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said quietly to Keswalqw.
    â€œI saw a tall, slender larch in spring, tufted with rosy plumelets, in the full beauty of her youth,” Keswalqw replied. “Though at present she is ragged and unwell.”
    A light southeasterly carried a call-and-response chant—the call spoken, the response sung—back to the Arcadians. Soon the flotilla was indistinguishable from the low red shores across the strait into which the wide bay opened.
    Reclamation groaned as she sank deeper in the mud. She settled in spreading silence.
    A curragh was lowered at Reclamation ’s port rail. When their Lady was secure, the oars manned, Morgase, Henry and Sir Athol set out for shore. Athol noticed a single canoe break from the distant fleet, swing northwest and make for shore. He caught Henry’s attention. Henry nodded.
    From the deck on the seaward side of the stranded vessel, a great roll of canvas, two corners secured to the rail by clamps, was thrown over the side. Men in waiting curraghs unrolled the tarpaulin over the surface, allowing it to sink as their distance from Reclamation increased. The canvas made a natural swimming pool.
    Whoops of laughter distracted Morgase. She turned back to Reclamation . Stripped to their filthy skins, the men hurled their foul clothes and then themselves from the ship into their makeshift saltwater tub.
    A crouched figure hidden in low scrub watched Mimk ɨ tawo’qu’sk step from the canoe into knee-deep water. Keswalqw stepped ashore with practised ease. Mimk ɨ tawo’qu’sk drew her attention to an oddity up the beach. Two barrels, lashed together with a length of rope were lifted from the sand by the rising tide.
    Mimk ɨ tawo’qu’sk moved toward the barrels. Some sea creature, its breathing unsuccessfully muffled, didn’t wish to be seen. Mimk ɨ tawo’qu’sk secured the canoe. He caught Keswalqw’s warning glance. They climbed the low bank and slipped quietly into thick woods, where they watched as the creature, still soaked and dripping, picked his way from his hiding place, gingerly lifting and setting his unshod feet among jagged stones.
    Hatless, shoeless, and without his cape, clad in black hose, and black velvet jacket shot through with threads of gold, Antonio Zeno felt naked. He poked at the contents of the canoe. Empty containers. Heavy fur robes. Nothing of interest to an empty belly on a hot day. He made his way along the rocky shore toward the beached curragh.
    Mimk ɨ tawo’qu’sk and Keswalqw exchanged bemused glances, at once entertained and befuddled by his peculiar, tenderfooted, toe-stepping dance among the stones. Each knew what the other thought; this was not a man, but another shape-shifter, a creature perhaps human, perhaps not—likely, because of the black jacket, a crow or raven on a spirit quest. In the waking world, beaked creatures were selfish and unpredictable. No less so in the spirit world. They’d give this one a wide berth.
    â€œPerhaps, Aunt,” Mimk ɨ tawo’qu’sk said, as Antonio high-stepped it out of earshot, “it fell off the great wooden whale too.”
    Keswalqw looked back to Reclamation . Its back was no longer covered with basking seal persons experimenting with human form. They were all naked now, clearly in man form, leaping off the wooden whale into the sea. They’d climb back up the whale’s side only to leap again, happy as otters. As if by prearranged signal, they climbed back aboard, covered themselves in their wet clothing. From the stump of a great tree that protruded from the whale’s back, the seal or otter persons suspended the great blanket, presumably to dry in the breeze. It was a very human thing to do. Very unlike a seal or an otter.
    â€œWhy seals would assume such pale, unhealthy forms, then cover themselves in that hot clothing?” Keswalqw wondered.
    â€œI wonder what brought them here, of all