" she said. "_I_ can read."

"The Lady of the Mink is kind," he said, bowing. The title did not shock
her. Strangeness on strangeness!

* * * * *

The book was full of queer writing, like none she had ever seen. Instead
of letters that each stood alone, the letters were joined, each word
being a unit without a break; and they seemed to stand up a little from
the page, not being sunken into the paper as all printing was that she
had seen.

With difficulty she read a few sentences.

"This day the third in the month of Orbuary I did feed the gods, more
than forty of them in the morning and twenty after eating. I am so weak
I can hardly hold this pen."

"What does it mean?" asked Dawvys.

"I don't know." She flipped a page. "This day did hunt the fox, he being
a strong untiring trapper who was found with forbidden ale cached in his
house, and chased him over eight mile before he went to earth in a
spinney, where the dogs found him and tore him to bits. Afterwards did
feed nine gods, who have drained me so I cannot see but in a fog," she
read aloud.

"That's your father speaking," whispered Dawvys, "He hunted a trapper
last month."

"But how is it down here, if it was Ewyo? The books were made many years
before my grandfather was born. No one makes books now. The art is
lost."

"Nevertheless, I think Ewyo made this one himself. Unless it's a
prophecy of the gods." He turned the book over. "What does it say on the
outside?"

She read it with cold grue inching up her back. "Ewyo of Dolfya, His
Ledger and Record Book."

"Then he did make it."

"How? How could he? The art is lost!"

"Many things the ruck believed have been proved false in these last
hours," Dawvys said. "Perhaps the gentry's beliefs are equally wrong."

She left the book and went to a desk by the oiled-paper window. A drawer
was partly open. Inside was a big heap of dandelions, thick grasses, and
wild parsley. She remembered Jerran's taunt, "Your father eats
dandelions!"

"Dawvys, why are these here?"

"I don't know, Lady. I gather them and the squire eats them, but why, I
can't say."

There was a sound at the door. Dawvys sprang toward the brocaded
hangings, too late; Ewyo thrust in his head, black rage on his features.

"What in the seven hells are you doing here, Nirea?"

The habits of a lifetime couldn't be overcome by a day in the presence
of the Mink. She said quickly, "I saw Dawvys come in, father