“You smudged someone,” he replied, before she could find the right words. “I smelled it on your clothes when you came in. So it isn’t just an insurance thing anymore, right? Now it’s a Medicine Thing, too.”

She sighed with relief. He had gone completely serious on her, every inch the shaman. “Right. Exactly. Let me give it to you as I got it, so you can see the path I was following—”

He kept quiet as she related the entire story from the beginning, only pursing his lips from time to time without interrupting her.

“So.” He sat quietly, thinking for a moment. “I have to admit that I have never heard of that particular place being a burial site before. Of course, I don’t know everything, and there have been plenty of things lost to us besides the locations of burial grounds. Still. I think you’re right; I think that this business with the relics is very bad, and I would not be in the least surprised to find that the mi-ah-luschka have been aroused.”

“Oh, hell. I was afraid you’d say that.” She finished her meal and wiped her fingers clean, before settling back in the chair. “I wish I knew what else to make of this. Half the facts I have make Calligan look like a bad guy, and the other half make him look like some bozo who was just doing something stupid and incredibly selfish. Stupidity on one person’s part shouldn’t be punished by blowing up other people; selfishness is generally its own punishment, sooner or later. On the whole, if Calligan did plow up a burial ground and order the relics destroyed, I think a hefty fine from some kind of government agency and a bad mark on his record would do everyone a lot more good than setting the Little People on him. And where the devil did that bomb come from? The Little People never went around planting bombs before that I ever heard of!”

Grandfather shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of that, either. If you are thinking that you need to get deeply involved in this because of the blood spilled, though—well, you are right. It is your duty, and not only to your own people. Murder must be balanced.” He tilted his head to one side, and continued, very gently this time, “I am afraid that you made some very serious mistakes in the way you handled young David, though, little bird. You may have made an enemy out of him; you certainly shamed him before the other young men. He was never very good at dealing with blows to his pride before, and I doubt that he has improved with the passage of time. The young men he has taken as his mentors have the towering pride of most young hotheads, and it bruises easily.”