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Haldane.”
    The serf seized the pig, but Slut was in no mood to be penned. She squealed and tried to wriggle free, but the serf held her by collar and ear.
    That was easy enough, but bow, quiver, and empty game bag could not be passed like the pig to a Nestorian. To enter the hall unseen, Haldane must do it from the rear. He looked after the old man, dragging the pig away by force of arm.
    “Hey, hold,” he said. “I have a question.”
    “Yes, lord?” The old man tried to make his respectful gesture and keep his grip on the pig, and did badly at both.
    “I’ll walk with you a distance,” Haldane said, pointing to the swinery tucked in one corner of the dun out of sight of the courtyard. “You’ll do better to loose her ear. She doesn’t like that.”
    “Yes, lord.”
    “What . . . What portents have been seen of late by the plain folk ?” He used the Nestorian phrase, Jael’s phrase, rather than the Gettish word that came most easily: cattle.
    “Portents, lord?”
    “Signs. Strange occurrences. Omens.”
    “Omens. It’s strange that you should ask of omens, lord. Lon, the son of Witold the Woodcutter, saw a wurox in the forest only two days past. So he says to anyone who will listen.”
    “Simple Lon? The boy who wets his smock?”
    “Ah, well, yes, lord. He does, but he is a good boy. He saw a cow, he says, and he is very positive.”
    “What is this wurox? Of what is it a portent?” Haldane knew the wurox only as the name of a sky sign. It was no more real to him than that other sky beast, the pard, sacred of Jan.
    “Why, lord, it is the wild bull of the woods in all the old stories. Libera’s kine. Travelers say they inhabit the great forest beyond Lake Lamorne, but none has been seen here in Nestor since my grandsire’s grandsire’s time. They drop stones rather than normal turds. I have seen them myself, great stone whorls. But the wuroxen are gone. Until now.”
    Haldane’s tongue went back to his flaked tooth. The edge was rough. That one little tooth edge dominated his mouth.
    His heart in arrest, he said, “Does this mean that Libera is here in Nestor?”
    The old man sucked his breath and nearly lost his grip on Slut. “I hope not,” he said. “Veton preserve us.”
    He meant Veton preserve himself, for Veton was his god, and not Haldane’s. Haldane had seen the old serf often enough standing in his gardens, sharing his wine with Veton, a great swallow for himself, a dollop on the earth for the god.
    They reached the swinery and the swineherd came hurrying out to take the pig.
    Haldane said, “If these wuroxen have not been seen in living time, how comes Simple Lon to know one?”
    “Why, Lord Haldane, I’ve never seen a wurox and I would know one. They shit stones, as I told you. I’ve never seen the great bird of the sea with a wingspan twice your father’s height, but I would know it if I saw it. Wouldn’t you?”
    “I suppose I would,” said Haldane.
    Haldane’s attention was taken by the approach of a bearded barefoot man of middle years, short, stout, and wrapped in a red robe. His name was Oliver. He was the only wizard in all of Nestor, one of Morca’s luxuries, evidence of Morca’s ambition. Great kings keep wizards. Morca kept a wizard. He slicked and slid his way over the rain-muddied ground from the weathered board steps at the rear of Morca’s hall. It was usually muddy there. No shoes and his woolen red robe billowing about bare shanks. That mud would be cold between his toes and he made no practice of cultivating discomfort. His spells and experiments made sufficient demand on his health without him courting indisposition, he would say, often said, and he did his best to keep his feet dry and his belly full. He didn’t fight, either.
    Oliver hailed Haldane and danced to spare his feet contact with the mud. His unbelted robe had the appearance of a flapping half-pitched tent. In the usual way of things, his feet were shod, his robes were in place, his