“It’s Avisha, ver. I remember you.”

His smile warmed. Maybe he was old enough to be her father, not that he was anything like. Aui! He was a handsome man even as old as all that. “There was an envoy of Ilu in there. Did you see where he went?”

“No, ver, but he can’t have gotten far.”

“What do you know of him?”

“He came into the settlement about a week ago, at least twelve days. The mistress asked him to site altars for the gods, so marriages can go forward in the proper way.”

Chief Tuvi ambled over, his gaze sharp and his smile forced. “Is there a problem, Marshal?”

The marshal raised a hand as if to beckon Tuvi in. An unspoken message passed between the men, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “See if you can find that envoy, Chief.”

“He’s harmless. The mistress likes him, and she is a good judge of character.”

“If I’m not mistaken, the last time I saw that man was in Dast Korumbos. He was dead.”

Eihi! Maybe the marshal wasn’t quite right in the head. Age took folk like that.

“You recognized him, too, eh?” said Tuvi, nodding. “He walked with us over the Kandaran Pass, but I lost track of him before we reached Dast Korumbos. You say he was killed in the bandit attack?”

“He was dying.”

“But you didn’t see him dead?”

The marshal ran a hand over his tightly cropped hair. “I did not, it’s true. It’s hard to imagine he could have survived those injuries, though.”

Chief Tuvi shook his head. “He’s talked a few times with the mistress, ver, and I can tell you, he’s no ghost. Ghosts don’t drink tea, for one thing.”

“Hard to imagine how they could.” The charming smile flashed as the marshal’s gaze shifted back to Avisha. “If the altars are built, then I suppose marriages will go forward. You must have a line waiting for you, Avisha. Yet whose rice will you eat?”

She wrapped a hand in the fabric of her taloos, angry at him for embarrassing her in front of Chief Tuvi, who might not like to see her in the company of such a good-looking man. But the marshal was not truly interested in her, he was just fashioned that way, flirting with women the same way he breathed.

“I must go, ver. I’ve work to do.”

And Zianna to check in on. Eiya! She’d neglected the children, so caught up was she in running after the mistress. She hurried off. Jerad was nowhere to be found, and Zi was in the kitchen yard with little ones her own age, picking pebbles out of a bin of rice, careful-handed despite their youth.

“Zi, I’m off to the garden. You want to come?”

Zi barely glanced at her. “No.”

Zi had been angry at Avisha since the day Nallo had left, as if that was Avisha’s fault. Anyway, Zianna didn’t really understand that their father was dead, only that he wasn’t around to dote on her and someone had to be blamed for a world cast into disorder.