The mood of the drinkers was confused and sullen. Reaping Fair had been stolen from them, and they didn’t know what to do about it. There would still be a bonfire, and plenty of stuffy-guys to burn on it, but there were no Reap-kisses today and would be no dancing tonight; no riddles, no races, no pig-wrestle, no jokes... no good cheer, dammit! No hearty farewell to the end of the year! Instead of joviality there had been murder in the dark, and the escape of the guilty, and now only the hope of retribution instead of the certainty of it. These folk, sullen-drunk and as potentially dangerous as stormclouds filled with lightning, wanted someone to focus on, someone to tell them what to do.

And, of course, someone to toss on the fire, as in the days of Eld.

It was at this point, not long after the last toll of noon had faded into the cold air, that the batwing doors opened and two women came in. A good many knew the crone in the lead, and several of them crossed their eyes with their thumbs as a ward against her evil look. A murmur ran through the room. It was the Cöos, the old witch-woman, and although her face was pocked with sores and her eyes sunk so deep in their sockets they could barely be seen, she gave off a peculiar sense of vitality. Her lips were red, as if she had been eating winterberries.

The woman behind her walked slowly and stiffly, with one hand pressed against her midsection. Her face was as white as the witch-woman’s mouth was red.

Rhea advanced to the middle of the floor, passing the gawking trailhands at the Watch Me tables without so much as a glance. When she reached the center of the bar and stood directly beneath The Romp’s glare, she turned to look at the silent drovers and townsfolk.

“Most of ye know me!” she cried in a rusty voice which stopped just short of stridency. “Those of ye who don’t have never wanted a love-potion or needed the ram put back in yer rod or gotten tired of a nagging mother-in-law’s tongue. I’m Rhea, the wise-woman of the Cöos, and this lady beside me is aunt to the girl who freed three murderers last night... this same girl who murdered yer town’s Sheriff and a good young man—married, he was, and with a kid on the way. He stood before her with ’is defenseless hands raised, pleadin for his life on behalf of his wife and his babby to come, and still she shot ’im! Cruel, she is! Cruel and heartless!”

A mutter ran through the crowd. Rhea raised her twisted old claws and it stilled at once. She turned in a slow circle to see them all, hands still raised, looking like the world’s oldest, ugliest prizefighter.