Here is news, perhaps even good news. I hope so. There was an awful brawl downstairs this morning. I listened at my keyhole and soon identified Cook's voice; it was not difficult to guess who she was bawling at, so I pounded on my door and shouted for Vadsig. She was breathless when she arrived and every bit as red of face as Aanvagen, with a livid bruise on her cheek. "I only require that you talk to me awhile," I told her, "and give Cook's temper time to cool. I felt sure you'd appreciate being rescued from that situation, whatever it was."

"Going out I am, mysire. Asking her I am not." This was said in the tone of one who defies the armed might of cities. "Saying all morning she is. Lying, she is. No more than one hour it is, mysire. Less!"

"I believe you."

"Paying me she is not, mysire. A servant like me she is!"

"No doubt she became accustomed to bullying you when you were younger, Vadsig. She must learn from your speech and your deportment that you are growing up."

She nodded vigorously. "All her life a servant she is. So with me it will not be. This she sees. Our own house we will have. Children I will have, and servants like her to wait on us, it may be."

"Aim high, Vadsig. There is nothing to be gained by not doing so."

"Thank you, mysire. Very kind you are." Smoothing her apron, she turned to go. "Your son well is, mysire. Happy he is not, but well he is and love to you by me he sends."

She had gone out and turned the key before my mouth closed. Hide? And Vadsig? What a wonderful whorl we live in!

I have been walking up and down this little room, three steps and turn, worrying about Oreb. If you ever read this, dear Nettle, you will say that I ought to have been worrying about our son; but what is there to worry about? He and Vadsig will or will not marry. I cannot decide that for them, and neither could you; they must decide it for themselves. If they do not, each will regret it sometimes, and nothing you and I could say or do can change that. If they do, each will regret that sometimes, too; and we cannot change that either. So what is there to think about? I wish them both well. So would you, I believe, if you were here with me.

As for Oreb, I am concerned about him but what can I do? When we reached this whorl, he left me for nearly a year. At, this moment he has been gone less than a day. I have prayed that he is safe, and that is all I can do. I hope the Outsider, whose sacrifice Silk once intended Oreb to be, smiles on him.

The reason for my failure with poor Jahlee last night is obvious, surely. Her spirit is absent. I had supposed that it might be hovering about her body, and that I might somehow assist it to re-enter. It is not there, and in all probability is still on Green. I returned from Green, leaving her there and supposing that she could return as I did whenever she chose. Either she has not chosen to return, or she is unable to do so. If it is the first, well and good. I have no claim on her; she may remain as she is if she chooses.

But if she is unable to return (and I confess I believe that most likely) I must bring her back; and I cannot go without the company of another such as Jahlee is and my poor friend Fava was.

Available to me in this house are Vadsig, Aanvagen, Beroep, and perhaps Cijfer. I have tried to persuade myself that one of them might do. I cannot. Vadsig is lean enough, but the idea of an inhuma living by choice as Vadsig does-sleeping in a garret, sweeping and mopping floors, and washing dishes-is perfectly ridiculous. She has worked here, she says, for two years. She would have been detected a hundred times over. If somehow she had not been, she would have been detected at once by Oreb, who has seen her many times.

Beroep and Aanvagen can be dismissed at once; both are far too portly. As for Cijfer, I do not believe it. Oreb saw her and said nothing. She would not have covered Jahlee's face, or fetched a bio to help her. All four can be dismissed.

Leaving no one. What am I to do?

Sleep.

No dreams. Not of Fava and Mora, nor of anyone else; but I ought to have known better-Mora herself must be awake.

Dusk outside my window. Another short winter day has ended. Soon the house will be asleep, and I will go out and search the streets for someone like Fava and Jahlee who may (may, I say) be willing to go to Green with me and bring my poor daughter home. What else can I do? I give thanks to the Outsider, particularly, that Beroep failed to notice I was keeping his gray boat cloak.

So much has happened that I despair of recording all of it. I required Beroep's cloak-I was right about that-but not to search the streets of Dorp for a helpful inhumu. I had no more than written cloak and put away my pen case and my dwindling supply of paper than I heard the rattle of sling swivels and the clatter of boots on the stair. In came two men with slug guns, and off to Judge Hamer we went-not to a courtroom, but to his house, where he held court in his sellaria.

"No formal session it is, Mysire Horn." He is fat and red of face, and seemed to me to be forcing his voice deeper than nature intended. "A preliminary hearing it is. This is capital cases we do."

I protested that I had killed no one.

"Nat you made your prisoner. Him you restrained, mysire. By our law a capital offense it is." He smiled, cocked his head, and pointed his forefinger down at his neck.

"Is Nat a particularly privileged individual here in Dorp, Judge Hamer?"

He looked severe. "Mysire Rechtor to me you must say, mysire, each time you speak."

"Excuse it, please, Mysire Rechtor. I am a stranger, and ignorant of your usages. Is Nat a privileged citizen, Mysire Rechtor? Or does this law you describe apply to everyone?"

"The protection of all it is, mysire."

"What about strangers such as my daughter, my son, and myself, Mysire Rechtor? Are we protected, too? Or does your law protect only your own citizens?"

"All it protects. This I say, mysire, and this so is."

"Then I protest on behalf of my daughter, Mysire Rechtor. She is being held by your order, and she had nothing to with restraining Nat-whom we soon released, by the way."

"By the law held she is, mysire. The law, the law cannot break." He addressed the troopers. "Mysire Horn's daughter, Meren Jahlee. Why not to my court fetching her you are?"

One came to attention and saluted. "Sleeping she is, Mysire Rechtor."

"Her you wake."

There was a whispered consultation; I took advantage of the time it gave me to look around. The five with slug guns I took to be legermen, although their uniforms were sketchy at best. Except for them, and Judge Hamer, there was no one in the sellaria save Beroep, Aanvagen, and me.

The sellaria itself spoke of wealth and luxury, although no wealthy man in the Viron I knew as a boy would have been impressed by it. Its floors of waxed wood was smooth, and the rough wool carpet before the judge's desk not quite contemptible. Somber pictures hung on the crudely paneled walls; heavy chairs and glass-fronted cabinets containing rusted knives and swords, and split and polished stones, completed the furnishings.

"Mysire Horn!" Hamer rapped his desk with a walking stick. "About your daughter presently we see. Likewise Mysire Hide, who stands accused with you."

"Unjustly. He is my son and merely did what I told him."

"This he and you later must say. How you plead I must know, and not how Mysire Hide will, or this Meren Jahlee whose sleep brave men dare not disturb. Our laws you do not know, mysire?"

I shook my head.

"By speaking you must answer."

"No, Mysire Rechtor. I do not."

"Such criminals as you, Mysire Horn, three choices have. Innocent you may plead. If this you say, your innocence by your own speech and your witnesses you must to me prove."