Not a thought she allowed herself to think more than once or twice a week. She went back to bumptiousness for a moment, to punish herself for such a wicked thought. After all, she might be the barren one, and him not sterile at all. She had never asked him whether he had sired any children during his soldiering days—she didn’t really want to know the answer anyway—and he had never volunteered the information. “You know, Leaky my love, it’s obvious you’re the one as can’t conceive, seeing that I’ve fathered children in fourteen towns, and them’s only the ones I know about.” No, Loaf would never burden her with such information. Nor could Leaky ask, “Were you chaste as a soldier, my big old bear? Or have you by any chance noticed that you never left a bit of seed behind?”

She locked the front door of the roadhouse and went out back to chop wood for a while. Chopping wood was always useful, not least for working off some anger.

She had the ax back over her shoulder, ready to swing, when she saw someone standing right in the path of her swing. She only just stopped herself. “Fool! Are you trying to get—”

Then she saw that it was Umbo.

“Back already? And snuck up on me like that?”

Umbo only shook his head. “Look at me,” he said softly.

She looked. He was different. Completely different clothes, for one thing. And taller. Not just a little, a lot. A man’s height. Getting to be a tall man’s height. And his face—was that a flash of fuzz on his chin and cheeks?

“Are you really here or is this just a message from the future?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m alive, Loaf is alive, and Rigg got saved along with his sister Param. We all escaped Aressa Sessamo and left the wallfold and it’s been several years.”

“Years! How irresponsible! It was supposed to be only a few—”

“Hold your tongue for a moment, if that’s possible,” said Umbo. “This is the fifth time I’ve tried to have a conversation with you but you never shut up long enough to hear me out.”

“Of course I don’t listen when you—”

“This is the last time I’ll try,” said Umbo. “If you don’t hear me now, I will not bring Loaf home to you.”

“How dare you, after—”

“Still talking,” said Umbo.

“You have no right to command—”

Umbo shouted now. “If you don’t listen to me you will never see your husband’s face again. Do you understand that? Can you control your anger long enough to realize that your entire future with Loaf is at stake?”

Leaky fell silent, but she was even more furious than before.