"Our own, from my own vines. What do you think?"

I tasted it and pronounced it excellent; and in all honesty it was by no means bad.

The daughter's friend Fava ventured, "You're a dervis? That's what Mora's father told us."

"Then it must be true, " I assured her. "But first of all I'm a stranger here, and unfamiliar with many of your local terms."

The daughter, Mora, offered, "A wandering holy man."

"Wandering, certainly. And a man. Hardly holy."

"But you can tell us thrilling tales of far-off places, " Inclito's mother suggested.

"I could tell your granddaughter and her young friend about the Whorl, which is the only distant place I've ever been to that is genuinely worth knowing about, madam; but you and your son will already have done that, and much better than I ever could."

Mora asked, "Where were you before you came here?" at which her father gave her a severe look.

"In a little village a day's travel south of your town, where a woodcutter and his wife took me in."

"This isn't a law court, " Inclito rumbled.

His mother smiled. "No more questions, we promise. I shall offer a remark, however, if I may. It is not intended to be offensive."

I assured her that I was remarkably difficult to offend before dinner.

"Well, if my Inclito, my famous one, had not told me about you first, I would have thought that you were a male witch when I caught sight of you. A strego, we would have said when I was a girl. That would have made me very happy, because I would have asked you for a charm for health when the moment was ripe. If you were a strego, you'd be a good one, I'm certain, with that face."

"Then I wish I were, madam. I would be very happy to restore you to health, if I could."

"You could pray for her, " Mora suggested.

"I will. I do."

Fava smiled; it was a smile, it seemed to me, at once appealing and malicious-or at least mischievous. "I want to play the game, and I'm company, too. You're older than I am, though, Incanto. Will you play the game if I beg very prettily?"