Whenever Leeta went into her wooly-headed old woman act, it became impossible to stay angry. Annoyed, yes — especially if you had pressing business. But even Cappie in full temper couldn't blaze hot enough to burn through Leeta's dampening babble. Cappie sputtered and guttered and shrank down to sullen coals of resentment. Lowering her eyes, she mumbled, "All right. Let's get this over with."

"Swear!" Hakoore hissed, and thrust the mummified hand toward her.

Cappie reached out to touch it; but as she did, Steck bent, picked up a small stone, and dropped it into her other hand. "Nothing says you can't hold a stone the same time you touch the hand," Steck told her. "Who knows which you're really swearing by?"

Hakoore's face twisted with hatred. Rashid, however, clapped Steck on the back. "Excellent compromise!" Cappie smiled a fierce smile. Touching both stone and hand, she quickly recited the same oath I had.

"That's fine," Mayor Teggeree said, taking a step back from the furious Hakoore. "Now, shall we wend our separate ways to bed? We don't want to fall asleep in the middle of tomorrow's feast." He favored us with a mayoral chuckle.

"Do Fullin and I have to go back to the marsh?" Cappie asked. I was glad she'd spoken up; otherwise I'd be obliged to, and I didn't want to draw Hakoore's wrath.

Hakoore didn't answer immediately. When his rage really caught fire, he didn't snap; he took his time, thought things over, then attacked you in cold blood. "So," he hissed at Cappie, "you think you're exempt from vigil? That it's beneath you?"

"I think it's pointless," she replied, with no apparent fear. "We aren't going to catch any ducks — Steck sabotaged our nets. And I'm sure you don't want us to set out new ones, considering how you insisted we use specially consecrated netting, purified and attuned to our individual essences over three months. Without nets, there's nothing useful we can do in the marsh; if we stay in town, at least we can help cook pies."

Again, Hakoore paused before replying; not the pause of a man thinking about the question, but a pause intended to make you fear the answer. "Vigils," he hissed, "are not for catching ducks. They're for reflection. Reflecting how you can best serve the Patriarch: as a man or as a woman. But if you've set your feet on the downward road…" He jerked his hand dismissively. "What you do with your life doesn't interest me."

"Good," Cappie answered, just as dismissively. She threw a glance in my direction, and said, "I'm going back to our cabin." She meant the cabin where the two of us and our children had been living for the past year; but I didn't know if she wanted me to go with her or was warning me to stay away. She didn't stick around to clarify the point — she just plucked up the spear at her feet (my spear) and strode off into the night.

Leeta smiled weakly at the Elders around her, curtsied to the Spark Lord, and hurried off behind Cappie. I guessed Cappie was due for some tutoring on the niceties of being our cove's priestess.

The crowd on the steps dispersed. Elders slumped toward their homes; Hakoore shuffled off, trying to look fierce while clinging to Vaygon's elbow. Mayor Teggeree wrapped an arm around Lord Rashid and propelled him toward Mayoralty House, with Steck trotting behind. Bonnakkut and the other Warriors went off in the other direction, arguing whether Kaeomi, Stallor and Mintz would get a chance to fire the Beretta.

I stood on the steps, watching them go. Then, with a deep sigh, I started back to the marsh to continue vigil. Cappie might defy the Patriarch's traditions, but I was above cow-headed contrariness. Besides, my violin was still stashed inside that hollow log. I wouldn't relax till I knew it was safe.

Just one problem: now that I wasn't tied up in thoughts of Cappie and the Neut, I couldn't help taking a deeper sniff of the woodsmoke in the air. Was it my imagination, or could I smell baking bread too? Roast pork. Raspberry mash. All the things women would spend the night cooking in preparation for tomorrow.

My stomach wasn't growling, but it would start any second. If I went straight to the marsh without getting food first, how could I possibly concentrate on fostering a spirit of proper sanctity?

I couldn't go to my own home — Cappie was there, and probably Leeta too. They might spend the whole night talking priestess talk: Leeta with her milkweed pods, and Cappie in her man's shirt, perhaps with the top few buttons undone because the night was hot and because with Leeta she didn't have to worry about exposing the occasional flash of bare breasts if she leaned over…

Food. I needed food.

So I headed to my foster father's house.

In OldTech times, the house must have been amazing: two stories tall plus basement, with enough space to squeeze half the population of our village inside. It had been rebuilt many times over the last four hundred years, losing much of its upper floor, having walls reinforced or reassembled, getting its living room replaced with a woodshed. A lot of the original construction materials were still at the back of the property, where they'd been dragged after they were pulled off the house. Dirt had accumulated over the mound of junk, but you could still see the occasional roof shingle or metal eaves trough sticking out. I'd dug up plenty myself, no matter how much my foster father had shouted, "Leave those dirty things alone!"

Unlike the other houses in town, this one showed no lamplight in the kitchen. No one was cooking for tomorrow's feast; no one was embroidering the final stitches on Blessing outfits for children. My foster father, Zephram O'Ron, left that to other people… partly because he wasn't native to the cove, and partly because he could afford to pay others to do whatever had to be done.

Those two facts went hand-in-hand to tell everything about Zephram's life in our town: he was an outsider, but he was rich. He'd made his money as a merchant in Feliss, selling everything from soap to cinnamon. Sometimes he claimed to be one of the wealthiest men in the province; then he'd turn coy and dismiss himself as "middle of the pack." No one in Tober Cove knew enough about the Southlands to tell one way or the other. All they could say for sure was that he had barrels more gold than anyone local.

Not that he lorded it over people. A lot of Zephram's success in business came from his ability to be likable. He charmed folks without being charming — you know what I mean. Zephram didn't ooze or enthuse; when he talked, there wasn't a flea's whisker of putting on an act. I'd often watched him striking deals with people in town, to buy fish or to hire someone to help with repairs on the house. He had the friendly reasonable air of someone who'd never take advantage of you: the other person always walked away with a smile. I'd tried to imitate him many times, especially when working to make Cappie see things my way… but I guess Cappie was more pig-blind and willful than the people Zephram dealt with, because I could never dent her stubbornness when she got into one of her states.

Zephram came to the cove almost twenty years ago, not long after his wife Anne died in the South. "She got sick," was all he would say; and no one ever found out more. Whatever the circumstances of Anne's death, Zephram turned half corpse himself. He sold his business, left Feliss City, and wandered in mumbles until he ended up in Tober Cove. "Come to see the leaves," he muttered… and it's true, our region is famous for its autumn colors, enough to draw a dozen sightseeing boats up the coast each fall. Zephram stayed late, maybe because the falling leaves suited his mood or maybe because he didn't have the energy to think of somewhere else to go. Then winter broke with a surprise blizzard, he got snowed in, and by the time spring budded back, he was alive enough again to invent excuses why he didn't want to leave.