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something?”
    “Hai! Always. When was Haroun, master intriguer, not intriguing? Is question like Trolledyngjan, ‘Does bear defecate in wilderness?’”
    “Yeah, the bear shits in the woods. The question is, does he have plans for us? He can’t manage on his own. I wonder why? He’s always so self-sufficient.” Faced with a real possibility of becoming involved, Ragnarson’s lustfor adventure perished quickly. “Andy have anything else to say?”
    “Men named vanished, no word to friends or paramours. Seen crossing Great Bridge. Nervous, in hurry. Self, expect communication from old sand devil soon. Why? Haroun is one-man nation, yes, but must justify villainous activities of self to self. Must have associates, men of respected morals. Kingship thing. Must have mandate of, license from, men with values, with judgments of respect. He respects? You see? Itaskian knife swingers are tools, not-men, dust beneath feet, of morals to spit on. Hairy Trolledyngjan and fat old rascal from east, self, not much better, but honorable in mind of Haroun. Men of respect, us. Comprehend?”
    “Makes sense in a left-handed way. An insight, 1 think. I always wondered why he never put the knife work on us. Yes.”
    Mocker did a most un-Mockerlike thing. He pushedhis chair back while food remained on the table.
    Ragnarson started to follow him to the front of the house.
    “Don’t get involved with Haroun,” said Nepanthe.
    “Please?”
    He searched her face. She was frightened. “What can I do? When he decides to do something, he gets irresistible as a glacier.”
    “I know.” She bit her lip.
    “We’re not planning anything, really. Haroun would have to do some tall talking to involve us. We’re not as hungry as we used to be.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not.” She began clearing the table. “Mocker doesn’t complain, but he wasn’t made for this.” With a gesture she indicated the landgrant. “He stays, and tries for my sake, but he’d be happier penniless, sitting in the rain somewhere, trying to convince old ladies he’s a soothsayer. That way he’s like Haroun. Security doesn’t mean anything. The battle of wits is everything.”
    Ragnarson shrugged. He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. Her assessment matched his own.
    “I’ve made him miserable, Bragi. How long since you’ve seen him clown like he used to? How long since he’s gone off on some wild tangent and claimed the world isround, or a duck-paddled boat on a sea of wine, or any of those crackpot notions he used to take up. Bragi, I’m killing him. I love him, but, Gods help me, I’m smothering him. And I can’t help it.”
    “We are what we are, will be what we must. If he goes back to the old ways, be patient. One thing’s sure. You’re his goddess. He’ll be back. To stay. Things get romanticized when they slide into the past. A dose of reality might be the cure.”
    “I suppose. Well, go talk. Let me clean up.” She obviously wanted to have a good cry.
     
    VI) An owl from Zindahjira
    Ragnarson and Mocker were still on the front step when darkness fell. They were deep into a keg of beer. Neither man spoke much. The mood was not one suited to reminiscing. Bragi kept considering Mocker’s homestead. The man had worked hard, but everything had been done sloppily. The patience and perfection of the builder who cared was absent. Mocker’s home might last his lifetime, but not centuries like Ragnarson’s.
    Bragi glanced sideways. His friend was haggard, aging. The strain of trying to be something he was not was killing him. And Nepanthe was tearing herself apart too. How bad had their relationship suffered already?
    Nepanthe was the more adaptable. She had been a man-terrified twenty-eight-year-old adolescent when first their paths had crossed. She was no introverted romantic now. She reminded Bragi of the earthy, pragmatic, time-beaten peasant women of the treacherous floodplains of the Silverbind. Escape from this life might do her good