seat. "It was foolish of me. I should have ignored them."

"Perhaps," the blacksmith said, grinning. "If for no other reason than to leave us in suspense as to how you might vote on the matter."

A few of the others laughed, but not all. This would be a difficult discussion, even without the rest of the villagers awaiting their decision.

Tashya, the youngest in their circle, fixed him with a hard glare. "You think she's coming back."

Besh gave a small shrug. "I don't know. That, I believe, is the point. None of us knows."

He expected an argument, but she merely nodded. She was in her eleventh four, her second as a widow. Her husband died of a fever soon after the birth of their seventh child, and though the years since had been trying for her, she remained beautiful, with glossy raven black hair and pale green eyes. Many men in Kirayde had hoped that she would choose to marry again after a suitable time of grieving, Besh among them. But she had made it clear to all that she neither needed nor wanted another man in her life.

She could be stubborn at times and she had a fiery temper, but most in the village admired her strength. That was why they had chosen her as an elder at such a tender age.

"Where do you think she's gone then?" she asked after a brief silence.

Besh wasn't certain how he had become the village authority on Old Lici, but they were all watching him, awaiting his answer. It really had been a mistake to say anything to the crowd.

"I don't know. It had occurred to me to wonder if she might have gone off to die. But that doesn't sound like Lici to me."

"Nor to me," Tashya said. "It's more likely that she's moved on and is making mischief for others. Which, as far as I'm concerned, means that she's no longer our problem."

Pyav grinned again. "The fact that we're here would seem to belie that last statement."

Tashya gave him a sour look, but said nothing.

Marivasse, the old herbmistress, looked at Besh, and then at the eldest. "Why does it matter where she's gone?" she asked. "We don't meet to discuss the comings and goings of others who live in the village. Nor do we find ourselves forced to post guards at their houses. Lici should be no different from the rest of us."

"But she is different," Pyav said gently. "She has no family. More to the point-and may the gods forgive me for saying this-she has no friends. If something has happened to her, if she's not coming back, then it falls to us to take care of her belongings and her home. That's why we're here."

"There's more to it than that, my friend," Besh said. "You know it as well as I. That crowd outside has heard rumors of Lici's wealth. All of us have. Even if everything else about her was the same, take away the belief that she's hidden her riches away in that house of hers, and we'd all be home, preparing our evening meals."

Pyav smiled wanly. "I suppose. But even with that, if she had family it would be none of our affair." He raised his eyebrows. "Unfortunately, that blade is double-edged. She has no family or friends, so we have to take responsibility in her absence, but since there's no one who can tell us why she's gone, we don't know what her absence means."

Tashya nodded. "Then it falls to us to decide exactly that." She glared at all of them, as if challenging them to disagree.

"That may well be true," Besh said evenly. "But we have to err on the side of caution or else every time future elders decide as we have, using what we do here as justification, our children's children will curse us for our haste."

She appeared to consider this, and when at last she asked "How long do you think we should wait?" there was no hint of ire or mockery in her tone.

"I don't know."

"She's been gone for more than a turn," said one of the others. "She left her garden plot untended. It won't be long before all her crops are lost."

Tashya looked around the table. "So do we wait until the rise of the Reaping Moon?"

"That's half a turn," Besh said, shaking his head. "That seems awfully soon."

"By that time she'll have been gone for nearly two turns. At her age, that's an eternity."

Pyav pressed his fingertips together. "Has she ever been gone for this long before?"

"When she was a younger woman," Marivasse said. "She used to go on journeys with Sylpa. They'd go to the shores of the Ofirean Sea, even as far as the Qosantian Lowlands. It wasn't unusual for them to be gone for an entire season."

"What about since Sylpa died?"

"She never went as far after that. But still, she'd go to trade with the Fal'Borna or the people of Aelea."

"And yet," Besh said, "even that's more than she's done over the past ten years."

Marivasse turned to face him. "True. But isn't it possible that in her last years, she seeks to return to some of the places she visited in her youth? The only times I knew her to be happy were those she shared with Sylpa. Couldn't it be that she's gone back to the sea or even to Qosantia?"

"The question isn't so much where she's gone," Tashya said, sounding impatient once more. "Will she return? That's what I want to know. And if she's gone that far, I'd have to say that I doubt it. I think it's also possible that we could learn more about her intentions by searching her hut. Perhaps if we knew what she took with her, we'd have a better sense of when and if she plans to return."

Pyav nodded slowly. "That seems a fair point."

Even the notion of a simple search of her home made Besh uncomfortable, but if Pyav supported the idea, the rest would as well. There seemed little point in arguing against it.

"So who would do this?" he asked instead.

"You," Tashya said, without hesitation.

"Me?"

She smiled. "Given your scruples with regard to this whole matter, there's no one I'd trust more."

The eldest nodded and grinned. "I'm inclined to agree."

"So am I," Marivasse said.

In the end, the choice was unanimous, but only because they wouldn't let Besh vote. He had no desire to get anywhere near Old Lici's house. Not only did he disapprove of what they were having him do, he still wanted nothing to do with the woman, even after all these years, even though she was probably a hundred leagues away, or dead. Especially because she might be dead.

Besh rubbed a hand over his face, wishing he were digging in his garden, or smoking his pipe on that old stump, or fishing along the banks of the wash. "How soon do you want me to do this?"

"Those people outside want us to do something," Tashya said. "Anything. We shouldn't make them wait long."

"Tomorrow," Pyav told him. "I'll come with you if you'd like. I have a couple of jobs to finish at the forge, but I should be ready before the morning's out. Come by and we'll walk over together."

Besh smiled. "Thank you, Eldest. That would make this… easier." The blacksmith stood, and the rest did as well. "I thank all of you for coming on such short notice," he said. "Besh and I will let you know what we find."

They made their way out of the sanctuary, but stopped at the top of the stairs. The crowd was still there, expectant looks on their faces. "What about it then, Eldest?" asked a fair-haired man in front. Besh thought he recognized him as the father of one of Mihas's friends. "Besh and I will search Lici's house in the morning."

"Search it?" the man said with a frown. "Why?"

"To see if she left behind anything that might tell us where she's gone or when she intends to return."

"What about her gold?"

"We don't know that there is any gold."

Others started to protest, but Pyav raised both hands, quieting them. "Please, my friends. This is a beginning. We don't know for certain that there is any gold, and we certainly can't simply assume that, if there is, it's ours to do with as we please. She may be on her way back here as we speak. Doesn't she deserve to find her home just as she left it?"

"She's an old witch!" someone else called out. "We'd be better off without her!"

The eldest narrowed his eyes slightly. "All right, let me put it this way. If she does return, which of you wants to explain to her that we took all her possessions for our own?"

That silenced them. Besh struggled to keep the smirk from his lips. Pyav nodded. "That's what I thought. As I told the other elders a moment ago, we'll let you know what we find."

With that, the blacksmith started down the stairs. The crowd parted to make way for him, and Besh and the others followed in his wake. "That was well done, my friend," Besh said under his breath.

The eldest nodded, but he looked troubled. "It put them in their places for this evening, but that won't last long. Let's hope that tomorrow's search turns up something definitive one way or another."

The eldest walked off toward his home, and after a moment the rest of the elders did the same, leaving the villagers whispering among themselves. Besh tried to take some satisfaction in the way the eldest had silenced the crowd, but Pyav's words to him still echoed ominously in his mind.

It was nearly dark when he reached the house, and as he wearily climbed the old wooden stairway, the smell of roasted fowl reached him, reminding Besh that he was famished.

They'd started without him, which was just as it should be; he'd told Elica that the children shouldn't go hungry because of all the foolishness surrounding Old Lici. The younger ones had been giggling about something as he climbed the stairs, but as soon as they saw him in the doorway, they fell silent. Actually all of them did. They just stared at him, as if they thought he might have brought Lici with him.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Besh said, taking his place at the table beside Mihas.

Sirj nodded. "It's all right."

No doubt they were bursting with questions for him, but no one said anything as he helped himself to some meat, greens, and bread.

Finally, Cam, the youngest, looked at his grandfather with wide eyes, and asked, "Did you find her?"

Besh couldn't keep from laughing. "Find her? You mean Lici?"

The boy nodded, but by now the others were laughing as well, and his face began to redden.

"No, Cam," Besh said. "We didn't expect to find her. We don't know where she's gone. We were trying to decide what to do with her house and her belongings."

"And what did you decide?" Elica asked.

The younger ones were laughing still, but Elica and Sirj were watching him closely, as was Mihas.

"Pyav and I will search her house in the morning, just to see if we can find something that will tell us why she left."

"Can I come, Grandfather?" Mihas asked.

He shook his head. "No, Mihas. This is no game, nor is it a hunt for hidden treasure. The eldest and I will be the only ones to enter Lici's home."

The boy looked disappointed, but he nodded and said nothing more.

"And her belongings?" Elica asked.

"Are still hers. Until we know for certain that she's not coming back, nothing will be done with her things."

"Good," Sirj muttered.

"Good?" Besh repeated, turning his way.

The man's face colored, just as his son's had a few moments before. Besh wondered if he'd meant to say it aloud.

Sirj took a breath. "Yes, good. I think all this talk about Old Lici's gold has gone on for too long already. You'd think the rest of them were starving, the way they look toward her little hut. It's all nonsense, if you ask me."

"But, Papa," Mihas said. "If she has half as much as they say she does-"

"It's none of our business how much she has. And even if she has more than the five Sovereigns of the Southlands put together, none of us has any claim to a single coin." He looked at Besh. "Forgive me for saying so, but if it comes to it, and the elders have to do something with her home, whatever gold there is should be used for something the whole village needs. A new well, maybe, or repairs to the lane north of the marketplace."

Besh wasn't certain what to say. None of the elders had thought of this, and yet he knew that Sirj had hit upon the perfect solution to their problem. It occurred to him that he had thought the man an idiot for so long that he'd never stopped to consider the possibility that there was a reason Elica had fallen in love with him.

"I guess that makes no sense, does it?" Sirj said, misinterpreting Besh's silence.

"Actually…" Besh shifted in his chair. He could feel Elica's eyes on him. "Actually, I was just thinking that it makes a great deal of sense. I'll suggest it the next time the elders meet."

Sirj stared at him briefly, perhaps searching for some sign that Besh was mocking him. Seeing none, he nodded again. "My thanks."

"What do you think you'll find in her hut?" Elica asked after some time.

"I couldn't say," Besh told her. "Probably little of any consequence. But we have nothing else, and the people in this village want us to do something, even if they don't know what." He took a bite of bread.

"There was a crowd outside the sanctuary this evening, waiting to hear what we'd decided."

Elica's eyes widened a bit. "A crowd? How many?"

"At least fifty. Pyav handled them well, but I only remember crowds gathering outside our meetings like that three or four times-usually in

times of flood, and once when the pestilence came to Irikston."

"Do they know what you and Pyav intend to do?" Sirj asked.

"We told them, yes."

"Then they'll be there, too. At Lici's house."

Besh knew immediately that he was right about this as well. "What would you do in our position?" he asked, surprising himself as much as Sirj. Well, he thought, grinning inwardly at what he saw on the younger man's face, perhaps not quite as much.

"I don't know," Sirj said quickly. "I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't," Besh said. "I was asking for your advice. You seem to understand all of this better than I do."

"I doubt that." He ran a hand through his dark hair. "I don't know what I'd do." He glanced at the younger children, who were deep into their own conversation now. "Truth is," he went on, his voice low, "I've been terrified of Lici since I was old enough to walk."

"All of us have been," Elica put in. "I think she wanted it that way." "I'm not afraid of her," Mihas said, sounding so terribly young. "Neither are Keff and Vad."

Elica glared at him. "Then you're fools. Now, if you've finished your supper go fetch some water."

He stood up slowly. "Yes, Mama."

"Two buckets, Mihas. One for the dishes, and one for you and the young ones."

"But, Mama-"

The expression on Elica's face would have frightened Lici herself. The boy wisely fell silent and did as he was told.

Besh finished his meal while Elica and Sirj cleared the rest of the dishes from the table. When he'd finished, he took his pipe outside and smoked a bit while he watched stars emerge in the night sky. After a time he heard footsteps behind him and felt Elica lay a hand on his shoulder.

"Do you remember some time ago when we last talked about Lici?" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "It's been nearly a turn now. I said that she'd be dead soon."

"I remember," he told her. "I also remember saying myself that maybe her death would be for the best."

"Do you think that… that maybe the gods heard us?"

"If the gods heeded what I said to them on matters of life and death, your mother would be sitting by my side." He looked up at her and reached for her hand. "Whatever has become of Lici, it had nothing to do with us. Unless you conjured something without telling me."

She smiled and shook her head, glancing up at the stars. "No." She kissed his cheek. "Good night, Father."

"Good night."

He sat a while longer, waiting for the owl to call. It often did this time of year, usually from up in the hills, its voice carrying down through the village.

"Where are you, Lici," Besh whispered. "Maybe I'm a fool, but I think that if you were dead, I'd know it. So where are you? What is it you're up to?"

He heard no answer, of course, save for a few crickets and the soft gurgle of the wash. Eventually he did hear the owl, although it seemed farther off than usual, its cries thin and mournful, like some wraith summoning the old and infirm to Bian's realm. Besh shivered.

"Do you hear that, Lici? Do you hear the Deceiver's call?"

Standing, he stretched his back and then walked inside. But even after he lay down in his soft bed, Besh couldn't sleep. After a time, he stopped even trying. He merely listened to the owl and stared up into the darkness. And he wondered what he would find in the old woman's hut.

Besh woke up to dark grey clouds that hung low over the hills, faint tendrils of mist nearly brushing the treetops. By the time he dressed, ate breakfast, and checked on his garden, a steady rain had begun to fall. He walked to Pyav's forge and the two of them made their way to the old woman's hut. Despite the rain, the dirt track in front of the but was choked with townspeople. Besh saw many of the same faces he had seen outside the sanctuary the day before, but this crowd was even bigger than the previous evening's had been.

The townspeople said nothing as Besh and the eldest approached the house, and though Pyav eyed them as the two men walked past, he kept silent as well. Besh followed him to the door. There was no lock and so they simply pushed the door open and stepped inside. Besh took care to close the door behind them, and so he had his back to the main room when he heard the eldest give a low whistle.

"Blood and earth!" Pyav muttered.

Besh turned in time to see the eldest tap two fingers against his lips four times-the warding against evil. An instant later, Besh did the same.

The but had been left a mess. Flies buzzed around uncleaned pots of stew and dirty bowls that had grown rank with the passage of so much time. Tattered clothes lay in a pile near the unmade bed, and a washbasin stood half empty in the far corner, a thick grey film floating on the water.

And covering it all, scattered as if they had fallen from the sky in place of rain or snow, were small clippings of willow and rush, cedar bark and vine. They were everywhere, in every corner of the room. In some places they had gathered in small mounds, like drifts of snow on a windy day. A few floated in the basin, others lay on the eating table. The floor, bed, and chairs were all littered with them. They were of different hues, and yet they were all oddly similar. One end of each scrap was untamed, while the other had been cut at a precise angle. Some were as long as a man's finger; others were barely longer than a baby's toe. But all had been sliced at that same angle. A craftswoman as skilled as Lici would never have varied such a thing.

Besh could hardly imagine the frenzy of basketweaving that had created such a sight. She must have worked on the baskets for turn upon turn; it might even have been years. He took a tentative step forward, his foot making a crunching sound, as if he were walking on a forest path covered with dried leaves.

Pyav seemed to start at the sound, as if awakened from some odd trance.

"Are you all right, Eldest?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine." He rubbed a hand over his broad face. "From the looks of things I'd say that she was taken against her will."

Besh frowned. "You believe so?"

"You don't? Look at this place."

The old man shook his head slowly. True, the but was in such disrepair that a person could easily draw such a conclusion. But Besh couldn't imagine Lici being made to do anything against her will. On the other hand, he had no trouble imagining that she lived in this sort of filth, like a wild creature of the wood.

"I think maybe she simply lived this way," he finally said.

Pyav started to answer, but then stopped himself. Clearly he didn't know what to believe.

Besh began to walk around the room, as did the eldest, their steps making a good deal of noise.

Besh didn't touch anything, feeling that it wasn't his place to do so. Pyav was a bit bolder, but not much. It almost seemed that they both expected the old witch to walk in the door at any moment.

"I thought she had stopped making baskets," Besh said after some time.

"Clearly not."

"But have you seen her sell any?"

"Not in many years, no."

Besh opened his hands, indicating the room. For all the cuttings strewn about on the floor and furniture, there wasn't a single basket in sight. "Then what has she done with them all?"

Pyav just stared at him. "You think she took them with her," he said at length.

Besh nodded. "In which case, she might have just gone to trade with the Qirsi clans, or to sell them in one of the five sovereignties. She could be coming back."

Pyav looked around again, a look of disgust lingering on his features. "But even if she lived this way from day to day, don't you think she would have taken a bit more care before leaving for so long? At least to clean up her cooking, or to throw out her wash water. Something."

"Certainly you and I would do so, my friend. Most people would. But Lici… she's never been like other people. At least not in all the years I've known her."

The eldest nodded. "You may be right." But Besh could see that his thoughts had already gone in another direction. "You won't approve, Besh, but even knowing that she may be alive, that she could return any day now, I want to search this but a bit more."

"To what end?" Besh asked, doing his best to keep his face and tone neutral.

"For too long, people in this village have been spinning yarns about Lici's treasure. I think it's time we put those stories to rest."

"But what if they're true?"

"Do you really believe they are?"

"I don't know." How many times had Besh said that about Lici in the past few days?

Pyav stood chewing his lip for several moments. "If we find gold," he finally said, "we'll leave it where it is and simply tell everyone that we found nothing. But I fear that eventually those people outside will take matters into their own hands, come in here, and take whatever they can find. And I want to know exactly what's at risk."

"All right," Besh said with a small shrug. He gestured toward the far side of her room, where the bed and washbasin stood. "I'll start over here."

In truth, there weren't many places to look. Lici had little furniture and few belongings of any sort. There was an old wooden chest at the foot of her bed that was covered with scuffs and burn marks, as if it had once stood near a hearth. It had a rusted lock on it, but the lock seemed to have stopped working long ago; Besh had no trouble getting the chest open. Inside he found clothes and a few old bound books that might well have belonged to Sylpa, who used to trade for volumes with the peddlers who came through Kirayde. He found as well several pieces of parchment-letters from the look of them. They were tied together with a yellowed piece of twine; Besh left them as they were.

There was nothing to be found under or behind her bed, and the rest of the floor on this side of the but was bare, save for the basket cuttings.

Pyav was still searching the kitchen area, so Besh stepped into a small storage room at the back of the house. Here he found several bowls and cups, none of them as clean as the dirtiest dish in Elica's kitchen. He also found a few baskets, though all of them looked old, and even had they not, there weren't nearly enough of them to explain all the mess in the front room.

Most of the shelves were empty, and had been for some time, judging by the thick dust that covered them. But in the back corner on the floor he spied an old wooden crate. He walked to it and knelt down, pulling it out from under the shelves and brushing away dust and spiderwebs.

Opening the box, he saw a canvas sack that might once have been used to carry one stone of grain. It was closed and tied at the top with the same yellow twine that had been used to bind the letters. And when Besh lifted it out of the box, it rang with the sound of coins. He started to call out to Pyav, but then he spotted something else. In the box beneath the sack, hidden from view until now, was a thick leather-bound volume. Besh put the money sack aside and picked up the book, thumbing through it briefly. It was written in a woman's hand and for a moment he wondered if Lici had kept a daybook as a younger woman. It didn't seem like something she would have done, and the neat writing in the book seemed in such contrast to the state of the woman's home that he found it hard to believe they could belong to the same person. Then again, he hadn't known Lici very well.

He opened to the first entry and saw that the date given was "Fire Moon, year 1119."

1119! Nearly a century ago. This had to have been Sylpa's daybook, not Lici's. He was tempted to begin reading it, right there and then. What a treasure he had found-far more so to his mind than whatever coins jingled in the bag beside him. He could learn so much from this volume about the history of Kirayde, perhaps about his own mother and father.

But wouldn't that have been a violation, as well? Sylpa had left this book in Lici's hands, and for whatever reason, Lici had chosen to keep it private. Reluctantly, Besh returned the journal to the box.

"I found it," he called to Pyay.

A moment later the eldest appeared in the doorway. "Did you really?" Besh held up the sack and shook it.

"Have you opened it?"

"No," Besh said. "It's quite heavy, though. Even if only half of it is gold and the rest silver, I'd say that she's by far the wealthiest person in the village."

"Damn," Pyav said, staring at the sack. "I'd been hoping it wasn't true."

"Do you want to count it?"

The eldest shook his head. "No. The amount is none of our affair. Put it back and let's be done with this place." He glanced over his shoulder. "I keep thinking she's going to walk in on us, and to this day I'm still afraid of the woman."

Besh smiled. "So am I." He put the sack back in the box, and pushed the box back under the shelves. "There was a daybook in that box, too," he said, climbing to his feet stiffly. "I think it might have belonged to Sy1pa."

"I'm sure that would make for interesting reading," Pyav said, leading Besh toward the front door of the hut. "I was still shy of three fours when she died, but I always liked Sylpa."

They stepped out of the house and into the rain. The crowd was waiting Wet pale faces peered at them from under hats and hoods.

"Did you find it?" asked the same fair-haired man who had spoken for them the evening before.

"Find what?" the eldest said, sounding tired.

"Her treasure, of course," came another voice.

"What she considers treasures, you might consider worthless trifles. Remember that, friends."

Several men and women started to object and Pyav raised a hand, silencing them. "I know what it is you want," he said. "And I assure you, Besh and I saw no gold or silver in that house. Now go back to your shops and homes, and leave Lici's house in peace."

It was cleverly done, and Besh wondered if the eldest had anticipated this when he refused to look inside the sack.

"What did you find?" the man asked.

"Cuttings from her basketry," Besh said. "Lots of them. More than I would have thought possible. I'm convinced that she's gone off to trade her baskets with the clans or with the Eandi. And I'm convinced as well that she means to come back."

"There," Pyav said. "I agree with Besh, and I believe that settles things. It's still Lici's house, for better or worse. And unless you want to be pilloried for thieving, you'll stay out of it."

Slowly, and with much grumbling, the mob began to disperse. Pyav and Besh remained in front of the but until all the villagers had moved off.

"We might want to continue to post a guard," Besh said, watching the last of them walk away. "At least for a time."

"Yes," Pyav said. "For a time." He glanced at Besh, a wry grin on his lips. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I wish Lici would hurry back."