“When the ruin of the house cooled enough to come close, I picked up the baby. Not burnt at all, not even the blanket he was wrapped in. Whatever she was, the boy’s mother was powerful. Not powerful enough to put out the fire, but powerful enough to spare his life.”

“If he didn’t burn, what’s wrong with his face?” asked the same woman as before.

“She kept the flame off him, but not the heat. Couldn’t kill him, but his face melted. I tried to push it back into place as best I could, but you can see I’m no master with clay. Did my best and the boy’s used to it, an’t you, boy?”

Rigg nodded.

“Can’t talk?” asked the mayor.

“Now it’s three questions, and me barely finished with the first,” said Ram Odin. “The boy can talk all right. But he’s shy and he’d rather talk to me, mostly, when meeting strange folk.”

There was a general recoiling at that, some murmurs.

“Oh, now, don’t take me amiss,” said Ram Odin. “I know that in this place, we’re the strange folk. But you’re strange to us, don’t you see, just as we’re strange to you. Only we come here of our own choice, so we mean nothing wrong by it. We hope to serve you, and that brings me to the original question, the first question, Question Prime, the question of questions.”

“What are you good for that we should feed you?” asked the mayor again.

“Well, I’m not good for much. Old but still strong for my age, but that says little. It’s the boy, you see. A bit of the mother’s blood in him. Never got no training and he don’t know no spells, so you’ve nought to fear from him. But he’s got him a way of finding lost things.”

“What things?” demanded the mayor.

“Well, he don’t just happen to find them and then go looking for the owner,” said Ram Odin. “You have to tell him what you lost, and then he finds it, if it’s to be found, or tells you what’s become of it, if he can’t lay hands on it. Doesn’t always work, only about half the time, but here’s what I offer. You give us the meal for trying, and the bed for succeeding.”

“It’s a way to get a meal for nothing,” said the mayor dismissively.

“If you don’t even want us to try, we’ve still got a bit of cheese and bread and meat from yesterday, and we’ll leave right now. I saw another hamlet off in the distance.”

“That’s Stinkville Manor,” said a half-grown lad, and people laughed.

“Don’t like them much,” said the mayor. “They do everything wrong.”

“Then I suppose they’re likelier to have lost things so they’ll have more need of us.” Ram Odin clapped his hand on Rigg’s shoulder. “This is a lucky place, Rigg. They never lost anything they need to find.” He started walking across the square.

But the story had made an impression and most folk seemed disappointed. Then a man, a tall man, stepped into their way. “I lost a thing,” he said.

The mayor looked annoyed but didn’t try to stop the man from talking.

“I went to town a few year back,” he said. “Bought my wife five brass buttons with a bird etched into them, every single one. She sewed them into the back of her blouse, but now one’s gone missing.”

“Must be I bent over and it popped off, that’s all,” said his wife, who seemed reluctant to step forward.

“Cost me a bit,” said the man. “I’d like that button back.”

“That’s not hard, is it?” Ram Odin asked Rigg.

Rigg had already marked the woman’s path. Could see which buildings in town she had visited most, and most recently. He already had a good guess where the button was, and why she didn’t want it looked for. But she couldn’t admit that she didn’t want it found.

“Where was she when they was last sure the button was on the blouse?” Rigg asked softly. He pitched his voice so only Ram Odin and the people nearest them could hear, but that meant somebody could hear him, so he tried to do the same thing with his vowels that Ram Odin had done. So they might seem to come from the same place.

“How can I remember?” the woman said. “I didn’t even notice it was gone, till Bak noticed it.”

“But you would have known when you put it on, so you know the day,” said an older woman. Might it be her mother? From the way the women looked at each other, Rigg thought it was likely. And yes, sure enough their paths converged some years ago at another house. And that was where Bak’s wife’s path began.

“May I know your name?” asked Rigg.

“What do you need names for? No names!” said the mayor. “Ain’t going to have no witchery on folk here!”

“Might help me find the button,” Rigg murmured, “but it don’t matter.”

“Her name’s Jobo,” said Bak. “Everybody knows that.”

The mayor glared at him, but Bak only had eyes for Rigg.

“She had it at breakfast five days ago,” said Bak. “And at supper she didn’t. Don’t know where she went all day because we all was out haying. Second day of haying.”

“I didn’t feel well,” said Jobo. “I stayed home to rest.”

“Then he’ll find the button in our house,” said Bak to her gently.

To Rigg, it sounded as if he loved her. Very tender to her. But it also sounded as if he was going to find out about that button. Five days ago, and it still troubled him.

“You already looked?” asked Ram Odin.

“Turned the place upside down and shook it,” said Bak. Several people laughed. The man had a way with words and people liked him. “But buttons can get themselves into places. I know how that is. Button flies off, goes into a place and won’t come out.”

It dawned on Rigg that the mayor might be the bossy one, and maybe the richest one. But if people had their pick, they liked Bak more than they liked the mayor, and the mayor knew it. If Bak wanted these strangers to look for that button, the mayor knew better than to try to interfere.

And sure enough, the mayor shook his head. “They won’t find it cause there’s no such thing as magical finding, but if you want to feed them you do it.”

Since that was clearly what Bak already meant to do, all the mayor did was turn Bak’s intention into the mayor’s command. And everybody knew it. The mayor walked away and Bak reached out a hand to them.

“Come to my house. Sit at my table for the noonday meal. That’s where I last saw the button on her blouse, if that’s a help to you. And you’ll see how she does in the kitchen, fixing up the food, if that helps you.”

“Oh, so I have to do the work?” asked Jobo. “My button, my loss, but I have to fix up their noonses?”

“I know where the bread is,” said Bak, “and I can boil eggs.”

“I don’t want you cooking in my kitchen!” snapped Jobo. “I married the clumsiest oaf in the village, and I’m not having you breaking eggs all over everything.”

“Fixing to boil them is all,” said Bak mildly.

But Rigg saw how the people didn’t much like her, and liked him fine. Her snapping at him was a shame to herself, but not to Bak, because clearly none of the folk thought he deserved it. They kept their silence though. It was between woman and man, how they talked to each other.

Rigg and Ram Odin followed to a good-sized house. Not a poor family. It was a house they had passed. Rigg could see Jobo’s path going in and out, as also Bak’s. And children, but they must be grown because the paths went away and didn’t come back.

“Children still living here?” asked Ram Odin. “Big house like this.”

“My parents had seven that lived,” said Bak. “We had two. The boy went off to seek his fortune, poor lad, and the girl married out. I fear they didn’t like it here.”

Rigg wondered if it was marital squabbling that drove them away, or simply wanderlust. Or, in the girl’s case, maybe love.

“Think the boy found it?” asked Ram Odin. “His fortune?”

“If he has, he didn’t come back yet to share it,” said Bak.

His wife made a glottal stop to show exasperation. “He’s only two years gone,” she said to him.

“A year to get a fortune, a year to waste it, and then come home,” said Bak. “I expect him any day.”