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bargain for. In other springtimes the kitchen had been cluttered with little pots of salve and herbs she had put away during the winter, the trading goods they had to offer. But the season had crept up on her, perhaps: there was no sign of the packing baskets and herb-pots yet, und somehow, perhaps for that reason, he had not gotten around to thinking about going downriver either: everything seemed to be running late this year.
    ‘ I'll sail whenever you want me to, ’ he said, to please her. ‘ We can hold out on the flour another month, can't we? There's grain left—if you're not ready. Or do you want to come along this year, pack up Ilyana and sail with me? Sasha wouldn't mind. He's been suggesting it for years. ’
    ‘ I'll think about it, ’ she murmured against his shoulder.
    ‘ You're not sick or anything? ’ Wizards never got sick, so far as he knew, never showed their age, never suffered a good many things ordinary folk did; but there were other ailments. There was worry, for one; there was solitude and seriousness and responsibility of a kind ordinary folk seldom thought about—a constant reckoning of consequences which he understood somewhat how to do from the outside of magic, but not—
    Not from the inner cautions his wife had constantly to observe, or the fact that she had been dead for a hundred years—and then married a ne'er-do-well scoundrel, who could never quite understand her fears or truly advise her in wizardry crises.
    Perhaps he was missing something now. He was not sure. He was not even sure her mood was not something entirely simple, having nothing to do with wizards. He had believed he understood women tolerably well in Vojvoda, at least the sort of women he had had most to do with—bored, rich wives and bored tavern-keepers' daughters who yearned alike after some risk in their lives, some sense of notice from someone. Neither, of course, could possibly explain his wife—whose temper could raise storms and whose good sense could fill a boat's sail with wind or turn a tsar's attention from a very foolish husband.
    But whatever else Eveshka was, she was also a wife, and her husband might have been no wiser than certain other foolish husbands whose mistakes had, in his greener days, been all to his advantage.
    ‘ No, ’ she sighed. ‘ Not sick. I'm just worried about the weather.''
    ‘ It's been fine. ’
    ‘ It might turn. ’
    Sometimes with Eveshka one had the most distinct feeling one was not talking about the words one was using.
    ‘ Is there something in particular? ’ he asked her.
    ‘ You should go, ’ she said. ‘ You should, yes. Maybe even take that trip you've been talking about.''
    ‘ Back to Kiev? Are you tired of me, perhaps? ’
    Silence for a few moments. ‘ Never tired of you, don't be foolish. ’
    ‘ Is something the matter with Ilyana? ’
    ‘ No. ’
    ‘ You know, none of you are making sense today. ’
    ‘ What, 'none of us?' ‘
    ‘ I asked her to go riding, thought we'd give young Patches a little time on the trail. I've heard nothing else for a month. And now she has to help you in the kitchen tomorrow. Are you two having a fight? ’
    Eveshka stood back and looked at him, hands on hips. ‘ I didn't say a thing about the kitchen. Did she say that? ’
    ‘ She didn't. ’
    ‘ Did she say anything about my scolding her? ’
    ‘ Not a thing. Just that she ought to help you more. What's this about trips to Kiev? ’
    Eveshka frowned and walked away from him, arms folded. The lamplight hazed her in gold, head bowed, back turned, thinking about things he did not understand and she never explained. Ever.
    ‘ Well, I'm not going to Kiev, ’ he told her. ‘ I've been there. The tsarevitch is a greedy lout with no sense of humor. Why should I improve him? As good pay a visit to Vojvoda, where I know they have a rope ready.''
    No answer. He waited. He sighed. He went over to the laundry basket in the corner, took off his shirt and tossed it