I pushed aside the uneasiness her words roused in me. I leaned forward to look into my own hand. “It's probably just dirt,” I offered.

She gave a small snort of amusement and shook her head again. But she did not return to her ominous peering. Instead she covered my hand with her own and met my eyes. “Never have I seen two palms so unlike on the same man. I suspect that sometimes you wonder if you even know who you are yourself.”

“I'm sure every man wonders that from time to time.” It was oddly difficult to meet her nearsighted gaze.

“Hm. But you, perhaps, have more honest reason to wonder it than others. Well,” she sighed. “Let me see what I can do.”

She released my hands, and I drew them back. I rubbed them together under the table as if to erase the tickling of her touch. She took up her charm, turned it several times, and then unfastened a string. She changed the order of the beads on the string, and added an extra brown bead from her pack. She retied the string, and then took out the pot of yellow ink I had traded her. Dipping a fine brush in it, she outlined several black runes on one of the dowels, bending close over it to peer at her work. She spoke as she worked. “When next I come to visit, I expect you to tell me this has been your best year ever for plants that bear their fruits aboveground where the sun ripens them.” She blew on the charm to dry the ink, then put away both pot and brush. “Come, now, we have to adjust this to the garden.”

Outside, she sent me to find and cut a forked branch at least as tall as myself. When I returned with it, I found she had dug a hole at the southeast comer of my garden plot. I set the pole in it as she directed, and filled in the hole. She hung the charm from the right fork of the branch. When the wind stirred it, the beads rattled gently and a small bell chimed. She tapped the bell with a fingertip. “It discourages some birds.”

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome. This is a good spot for one of my charms. It pleases me to leave it here. And when next I come, I shall be interested to see how well it has worked for you.”

It was the second time she had mentioned visiting again. The ghost of my court manners nudged me. “Andwhen next you come, you shall find yourself as welcome as you were this time. I shall look forward to your visit.”

The smile she gave me dimpled her cheeks more deeply. “Thank you, Tom. I shall certainly stop here again.” She cocked her head at me and spoke with sudden frankness. “I know you are a lonely man, Tom. That won't always be so. I could tell that, at first, you doubted the power of my charms. You still doubt the truth of what I can see in the palm of a man's hand. I don't. Your one true love is stitched in and out and through your life. Love will return to you. Don't doubt that.”

Her hazel eyes met mine so earnestly that I could neither laugh nor frown at her. So I nodded mutely. As she shouldered her pack and strode off down the lane, I watched her go. Her words tugged at me, and hopes long denied struggled to grow. I thrust them away from me. Molly and Burrich belonged to one another now. There was no place for me in their lives.

I squared my shoulders. I had chores to do, wood to stack, fish to put by, and a roof to mend. It was another fine summer day. Best use it while I had it, for while summer smiles, winter is never far away.

THE TAWNY MAN

There is some indication, in the earliest accounts of the territories that eventually became the Six Duchies, that the Wit was not always a despised magic. These accounts are fragmentary, and the translations of these old scrolls are often disputed, but most of the master scribes will agree that at one time there were settlements where the preponderance of folk were born with the Wit and actively practiced its magic. Some of these scrolls would indicate that these folk were the original inhabitants of the lands. This may be the source of the name that the Witted people apply to themselves: Old Blood.

In those times, the lands were not so settled. Folk relied more on hunting and collecting of wild bounty than on harvesting what they had themselves planted. Perhaps in those days a bond between a man and a beast did not seem so uncanny, for folk provided for themselves much as the wild creatures did.

Even in more recent histories, accounts of Witted folk being slain for their magic are rare. Indeed, that these executions are recorded at all would seem to indicate that they were unusual, and hence noteworthy. It is not until after the brief reign of King Charger, the socalled Piebald Prince, that we find the Wit referred to with loathing and an assumption that its practice merits death. Following his reign, there are accounts of widespread slaughter of Witted folk. In some cases, entire villages were put to death. After that time of carnage, either those of Old Blood were rare, or too wary to admit that they carried the Wit magic.