I set two fingers gently to Epiny’s lips. “Let’s go the rest of the way up the hill and go inside, shall we? Perhaps Kesey has some coffee we could share while we talk. There is so much I want to hear.”

And so many decisions for me to make.

Epiny walked up the hill beside me while Kesey drove the cart and his saddle horse trailed behind. Epiny snorted with exasperation at the top of the hill when I insisted on examining the wheels and axles of the cart. I sent them ahead of me into the cabin, asking Kesey to put on some fresh coffee for all of us. I think they both knew that what I was actually doing was taking a moment to think. When at last I entered, Epiny was enthroned in my big old chair. Little Solina was propped in her lap, looking all around with very wide eyes. The aroma of fresh coffee had already begun to fill the small room.

“You can probably drive it safely back, as long as you go slowly and someone accompanies you in case of mishaps. I don’t want you and the baby stranded on the road next to a broken-down cart.”

“But of course you’ll come with me! I don’t even know why we’ve stopped to have coffee. Not that it isn’t pleasant to be invited in, Trooper Kesey. But of course you will come home with me, Nevare. That’s why I borrowed the cart. I thought that you would ride—”

“Epiny,” I interrupted. “Nothing is decided. Do you forget that I’m a man convicted of murder, among other crimes?”

“But no one will recognize you! Kesey didn’t, and he knew you far better than most and—”

“And in any case, how could I go back to Gettys dressed like this, let alone to an officer’s house? What would people think of you, bringing a man dressed like a savage into your home?”

“Oh, it could be managed, Nevare! You worry too much about what other people would think! You are too cautious! You need simply to come back to town and take your life back. How long must Amzil wait for you?”

“Amzil? The Dead Town whore?” Kesey put in incredulously. “She’s sweet on Nevare?” He’d taken the steaming pot of coffee off the fire. As he set it down on the table, he said, “Looks like you done a lot of tidying up while I was gone.”

“Amzil is not and never was a whore,” Epiny said indignantly as I simultaneously said, “I just thought it was the least I could do after you helped a complete stranger.”

“And it sure needed doing; I’m no housekeeper, I know that. And pardon if I spoke out of turn, ma’am, or said something wrong. It’s only what I’ve always heard about her. And the good god knows she’s got a brand-new reputation in Gettys since last winter. She stares at the troopers like she could bring the wrath of the old gods down on them with a snap of her fingers. And makes them sharp little remarks all the time. Hasn’t won her any friends.”

“If you knew what she went through—” Epiny began.

I cut through her stream of words with the truth. “The night everyone thought I was murdered by that mob? Amzil was there. Some of the men were going to rape her because she was my friend. To hurt me by making me watch, and afterward, to kill her in front of me. And the Captain wasn’t going to do a thing to stop them. It was ugly, Kesey. I managed to protect her, but it’s not a thing a woman could forget. Or forgive.”

“I heard somewhat of that,” he said shortly. “The regiment isn’t what it was, once. Men get ground down for so long, some of them just go bad. Cavalla used to be a notch better than common soldiers, but, well…It’s not like anyone is proud of that night, Nevare, least of all Captain Thayer. There was a Sixday service, not long ago, when he talked all about how wrong a man can be when he trusts a woman. Says even the sweetest woman in the world can be a deceiver and a temptress, and when men believe them, they can be led to commit the worst of crimes. He said he knew that no woman could be trusted, not even your own wife. Everyone knew he was talking about that night. Shocked every one of us there—well, not me, ’cause I ain’t been to Sixday services in a long time, but to them that was—when he broke down and sobbed about it. Cut him to the bone, I guess, that she’d lied to him. Though he never said about what. Then he said it was a lesson to us all to live upright lives and not trust our hearts to anyone but the good god. And—” Kesey suddenly looked uncomfortable. “He said something ’bout how it was lucky you’d committed other crimes that made you deserve your fate.” He abruptly stopped speaking.

“Really lucky,” I said sourly. “Otherwise he and his men would have murdered an innocent man.”

Kesey just looked at me.

“Kesey, I am an innocent man. Innocent of that, anyway. I didn’t do any of the things I was accused of. Not one.”

He nodded gravely and put three cups on the table. Two were tin but one was of thick crockery. He poured the steaming coffee slowly, trying not to stir the grounds from the bottom, and spoke without looking up at me. “That’s what the Lieutenant told me, when he come up here about my dream. And Ebrooks and me, we talked it over, and even before then we thought it was damned peculiar—Oh, pardon my language, ma’am.”

“Damned peculiar,” Epiny agreed wryly, making Kesey blush. She took up her crockery mug of hot coffee and sipped at it gingerly. As she put it down on the table, she asked me matter-of-factly, “So what will you do? I think you stand a fair chance of clearing yourself if you came back and decided to do so.”

“Oh, Epiny, it’s so much more complicated than that. You know it is. A fair chance of clearing myself means there’s also a fair chance I’ll dance at the end of the rope, unless they flog me to death first. Even if I clear myself in Gettys, how do I explain to anyone how I slipped away from that mob: do you think that anyone would think me innocent if I told them I’d done it with Speck magic?”

“They wouldn’t like it at all,” Kesey chimed in. “Soldiers don’t like to think anyone can fool them, and Nevare fooled them all. And let them live with a lot of guilt for a long time, to boot. And most of them still figure that Nevare, uh, you know, with the Captain’s dead wife. Some of the fellows speculate that if she lied, maybe she was a temptress, too, and—”

“Kesey!” I said sharply.

The old soldier abruptly closed his mouth and nodded. “Right,” he said. He picked up his tin cup of coffee, wincing a bit, for the coffee had warmed the metal. “I’m thinking that perhaps you’d like to speak to Miz Kester in private. And seeing as how you’re her cousin and all, if I heard that right, ain’t a thing improper about that. So I might take this cup of coffee and go outside and sit for a bit.”

“Oh, we mustn’t drive you out of your own home,” Epiny decided firmly. “Nevare and I can sit outside.” And so saying, she rose. With her baby in one arm, she took my arm with her free hand and guided us out of the door. I barely had time to get my cup of coffee. She seemed content to let her own remain on the table.

The day seemed bright after the dimness of the cabin. We walked over to the cart and she sat down on its open tail. The horse shifted doubtfully in his harness. “Well,” she said, and then, as if it were the most important thing, she observed, “That was the most dreadful coffee I’ve ever tasted. How can you drink it?”

“I’ve been hungry enough lately to eat or drink anything that’s offered to me.” I took a mouthful. She was right about the coffee, but I swallowed it anyway and tried to keep my face under control.

She laughed sympathetically. “My poor cousin. When you come home with me tonight, I’ll do my best to remedy that. Between Amzil and me, we put some fair meals on the table. We are not as hungry as we have been, thank the good god. The supply wagons have come through at last, so there is plenty of plain food, bread and porridge and such. And the little gardens behind the houses have started to give up a bit of fresh vegetable now and then. But for a time there, I was certainly hungry enough to eat whatever was offered to me. Oh, I’ve chattered like a squirrel long enough. Tell me how you come to be here? What happened to you? How was that you and not you, that horrible night—”