pleasantly. "But you're home, aren't you?"

The old woman frowned at him suspiciously. "Now," she said vaguely.
"Well."

"This _is_ your house?" he said. "The house where you live?"

"Never saw you before," the old woman said.

"That's right," Jonas said equably.

"You come to turn me out?" she demanded. Her eyebrows--which were almost
as big and black as her ancient mustache--came down over glittering
little eyes. "I hold this house free and proper," she said in a
determined roar, "and nobody can take it from me. It belongs to me, and
to my children, and to their children, and to the children of those
children--"

The catalogue seemed likely to go on forever. "Exactly," Jonas said
hastily.

"Well, then," the old woman said, and started to draw back.

Jonas gestured lazily with one hand. "Wait," he said. "I am not going to
take your house away from you, madam. I am only here to ask you a
question."

"Question?" she said. "You come from Herr Knupf? I'm an old woman but I
do no wrong, and there is no one can accuse me of heresy. I am in church
every week, and more than once; I keep peace with my neighbors and
there's none can say a mystery about me--"

The woman, Jonas thought, was full to the eyebrows with words. Probably,
he told himself, trying to be fair, she didn't have anyone to talk to,
until a stranger came along.

He sighed briefly. "I do not come from the Inquisitor," he said
truthfully, "nor is my question one that should cause you alarm."

The old woman pondered for a minute. She leaned her elbows on the window
sill, getting them muddy. But that, Jonas thought, didn't seem to matter
to this creature, apparently.

"Ask," she said at last.

Jonas put on his most pleasant expression. "Madam," he said, "I wish to
know if there be any family in this town to give room to a
wayfarer--understanding, of course, that the wayfarer would insist on
paying. Paying well," he added.

The old woman blinked. "You looking for an inn?" she said. "An inn in
this town?" The idea appeared to strike her as the very height of
idiocy. She covered her face with her hands and shook. After a second
Jonas discovered that she was laughing. He waited patiently until the
fit had left her.

"Not an inn," he said. "There is no inn here, I know. But a family
willing to take in a stranger--"

"Strangers are seldom here," she said. "Herr Knupf watches his flock
with zeal."

Which meant, Jonas reflected, that he was in a fa