Oba went to the door, opened it a crack, and stood eating his eggs as he peered out to see the rear of a wagon pulled up close by. A man climbed down.

It was Mr. Tuchmann, who regularly brought wool. Oba's mother was a spinster who made thread for Mr. Tuchmann. He used the thread on his loom. With so many new things demanding his attention lately, Oba had forgotten all about Mr. Tuchmann. Oba glanced over to the comer to see how much thread his mother had ready. Not much. Bales of wool sat to the side, waiting to be spun into thread. The least his mother could have done would be to attend to her work before she started in causing trouble.

Oba didn't know what to do. When he looked back to the doorway, Mr. Tuchmann was standing right there, looking in. He was a tall man, thin, with a big nose and ears. His hair was graying and as curly as the wool he dealt in. He was recently widowed. Oba knew that his mother liked Mr. Tuchmann. Maybe he could have leached some of the venom from her fangs. Softened her a bit. It was an interesting theory to contemplate.

"Afternoon, Oba." His eyes, eyes that Oba had always found curiously liquid, were peering in the crack, searching the house. "Is your mother about?"

Oba, feeling a little violated by the man's roving eyes, stood holding the plate of eggs, trying to think what to do, what to say. Mr. Tuchmann's gaze settled on the fireplace.

Oba, standing ill at ease behind the door, reminded himself that he was a new man. An important man. Important men weren't unsure of themselves. Important men seized the moment, and created their own greatness.

"Mama?" Oba set down his plate as he glanced to the fireplace. "Oh, she's about, somewhere."

Wool-headed Mr. Tuchmann stared stone-faced at Oba's grin for a time.

"You heard about Lathea? What they found at her place"

Oba thought the man had a mouth kind of like his mother had. Mean. Sneaky.

"Lathea?" Oba sucked at a piece of egg stuck between his teeth. "She's dead. What could they find?"

"More precisely, what they didn't find, I guess you could say. Money. Lathea had money, everyone knew that. But they found none in her house."

Oba shrugged. "Must have burned up. Melted."

Mr. Tuchmann grunted his skepticism. "Maybe. Maybe not. Some folks say maybe it was gone before the fire started."

Oba felt indignant that people just couldn't let a thing go. Didn't they have their own business to mind? Why couldn't they leave well enough alone? They should rejoice that the sorceress was out of their lives and leave it at that. They had to keep picking at it, though. Peck, peck, peck, like a gaggle of geese at the grain. Busybodies, that's what they were.

"I'll tell Mama you were here."

"I need the thread she's spun. I have another load of wool for her. I need to be on my way. Got other people waiting."

The man had a whole bevy of women who spun wool for him. Didn't he ever give his poor spinsters a chance to catch their breath?

"Well, I'm afraid that Mama hasn't had time to. .»

Mr. Tuchmann was staring at the fireplace again, only more intently, this time. The look on his face was more than curious; it bordered on anger. The man, accustomed to ordering people around and always more bold than Oba felt comfortable around, stepped through the door and into the house, to the center of the room, still staring at the fireplace. His arm rose, pointing.

"What's… what's that? Dear Creator.

Oba looked where he was pointing-at the new fireplace being built against the stone wall that separated the house from the barn. Oba thought his work was quite well done-sturdy and straight. He had studied other fireplaces and learned how they were done. Even though the chimney wasn't built all the way up yet, he was using it. He had put it to good advantage.

Oba saw then, what Mr. Tuchmann was really pointing at.

Mama's jawbone.

Well, wasn't this just something. Oba hadn't expected visitors, especially snoopy visitors. What gave this man the right to poke his nose into other people's houses, just because they spun wool for him?

Mr. Tachmann started backing toward the door. Oba knew that Mr. Tuchmann would talk about what he'd seen. The man was a gossip, already flapping his tongue to anyone who would listen about Lathea's missing money-which, after all, was really Oba's, when you considered the lifetime of trouble he had endured to earn it. Who were all these people coming out of the woodwork to stick up for the troublesome sorceress?

When Mr. Tuchmann started blabbing about what he saw in the fireplace, there were sure to be questions. Everyone would have to stick their noses in it and want to know whose it was. They would probably start fretting over his mother, now, just like they were doing over the sorceress.

Oba, a new man, a man of action, could hardly let that happen. Oba was an important man, he'd learned. Rahl blood coursed through his veins, after all. Important men acted-handled problems as they arose. Quickly. Efficiently. Decisively.

Oba seized Mr. Tuchmann by the back of his neck, halting his retreat. The man struggled fiercely. He was tall and wiry, but he was no match for Oba's strength or speed.

With a grunt of effort, Oba plunged his knife up into Mr. Tuchmann's middle. The man's mouth opened wide. His eyes, always so liquid, always so curious, went wide as well, filled now with a look of terror.

Oba followed the obnoxious Mr. Tachmann to the ground. They had work to do. Oba was never afraid of hard work. First, there was the struggling wool-headed snoop to deal with. Then, there was the matter of his wagon. People would probably come looking for him. Oba's life was getting complicated.

Mr. Tuchmann called for help. Oba rammed his knife up into the soft part under Mr. Tuchmann's chin. Oba leaned over him, watched the man struggle, knowing he was going to die.

Oba had nothing against Mr. Tuchmann, really-even though the man was impertinent and bossy. This was all that troublesome sorceress's fault. She was still making Oba's life difficult. She had probably sent some message to his mother and then to Mr. Tuchmann from beyond in the underworld. The bitch. Then, his mother had to get all sneaky and suspicious. And now this irksome pest, Mr. Tuchmann. They were like a swarm of locusts, come from nowhere to plague him.

It was because he was important, he knew.

It was probably time for changes. Oba couldn't stay around and keep having people who knew him pestering him with questions. He was too important to be in this little nothing of a place, anyway.

Mr. Tuchmann grunted in his futile effort to escape. It was time for the unhappy widower to join Oba's lunatic mother and the troublesome sorceress with the Keeper of the underworld, the world of the dead.

And then, the time had come for Oba to take up his important life as a new man and to move on to better places.

Just as the realization struck him that he would never again have to go in the barn and see the mound of frozen muck that he hadn't been able to dislodge with the scoop shovel, despite the ranting insistence of his lunatic mother, it occurred to him that if he had used the pickaxe, that would have made quick work of it.

Well, wasn't that just something.