They helped him up and Roland let himself be helped. “That’s quite a left, Bert,” he said in a voice that almost passed for normal.

“Only when it’s going toward someone who doesn’t know it’s coming,” Cuthbert replied.

“This letter—how did you come by it?”

Cuthbert told of meeting Sheemie, who had been dithering along in his own misery, as if waiting for ka to intervene... and, in the person of “Arthur Heath,” ka had.

“From the witch,” Roland mused. “Yes, but how did she know? For she never leaves the Cöos, or so Susan has told me.”

“I can’t say. Nor do I much care. What I’m most concerned about right now is making sure that Sheemie isn’t hurt because of what he told me and gave me. After that, I’m concerned that what old witch Rhea has tried to tell once she doesn’t try to tell again.”

“I’ve made at least one terrible mistake,” Roland said, “but I don’t count loving Susan as another. That was beyond me to change. As it was beyond her. Do you believe that?”

“Yes,” Alain said at once, and after a moment, almost reluctantly, Cuthbert said, “Aye, Roland.”

“I’ve been arrogant and stupid. If this note had reached her aunt, she could have been sent into exile.”

“And we to the devil, by way of hangropes,” Cuthbert added dryly. “Although I know that’s a minor matter to you by comparison.”

“What about the witch?” Alain asked. “What do we do about her?”

Roland smiled a little, and turned toward the northwest. “Rhea,” he said. “Whatever else she is, she’s a first-class troublemaker, is she not? And troublemakers must be put on notice.”

He started back toward the bunkhouse, trudging with his head down. Cuthbert looked at Alain, and saw that Al was also a little teary-eyed. Bert put out his hand. For a moment Alain only looked at it. Then he nodded—to himself rather than to Cuthbert, it seemed—and shook it.

“You did what you had to,” Alain said. “I had my doubts at first, but not now.”

Cuthbert let out his breath. “And I did it the way I had to. If I hadn’t surprised him—”

“—he would have beaten you black and blue.”

“So many more colors than that,” Cuthbert said. “I would have looked like a rainbow.”

“The Wizard’s Rainbow, even,” Alain said. “Extra colors for your penny.”

That made Cuthbert laugh. The two of them walked back toward the bunkhouse, where Roland was unsaddling Bert’s horse.

Cuthbert turned in that direction to help, but Alain held him back. “Leave him alone for a little while,” he said. “It’s best you do.”

They went on ahead, and when Roland came in ten minutes later, he found Cuthbert playing his hand. And winning with it.

“Bert,” he said.

Cuthbert looked up.