Things had warmed up this morning, and all the windows in this lowest room of the tower were wide open—with cheesecloth screens in them to keep out the bugs. The scent of wine was in the air, matched by the scent of the daylilies at the foot of the tower just outside the windows. As Kordas had expected, the six old men were at their usual positions, parked in their peculiar cushion-chairs, finishing the remains of their breakfast and starting on their first pitchers of wine. Each of them was a different shade of brown in skin, from river-water to deep as tree-bark. Each had a low table before him, strewn with writing instruments and papers.

“Well, look who’s here!” Ponu cackled; since he was facing the door, he was the first to see them enter. “The lord of the manor himself! Nice of you to drop by to see if we’re dead yet!” Ponu was probably the oldest of the six; he hadn’t a hair on his head, and only one or two sprouting from a mole on his chin. All six of them wore the same things every day—fresh, clean, natural-colored linen trews and loose, wrapped shirts tied with broad linen sashes. Well, they wore those things when the weather was warm. When it was cold, they were all shapeless bundles of blankets, from which a hand would emerge from time to time to reach for a wine-cup or a nice morsel. “Let’s have a roll call. Anyone who’s dead today, raise your hand, so he knows.”

“Be nice to the boy, Ponu,” admonished Dole, who had an impressive crop of curly gray hair down to his shoulders, and an equally impressive nose. “When has he ever pestered us for anything?”

“He doesn’t know what to pester us for,” taunted Wis, whose otherwise bald head sported a long, white braid at the top that coiled on the floor behind his cushion. Wis cocked an eyebrow at Kordas. “Do ya, little man?”

Koto snorted, and continued to play with a cat’s-cradle. “He knows more than he tells. Plays things close to the skin, that one.” Koto’s head was not just bald, it was shiny, and very, very round. It looked odd on his stick figure, like he was a twig doll with a ball for a head.

Ceri and Sai were known to be brothers, and were suspected to be twins, although they wouldn’t say one way or another. They were both stern-looking, usually silent, with massive white eyebrows and long, straight white hair. Ceri wore his in a tail on the top of his head, Sai wore his unbound and combed until it looked like a fall of ice. They both looked at Kordas and grunted.