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twitching and the still, were fixed on the slumbering forms of Rigby and Pent.
    â€œThey’ll be fine, sir. By an’ by, you was wond’rin’ who sent me for the mandrake. Nobody, as a matter of fact—I came into an awareness of its hereabouts an’ thought it’d be a wonderful thing to plant it an’ make it mine, rather than have it suffer at your hands. I’m reckonin’, though, that the employers you was holdin’ it for might want it back fair sore, an’ that its pendin’ disappearance is the reason you’ve a streak o’ wee on your nicely pressed inseam.”
    Tillinghast nodded at the yellow stain on Rattell’s white suit.
    â€œRosie . . . Rosie . . .” muttered the little man. He appeared completely unaware now of Tillinghast’s presence—staring through the walls of the cellar into another place, where unspeakable things were already happening to him.
    â€œWell, don’t you worry none ’bout that. Jus’ tell them that I’s got it, an’ I likes drinkin’ in the inn at Lauston—you gets a fine clear potœm there, an’ there’s hair on the pork scratchings. They can come an’ fetch the mandrake if they fancies. Ta-ta.”
    Tillinghast dressed, tucked his neck-silver inside his shirt, then sauntered out the cellar, whistling happily. He steppedover the unconscious lumps of Rigby and Pent, tucked the mandrake under his elbow, and, holding his severed arm by the hand as though it were an infant child, disappeared into the freezing city night.
    Rattell whimpered softly for a few minutes, until his sniffling was interrupted by the handclap fanfare of Mr. Rigby’s unconscious fart, at which point he began to sob.

5
The Keep
    It is a sight to truly gladden the heart when one
sees a bäta break through a river’s foggy shroud.
The bright colors in which they are traditionally painted stand in stark contrast to the murk on which they sit and the earthen tones of the surrounding land. Their brightness is for visibility: that they may act as beacons
of fortitude and hope in the darkest places of the waterfolk’s world.
    But it is perhaps the eyes painted on their ornate prow that remain uppermost in one’s mind when their form has once again been subsumed by the clouds: heavy-lidded and wide, they are for the warding off of evil spirits and the guidance of the tillerman’s hand. Yet they convey something that is deeper and more human than should emanate from a smear of pigment, and there is no doubt that the beholder reads often into that stare the contents of his own soul.
    â€”Wheeldon Garfill,
A Path Trod Well: Journeys of My Life
    Â 
    â€œUntie the arms!” shouted Pappa.
    Wull leaned on his shoulders, pressing him into the seat. Pappa writhed and fought him, the sinews of his neck straining and pressing inside the quick skin like fish in a sack.
    â€œSit down!” said Wull, teeth clenched.
    â€œNo! Untie!”
    â€œ
Please
, Pappa . . .” said Wull.
    â€œStinking boy! Stinking!” shouted Pappa, the rasp of his voice rising to a wet gurgle again until he spluttered and choked. “Stink! Stink! Stink!”
    â€œPappa . . .”
said Wull again, and he leaned on the shoulders until his bruises from the oars began to ache.
    â€œThe river,” said Pappa urgently, and there again was the sound of his own voice, whipped by the storm that raged inside him.
    â€œThe river?” said Wull. “What about the river?” He spoke quickly, trying to hold on to the wet, slippery rope of Pappa’s real self. “Pappa? The river?”
    â€œKeep it,” whispered Pappa. “Keep it . . . keep it, keep it, keep it . . . stinking, stinking it that speaks!”
    Wull slumped to the ground and watched as the angry, violent face took over Pappa’s expression once again. Pappa seethed at him,