"If you believe me," Billin finally said, "you wouldn't be here, you'd be home packing food and getting ready to go."
"Sleep awhile," Wix said. "You're still tired. We'll talk tomorrow."
"What did I do wrong?" Billin shouted, his voice cracking from the weariness still in him. "I'm not a hornet, don't brush me away!"
"You haven't done anything wrong," Stipock said as he went to the door. But it was Hoom who turned around and said, "I'm glad you're back, Billin. I've missed you."
After they left Billin was too angry even to quarrel with Cirith, and she went to bed in a huff, worried about Billin's strange behavior. And Billin kept waking in the night — angry, though it took him a few moments after waking to remember what he was angry about. Why were they so reluctant? Did they actually like the desert?
"No," Cirith said. Billin realized that he had been talking aloud. There was a faint light in the room — early morning.
"Sorry I woke you," he said.
"That's fine. They don't like the desert, Billin," she said. "But about a week after you left, I guess they realized you might find something like what you found, and ever since then Stipock has been telling people how good it is to suffer, how it makes us strong."
"Don't tell me people believe that crap!" Billin's mouth tasted foul. He got out of bed and staggered on aching legs to get a drink.
"I don't know what people believe," Cirith said.
Billin looked at her from the table, where he was dipping water from the jar. "What do you believe?"
"Don't tell me you suddenly, after two years of marriage, want my opinion?"
"I don't want to have your opinion, I only want to hear it."
Cirith shrugged. "Stipock's right. It makes us strong."
"Crap."
She held up her arm, flexed a large muscle. "Behold," she said. "Strong."
"So I married an ox," Billin said. "It's still a desert and I found a place where our kids can smile without getting a mouthful of sand."
He came back to Cirith and sat on the floor beside her stool. She put her arms around him.
"Billin, I believe you and I want to go to that place. But I don't think Stipock will ever give up on his iron. He wants to make carts that move without pulling or pushing them. He wants to make a mill that doesn't need a stream. He thinks he can do it with iron."
"And I think he's crazy," Billin said.
"I thought you loved Stipock."
"Like a brother," Billin said. "Like a stupid, bull–headed, lovable, cold–as–a–fish brother. It's morning and I'm already sick of today."
"Let me make it better," she said, and he let her; and even though he was still a wreck from the exertions of the last month, it was wonderful.
"I take it all back," he said afterward. "That place wasn't perfect. It needed you."
"You hurt my thumb," she said, and then it was time to fix breakfast for little Dern, while Blessin pumped away on Cirith's breast. Billin tried getting out of bed, but he couldn't manage it. "Maybe this afternoon," he said.
But that afternoon he slept again, and as the sun set he woke to find Hoom beside his bed.
"Hello, Hoom. How long have you been waiting there?"
"Not long."
"Good."
Long pause. Billin decided that whatever Hoom had come to say must not be very pleasant, or he would have said it by now.
"Say it," Billin urged.
"We've talked about it —"
"We meaning the four Wardens of Stipock City —"
Hoom sat up rigidly. "How can you call us that?"
"You came to tell me," Billin said. "So tell me. You four have talked about it and you decided — or rather, Stipock decided and the three of you chirped back what he wanted to hear — and now you want to warn me not to tell people about what I found in the south."
"You don't have to see it that ugly unless you really want to."
"I should cover my eyes? I see what is."
Hoom smiled. "Does anybody see what is?"
"Least of all you, even when it's in front of your face."
"Sometimes," Hoom answered mildly (he doesn't understand, Billin thought contemptuously), "only the blind pretend to see. If you insist on telling people about what you say you found — what you believe you found — you'll only hurt yourself. No, that's not true — you'll hurt them, too, because they'll want so badly to believe in a place like that."
"Of course they'll want to believe it."
"For your own sake, then," Hoom said. And he left.
Billin felt better than he had since coming back — but even so, he would have stayed in bed if anger hadn't pulled him up and into his clothes and out the door of the house.
"Where are you going?" Cirith snapped as she saw him leaving.
"Visiting."
"At this time of night nobody wants to see you," she said.
"Mind your kitchen, woman," Billin answered. She kept grumbling after he left.
He went first to Serret's and Rebo's house. They were busy with putting children to bed (they had been twinned twice since coming to Stipock City ), but they greeted Billin kindly.
"Glad to see you up and about already," Serret said, and Rebo smiled and took off her apron (in tatters, Billin noticed, like all the cloth), bringing him a stool to sit on.
He immediately began telling them what he had found on his journey. They listened politely, smiled, nodded, answered his questions, asked a few (though not many). After a half hour of this Billin realized to his fury that they weren't excited about it. And why not? Their children were worse off than most, with bloated bellies that even Stipock said were a sign of a lack of food.
"You don't believe me, do you?" Billin abruptly asked, even while Rebo cooed softly about how wonderful his description of the rainfall sounded.
"Well, of course we believe you," Serret answered. Billin wasn't fooled. He took his leave quickly, went to another house.
It was late, and the lights were blown out in most of the houses when Billin finally gave up and came home. Cirith was waiting for him. She looked worried when he finally came to the door.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Billin nodded, then shook his head. "Not one of them," he said, and she understood, and for once there was no banter, no complaint, she just came to him and held him and in his weariness and frustration he cried. The tears turned to anger quickly enough.
"How did they do it?" Billin demanded, pulling away from her and tossing a chair across the room. One of the children woke at the noise, cried out.
"Shhh," Cirith said, heading for the children's room.
"Not on your life!" Billin retorted. "I want to know how they did it! How did those damn self appointed gods get everybody to answer the same way — 'Yes, Billin, so glad you had a good time there, Billin, we're so pleased that your journey was successful, now get the hell out and let us get some sleep, Billin' —"
Cirith came to him and took his arms and dug her fingers into them. "You must promise me," she said, "that you won't do anything to them."
"What do you mean? What could I do to them?"
"Promise you won't. Promise you won't quarrel with them, please, Billin."
"What do you think I could do? Hoom's the murderer around here, Wix is the adulterer, all I do is talk and now nobody's listening."
"Promise me, and then I'll tell you."
"Tell me what?" Billin asked, suspiciously.
"What they did."
Billin looked at her carefully. "I promise. What did they do?"
"I didn't want to tell you before you went out because you wouldn't have believed me and if you'd known you would have gotten so angry —"
"Get to it, Cirith, dammit, tell me what you know!" Billin paced to the window. "They told everybody for the last two days, while you mostly slept, they told them that you had been badly hurt in a fall and it damaged your mind —"