“There is an island, some miles from shore. Only in the clearest of seasons do you see the shape of it. Indeed, none of this krarl knew of it till the young men went adventuring in their boats. The weather is even-tempered today. If Qwef will guide you over, you can be there before nightfall. There is also space in his boat for food and a krarl tent to shelter you. Those who hunt you will not imagine you in a place they cannot see. If and when the hunt has passed, you shall have word, and return.”

I had considered begging a boat from them; this was better than I had hoped for. I said, “Why do you bother yourself with me, Peyuan-Chief? Is it for your goddess’s sake, the white lady who vanished into sea or sky?”

He made no reply, and just then a woman came between the huts toward Hwenit’s dwelling, carrying an animate bundle in her arms. The mother’s expression was not wild; a shireen would have been tearing her hair and screaming, for the baby coughed and crowed and looked wretched. For some reason the comparison made me think of my own children in the Dagkta krarl, my little sons and daughters I had barely glanced at twice, and of the child I had wanted by Demizdor and now should never get.

Peyuan stopped the woman at the door. He took the infant gently from her, she making no protest. Then he came and put the baby in my hands.

I had no answer to this, and I wondered what he supposed himself doing. The poor thing struggled feebly; I must hold it or it would fall.

Seeing no alternative, I ducked back in at the door, to give the child to Hwenit.

Bent, red-lit above the seething copper, seething also with her discontent, the girl straightened with a sharp word, but changed when she saw what I carried into one mute, sinuous, and protective gesture of acceptance. This, more than anything, moved me.

I placed the child in her waiting arms, and was about to go out again, when she cried aloud in a terrible tone, “What have you done?”

The baby, too, commenced bawling, loud, raucous, and vehement, from a pair of brazen bellows secreted in its tiny chest.

I whipped around, and Hwenit held it up, kicking and howling in its wrath. Her dark face had a shrunken look. She asked me, “What did you do?”

“I did nothing. Your father gave the child to me, and I gave him to you.”

“You have healed him. He was very sick. It would have taken me three days, and then he might have been damaged in his bones. Let me see your hands.”

Nonplussed as she was, thinking her distracted or mistaken, I showed her.

Hwenit peered and stared as if at some fresh ailment.

The baby roared like a terrible little machine.

“You are a magician,” Hwenit said. “You are a healer.” Jealously she whispered, “You are more powerful than the priest who taught me.”