“Where is this Marak Trin?” one asked. “Who wants this child?”

Marak saw no child in the man’s possession. “I’m Marak Trin Tain,” he said, to have that clear. “I want this child for a woman who asked for her.”

“My wife is dead,” the man said, and Marak had no idea of his name, though sharing what they shared it seemed he ought to know that small fact.

“Do you want the child for yourself?” Marak asked him. “I haven’t come to take it, if you want it. But I’m telling you there’s one who does, desperately.”

“Is it my Norit?” the man shouted across the wind. “Is she the prophet we heard? Is it really Norit?”

“She is the prophet,” Marak said. “And she speaks well of you. And she misses Lelie.”

“I have a new wife,” the man said. “My Norit is dead.”

“She loves you,” Marak said to him, deciding he might feel sorry for this man, deciding that his rights here were limited and circumscribed by older ones. “She’s well. But she suffers.”

“Is she sane?” Shouting across the wind robbed the voice of inflection. It might have been an accusation. Or a heartfelt longing.

“Sane enough she guides us all,” he shouted back. “Sane enough to this hour, but her duty won’t bring her back, not likely, not if you’ve married again. Give her the child if she’s a trouble to you. If she isn’t, then be a father to her. And if you want Norit back—” He had no power to give Norit to anyone. “Come forward in the line and ask her for yourself.”

“I have my new wife,” the man answered him. He unfolded his robe and unskillfully managed his besha closer to Osan, to pass across a small bundle, a half-limp child who waked on being exposed to the blasting wind, and struggled fretfully.

Marak reached across and took it under the arms, a light weight, a girl, he thought, maybe about a year of age, maybe two. She seemed light for her size.

“Do you want to give her up?” Marak shouted at the father, at Norit’s husband. “Don’t do it if you don’t! I’m here to offer and ask, not to order! The Ila’s man came asking. Did you ever hear him?”

“I heard nothing,” the husband said back to him. “But Norit is mad. So Lelie may be. And my new wife doesn’t want her.”