"So he eliminated one cause of war, and then brought about another," said Verily.

Margaret nodded and took a bite of soup. "This is very good, Papa."

"Forgive me for thinking like a lawyer," said Verily Cooper, "but why didn't you foresee this before you sent him down?"

She was chewing, so Old Horace answered. "She can't see that clear when it comes to Alvin. Can't see what all he's going to choose to do. She can see some things, but not most things, when it comes to him. Which I think is a plain mercy. A man who has a wife can see everything he does and thinks and wants and wishes, well, I think he might as well kill himself."

Horace was joking, and so he laughed, but Margaret didn't take it as a joke. Verily saw her tears drop into the stew.

"Ho, now," he said, "that's already salted well enough, I can swear to that, I had some for supper."

"Father is right," she said. "Oh, poor Alvin. I should never have married him."

Verily had actually had that thought occur to him several times in the past, and since he knew she could see into his heartfire, he didn't bother trying to lie and reassure her. "Maybe so," he said, "but as you already know, Alvin's a free chooser. He chose you the way most folks choose a mate, not seeing the end, but wanting to find his way to it with his hand in yours."

She placed her hand on his and gave him a weak smile. "You have a lawyer's way with words," she said.

"What I said is true," said Verily. "Alvin chose you because of who you are and how he feels about you, not because he thought you'd always make right choices."

"How he feels about me," she said, and shuddered. "What if he finds out that I sent him to Nueva Barcelona knowing that by going there, he'd cause the deaths of hundreds of souls?"

"Why does he have to find out?" said Verily. But he knew the answer already.

"He'll ask me," said Margaret. "And I'll tell him."

"He caused the plague of yellow fever, is that it?"

"Not on purpose, but yes."

"And you knew he would."

"It was the only thing that would stop the war that the King already planned. His invasion of Nueva Barcelona would have forced the United States to invade the Crown Colonies in order to keep the King from sealing off their access to the sea. But the yellow fever prevented the King's army from approaching the city. By the time the fever is gone, so will be all the King's agents inside the city. That road to war is closed."

"So at the cost of those who die of the fever," said Verily, "you saved the lives of all who would have died in the war."

She shook her head. "I thought it would. But Alvin reopened the door without realizing it, and the war that will come now is every bit as bloody."

"But you delayed it a few more years," said Verily.

"What good is that?"

"It's two or three more years of life. Of loving and marrying and having babies. Of buying and selling, of plowing and planting and harvesting, of moving and settling. It will be a different world in two or three years, and those who die in the war will have had that much more life. It's not a small thing, those years."

"Maybe you're right," said Margaret. "But that won't keep Alvin from hating me for sending him down there to cause hundreds of deaths in order to postpone hundreds of thousands of others."

"Hush now," said Horace. "He's not going to hate you."

But Verily wasn't sure. Alvin wasn't one to appreciate being manipulated into committing what he would see, no doubt, as a terrible sin. "Why couldn't you just tell the man and let him decide for himself?"

She shook her head. "Because every path that included me telling him led to him doing something else to prevent the war-and all those things would have failed, and most of those paths ended with him dead."

She burst into tears. "I know too much! Oh! God help me, I'm so tired of knowing so much!"

Horace was sitting beside her in a moment, his arm around her shoulder. He looked at Verily, who was about to try to offer comfort. "She's tired, and you were wakened out of your sleep," said Horace. "Go to bed, as she will too. Tomorrow is time enough for talk."

As usual, Horace knew just the right thing for everyone to do to be content. Verily got up from the table. "I'll go and do what you asked," he said to Margaret. "You can count on me to help find a place for Alvin's people."

She nodded slightly, her face still hidden in her hands.

That was all the good-night he was going to get, and so he headed back along the hall toward his room. At first he was filled with irritation at having to set aside his plan to free Alvin from the smith's litigious heirs. But by the time he got to his room he had already let go of that. It wasn't his case any more. He had other work now, but it hadn't yet begun. And so, when he lay back down in his bed, it took him little time to sleep, for at the moment he had no worries.

In the morning, he didn't see Margaret after all. There was a note waiting for him on the floor of his room, giving the name of Abraham Lincoln's town and how to get there.

At breakfast the old innkeeper looked grave. "I'm worried about the baby," said Horace. "She started throwing up last night. She's worn herself out and she's sick as a dog. She's asleep now, but if she loses this baby too, I swear I don't know but what she'll lose her mind."

"So I should go on without talking to her?"

"Everything you need to know is on that paper."

"I doubt that," said Verily.

"All right then," said Horace with a wan smile. "Everything she thinks you need to know."

Verily Cooper matched his smile, then went back to his room to get his things together for the long westward ride. If he'd only stayed in Vigor Church instead of coming here to Hatrack River, he'd have only one-third the journey now. Sometimes it felt to him as though he'd spent most of his life traveling, and never quite got to anywhere that mattered.

Then again, that might be as good a description of what life was supposed to be as anyone ever thought of. The only real destination was death, and our lives consisted of finding the most circuitous and pleasant path to get there.

He was on horseback and on his way hours before noon, so the sun was still at his back. It would be nice when they finally got the railroad through clear to the Mizzippy. If they laid enough tracks, a man wouldn't even need to keep a horse. But for now it was either ride the horse or struggle to keep the horse from going crazy on a flatboat or a steamboat and he wasn't inclined to try either.

He thought, as he rode, about how Alvin and Margaret were the two most powerful, gifted, blessed people on this continent, without question, and yet Margaret was desperately sad and frightened all the time, and Alvin wandered about half-lost and melancholy, and not for the first time Verily thought it was a good thing to be a man of relatively ordinary gifts.