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went back and dragged out his bedding, grimly aware that the boys were still laughing at him. But little Cub, at least, tried to help, holding up one end of the hide. That he proved more trouble than help did not matter. Hawk-Hobby gave him a wink by way of thanks and Cub's face immediately lit up.
    No sooner was the mattress clear of the tent flap than the women circled it and began pulling the bedding apart, roughly grabbing out handsful of grass and spreading them on the ground.
    "Here, I worked..." Hawk-Hobby began, but was silenced when the black-haired woman with the scar held up some sprigs of grey-tinted marjoram leaves, now almost black.
    "Organy!" she cried in triumph, and the women with her set up caterwauling anew and tore apart the rest of his bedding.
    "Organy," breathed Cub next to him. "Oooo, that be bad indeed."
    The wodewose grabbed Hawk-Hobby by the arm and led him around the side of the tent, away from the angry women. Cub trotted at their heels. "Thy bed," the wodewose said wearily, "be stuffed with a particular herb.
Organy
in the old tongue. It has many virtues: it cures bitings and stingings of venom, it be proof against stuffed lungs or the swounding of the heart. But it never be used for bedding as it be too precious for that."
    "I ... I did not know," Hawk-Hobby said miserably.
    "'Ee did not know," echoed Cub. "'Ee
did
not."
    "Hush ye," said the wodewose, "and be about thy own business." He raised his hand and Cub scampered away around the tent, though Hawk-Hobby could see by the child's shadow that he stopped at the corner and was still listening.
    "I only wanted it for the sweet smell," Hawk-Hobby explained. Indeed, it was the truth.
    "For the sweet smell?" Clearly the wild man was puzzled.
    "Sweet herbs for sweet dreams," Hawk-Hobby finished lamely.
    "Dreams!" Cub came skipping back around the corner of the tent. "'Ee has dreams. We like dreams."
    "I said to be about thy own business, young Cub. Dreams be not the provenance of children." The wodewose's face was dark, as if a shadow had come over it. He turned back to Hawk-Hobby. "Does thee dream?"
    "Does not everybody dream?" Hawk-Hobby was reluctant to discuss his magic with the wild man. But—as if a geas, a binding spell, had been laid upon him—he had to answer when asked about it. And answer truthfully. Though he could give those answers aslant.
    "There be night dreams ... and others," the wild man said. "And I saw thee dream with the dogs yester morn. Why else would I blaze thee a trail here? Still, I be not certain..."
    Hawk-Hobby waited. There was nothing to be answered.
    "Be thee ... a dream-reader?" the wodewose asked carefully.
    Just as carefully, Hawk-Hobby replied. "I have been called so."
    "And be thee called in truth?"
    Hawk-Hobby sighed. There was no getting by that question. "I surely know what my dreams mean. Or at least I often do." It had seemed at first such a small magic, but everyone was so interested in it. It
had
to mean more.
    "Ahhh," the wodewose said. Then he turned abruptly and walked around the tent, calling out to the women in his rumble of a voice: "He be a dream-reader. And we without since the last old one died."
    "'Ee surely needs Poppet now," said Cub. "I will bring it to 'ee." He disappeared into the tent.
    No sooner was the child gone than the women rounded the corner, arguing as they came.
    "He be too young," said the redhead.
    "Let him prove it," said an older woman, her hair greying at the temples.
    "But why would he say..." the wodewose began. But the women would not let him finish. They grabbed up Hawk-Hobby by the arm, three on one side, three on the other, two behind him. They dragged him back to the mattress, now nothing but a flattened hide, and thrust him down.
    "Dream," the black-haired woman commanded.
    "Dream," they all cried as if with one voice.
    "What? Here? Now?"
    Their stone faces were his only answers, so he closed his eyes and called for a dream. Any dream.
    Of course no dream