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slow circle, mouth agape, as she expressed the amazement of a beggar newly introduced to the contents of a safe room.
    We laughed at the contrast between the normally quiet Hanna we knew and this one suddenly stirred to such volubility. Loosy now also showed the wide-eyed stare of a simple backcountry maid bedazzled by hitherto unknown delights.
    â€œYou do properly,” I noted. “Hunt well, sleuthhounds.”
    We separated as we went into the hall. Loosy and Hanna, at a pace near running, scurried to find the peddler, and we went our way to our mother’s solar.
    â€œHeddrick?” Bina made a question of the name.
    At our nods, she stepped to the wall and, catching the wide, embroidered ribbon bell pull, gave it a sturdy yank. Her tug was answered by a clangor far louder than our mother had ever wakened. We had a very short wait before a scratching sounded at the door.
    The man who answered our summons was tall and spare, and even under
this roof he wore a helm and jack-coat, laced ready to ride out. Heddrick had been our father’s man before our birth, and he would continue to serve Desmond Scorpy as long as his lungs drew breath. The order that bade him remain at Grosper had come as a bitter blow, for he had no desire to shuffle about its halls and chambers when our father rode out these days. Yet below his right knee the old campaigner no longer bore flesh and bone, but wore a wooden leg strapped on, and that maiming sealed him just as surely as Father’s command to this exile from the life that had been so long his meed. However, his new post was not without its own power, for no bailiff in our father’s absence ruled here without Heddrick’s assent, nor ever would, not while Desmond Scorpy was in command.
    Like Duty, the crippled soldier was a man of few words. Now he simply stood, asking nothing, awaiting our orders in place of his lord’s. I spoke first, as was customary.
    â€œA peddler has come,” I began. Heddrick gave a slight nod.
    â€œWe wish to know more concerning him. Loosy and Hanna have started the game, but it needs further players. Nothing is of greater worth than the truth.” I was quoting now, repeating words we had heard the present Lord Verset speak from time to time.
    Heddrick returned at once. “M’ladies, the gallows-clapper will be ever under my eye. Should he be kicked out the gate now?”
    â€œNot yet,” I cautioned. “Peddlers learn things—they bring and they take. Might one bring solid substance and take smoke?”
    â€œIf that be the way of it, yea.” The salute offered us was not quite that which he would give our father, yet it meant firm agreement.
    We did not reach for any chore to occupy us as we waited. For the first time we were launching ourselves into such matters as had always been our elders’ concern. I think we were all breathing a little faster but we did not mind-touch.
    Bina startled us by a sudden recitation of places: “Murderers’ Rock, Hell Cauldron, Killdeer Edge, Traitor Tod—this is a land of unseemly names. Was no place famed for good deeds, or loved for happy frolics? To hear that sorry list, an outlander might believe that nothing befell in this country save sin or sorrow.”
    In contrast to Bina’s grim mood, Cilla was beating out a rhythm on the arm of her chair with light-tripping fingertips. Her eyes were half-closed as if her memory had withdrawn to another time and place.

    I sniffed. “Come away from the dance, dear sister. It will be another year before you tread to that tune again.”
    Bina nodded. “ Unless —” What she would say was clearer in her mind than on her lips.
    As one, we tensed. Already at our last birthing-day we had been two years past the usual age for betrothal. However, due to the isolation of our life in Grosper we were set apart from the social ways our peers in the South had known since they were hardly more than