When she did so, Alder's wife Tawny and several other people agreed with her that a squabble between sorcerers over work was nothing new and nothing to take on about. But San and his wife and the tavern crew wouldn't let it rest, it being the only thing of interest to talk about for the rest of the winter, except the cattle dying. "Besides," Tawny said, "my man's never averse to paying copper where he thought he might have to pay ivory." "Are the cattle he touched keeping afoot, then?" "So far as we can see, they are. And no new sickenings." "He's a true sorcerer, Tawny," Gift said, very earnest. "I know it." "That's the trouble, love," said Tawny. "And you know it! This is no place for a man like that. Whoever he is, is none of our business, but why did he come here, is what you have to ask." "To cure the beasts," Gift said.

Sunbright had not been gone three days when a new stranger appeared in town: a man riding up the south road on a good horse and asking at the tavern for lodging. They sent him to Sans house, but San's wife screeched when she heard there was a stranger at the door, crying that if San let another witch-man in the door her baby would be born dead twice over. Her screaming could be heard for several houses up and down the street, and a crowd, that is, ten or eleven people, gathered between Sans house and the tavern.

"Well, that won't do," said the stranger pleasantly. "I can't be bringing on a birth untimely. Is there maybe a room above the tavern?"

"Send him on out to the dairy," said one of Alder's cowboys. "Gift's taking whatever comes." There was some sniggering and shushing.

"Back that way," said the taverner.

"Thanks," said the traveler, and led his horse along the way they pointed.

"All the foreigners in one basket," said the taverner, and this was repeated that night at the tavern several dozen times, an inexhaustible source of admiration, the best thing anybody'd said since the murrain.

Gift was in the dairy, having finished the evening milking. She was straining the milk and setting out the pans. "Mistress," said a voice at the door, and she thought it was the curer and said, "Just a minute while I finish this," and then turning saw a stranger and nearly dropped the pan. "Oh, you startled me!" she said. "What can I do for you, then?"

"I'm looking for a bed for the night."

"No, I'm sorry, there's my lodger, and my brother, and me. Maybe San, in the village—"

"They sent me here. They said, "All the foreigners in one basket."" The stranger was in his thirties, with a blunt face and a pleasant look, dressed plain, though the cob that stood behind him was a good horse. "Put me up in the cow barn, mistress, it'll do fine. It's my horse needs a good bed; he's tired. I'll sleep in the barn and be off in the morning. Cows are a pleasure to sleep with on a cold night. I'll be glad to pay you, mistress, if two coppers would suit, and my name's Hawk."

"I'm Gift," she said, a bit flustered, but liking the fellow. "All right, then, Master Hawk. Put your horse up and see to him. There's the pump, there's plenty of hay. Come on in the house after. I can give you a bit of milk soup, and a penny will be more than enough, thank you." She didn't feel like calling him sir, as she always did the curer. This one had nothing of that lordly way about him. She hadn't seen a king when she first saw him, as with the other one.

When she finished in the dairy and went to the house, the new fellow, Hawk, was squatting on the hearth, skillfully making up the fire. The curer was in his room asleep. She looked in, and closed the door.

"He's not too well," she said, speaking low. "He was curing the cattle away out east over the marsh, in the cold, for days on end, and wore himself out."

As she went about her work in the kitchen, Hawk lent her a hand now and then in the most natural way, so that she began to wonder if men from foreign parts were all so much handier about the house than the men of the Marsh. He was easy to talk with, and she told him about the curer, since there was nothing much to say about herself.

"They'll use a sorcerer and then ill-mouth him for his usefulness," she said. "It's not just."

"But he scared em, somehow, did he?"

"I guess he did. Another curer came up this way, a fellow that's been by here before. Doesn't amount to much that I can see. He did no good to my cow with the caked bag, two years ago. And his balm's just pig fat, I'd swear. Well, so, he says to Otak, you're taking my business. And maybe Otak says the same back. And they lose their tempers, and they did some black spells, maybe. I guess Otak did. But he did no harm to the man at all, but fell down in a swoon himself. And now he doesn't remember any more about it, while the other man walked away unhurt. And they say every beast he touched is standing yet, and hale. Ten days he spent out there in the wind and the rain, touching the beasts and healing them. And you know what the cattleman gave him? Six pennies! Can you wonder he was a little rageous? But I don't say…" She checked herself and then went on, "I don't say he's not a bit strange, sometimes. The way witches and sorcerers are, I guess. Maybe they have to be, dealing with such powers and evils as they do. But he is a true man, and kind."

"Mistress," said Hawk, "may I tell you a story?"

"Oh, are you a teller? Oh, why didn't you say so to begin with! Is that what you are then? I wondered, it being winter and all, and you being on the roads. But with that horse, I thought you must be a merchant. Can you tell me a story? It would be the joy of my life, and the longer the better! But drink your soup first, and let me sit down to hear…"

"I'm not truly a teller, mistress," he said with his pleasant smile, "but I do have a story for you." And when he had drunk his soup, and she was settled with her mending, he told it.

"In the Inmost Sea, on the Isle of the Wise, on Roke Island, where all magery is taught, there are nine Masters," he began.

She closed her eyes in bliss and listened.

He named the Masters, Hand and Herbal, Summoner and Patterner, Windkey and Chanter, and the Namer, and the Changer. "The Changers and the Summoner's are very perilous arts," he said. "Changing, or transformation, you maybe know of, mistress. Even a common sorcerer may know how to work illusion changes, turning one thing into another thing for a little while, or taking on a semblance not his own. Have you seen that?"

"Heard of it," she whispered.

"And sometimes witches and sorcerers will say that they've summoned the dead to speak through them. Maybe a child the parents are grieving for. In the witch's hut, in the darkness, they hear it cry, or laugh…"

She nodded.

"Those are spells of illusion only, of seeming. But there are true changes, and true summonings. And these may be true temptations to the wizard! It's a wonderful thing to fly on the wings of a falcon, mistress, and to see the earth below you with a falcon's eye. And summoning, which is naming truly, is a great power. To know the true name is to have power, as you know, mistress. And the summoner's art goes straight to that. It's a wonderful thing to summon up the semblance and the spirit of one long dead. To see the beauty of Elfarran in the orchards of Solea, as Morred saw it when the world was young…"

His voice had become very soft, very dark.

"Well, to my story. Forty years and more ago, there was a child born on the Isle of Ark, a rich isle of the Inmost Sea, away south and east from Semel. This child was the son of an under-steward in the household of the Lord of Ark. Not a poor man's son, but not a child of much account. And the parents died young. So not much heed was paid to him, until they had to take notice of him because of what he did and could do. He was an uncanny brat, as they say. He had powers. He could light a fire or douse it with a word. He could make pots and pans fly through the air. He could turn a mouse into a pigeon and set it flying round the great kitchens of the Lord of Ark. And if he was crossed, or frightened, then he did harm. He turned a kettle of boiling water over a cook who had mistreated him."