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ought to go. He s not canny.
Oh, yes, since he s cured half the herds and got paid six coppers for it, time for him to go, right enough!
I ll have him here as long as I choose, and that s the end of it.
They won t buy our milk and cheese, Berry whined.
Who says that?
Sans wife. All the women.
Then I ll carry the cheeses to Oraby, she said, and sell em there. In the name of honor, brother, go
wash out that cut, and change your shirt. You stink of the pothouse. And she went back into the house.
Oh, dear, she said, and burst into tears.
What s the matter, Emer? said the curer, turning his thin face and strange eyes to her.
Oh, it s no good, I know it s no good. Nothing s any good with a drunkard, she said. She wiped her
eyes with her apron. Was that what broke you, she said, the drink?
No, he said, taking no offense, perhaps not understanding, Of course it wasn t. I beg your pardon,
she said.
Maybe he drinks to try to be another man, he said. To alter, to change...
He drinks because he drinks, she said. With some, that s all it is. I ll be in the dairy, now. I ll lock the
house door. There s... there s been strangers about. You rest yourself. It s bitter out. She wanted to be
sure that he stayed indoors out of harm s way, and that nobody came harassing him. Later on she would
go into the village, have a word with some of the sensible people, and put a stop to this rubbishy talk, if
she could.
When she did so, Alder s wife Tawny and several other people agreed with her that a squabble between
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sorcerers over work was nothing new and nothing to take on about. But San and his wife and the tavern
crew wouldn t let it rest, it being the only thing of interest to talk about for the rest of the winter, except
the cattle dying. Besides, Tawny said, my man s never averse to paying copper where he thought he
might have to pay ivory. Are the cattle he touched keeping afoot, then? So far as we can see, they
are. And no new sickenings. He s a true sorcerer, Tawny, Gift said, very earnest. I know it. That s
the trouble, love, said Tawny. And you know it! This is no place for a man like that. Whoever he is, is
none of our business, but why did he come here, is what you have to ask. To cure the beasts, Gift
said.
Sunbright had not been gone three days when a new stranger appeared in town: a man riding up the
south road on a good horse and asking at the tavern for lodging. They sent him to Sans house, but San s
wife screeched when she heard there was a stranger at the door, crying that if San let another witch-man
in the door her baby would be born dead twice over. Her screaming could be heard for several houses
up and down the street, and a crowd, that is, ten or eleven people, gathered between Sans house and the
tavern.
Well, that won t do, said the stranger pleasantly. I can t be bringing on a birth untimely. Is there
maybe a room above the tavern?
Send him on out to the dairy, said one of Alder s cowboys. Gift s taking whatever comes. There
was some sniggering and shushing.
Back that way, said the taverner.
Thanks, said the traveler, and led his horse along the way they pointed.
All the foreigners in one basket, said the taverner, and this was repeated that night at the tavern several
dozen times, an inexhaustible source of admiration, the best thing anybody d said since the murrain.
Gift was in the dairy, having finished the evening milking. She was straining the milk and setting out the
pans. Mistress, said a voice at the door, and she thought it was the curer and said, Just a minute while
I finish this, and then turning saw a stranger and nearly dropped the pan. Oh, you startled me! she
said. What can I do for you, then?
I m looking for a bed for the night.
No, I m sorry, there s my lodger, and my brother, and me. Maybe San, in the village-
They sent me here. They said, All the foreigners in one basket. The stranger was in his thirties, with a
blunt face and a pleasant look, dressed plain, though the cob that stood behind him was a good horse.
Put me up in the cow barn, mistress, it ll do fine. It s my horse needs a good bed; he s tired. I ll sleep in
the barn and be off in the morning. Cows are a pleasure to sleep with on a cold night. I ll be glad to pay
you, mistress, if two coppers would suit, and my name s Hawk.
I m Gift, she said, a bit flustered, but liking the fellow. All right, then, Master Hawk. Put your horse
up and see to him. There s the pump, there s plenty of hay. Come on in the house after. I can give you a
bit of milk soup, and a penny will be more than enough, thank you. She didn t feel like calling him sir, as
she always did the curer. This one had nothing of that lordly way about him. She hadn t seen a king when
she first saw him, as with the other one.
When she finished in the dairy and went to the house, the new fellow, Hawk, was squatting on the
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hearth, skillfully making up the fire. The curer was in his room asleep. She looked in, and closed the
door.
He s not too well, she said, speaking low. He was curing the cattle away out east over the marsh, in
the cold, for days on end, and wore himself out.
As she went about her work in the kitchen, Hawk lent her a hand now and then in the most natural way,
so that she began to wonder if men from foreign parts were all so much handier about the house than the
men of the Marsh. He was easy to talk with, and she told him about the curer, since there was nothing
much to say about herself.
They ll use a sorcerer and then ill-mouth him for his usefulness, she said. It s not just.
But he scared em, somehow, did he?
I guess he did. Another curer came up this way, a fellow that s been by here before. Doesn t amount to
much that I can see. He did no good to my cow with the caked bag, two years ago. And his balm s just
pig fat, I d swear. Well, so, he says to Otak, you re taking my business. And maybe Otak says the same
back. And they lose their tempers, and they did some black spells, maybe. I guess Otak did. But he did
no harm to the man at all, but fell down in a swoon himself. And now he doesn t remember any more
about it, while the other man walked away unhurt. And they say every beast he touched is standing yet,
and hale. Ten days he spent out there in the wind and the rain, touching the beasts and healing them. And
you know what the cattleman gave him? Six pennies! Can you wonder he was a little rageous? But I
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