"We know you'll do the right thing, Besh," someone called as he climbed the steps to the oaken doors.
Several others murmured their agreement.
He knew that he should let the remark pass-perhaps as a younger man he would have. But as he had lost his hair and his strength, he had also lost his ability to suffer fools.
"And what is the right thing?" he asked, turning to face them. "Do you mean the right thing for you, or for Lici?"
"But she's gone."
"Yes, Geovri, she's gone. I seem to remember that you ventured west last year to trade blankets to the Fal'Borna. You were gone more than a turn. Should we have divided up the goods in your house while you were gone?"
"That's different! I left Kisa here. And the children."
"So that's what gives you the right to take Lici's things? The fact that she wasn't blessed with a fine family as you were?"
"No, that's not…" He frowned. "That's not what I meant," he muttered.
"Remember," Besh said, raising his voice and looking at all of them. "Whatever we decide to do with Lici's things can one day be done with yours as well. What we do as a community we do to the community."
Silence. He turned once more and pulled open one of the double doors.
"She was a curse on this village from the moment she arrived here," someone shouted at his back, someone who sounded far too young to have known anything of her arrival.
Besh ignored the comment and entered the building.
The others were waiting for him in the main chamber, their chairs arranged in a tight circle beneath the small stained-glass window at the far end.
Pyav, the head of their council-eldest of the village, as he was called-turned in his chair and raised a meaty hand in greeting. He was a big man, a blacksmith. His shoulders and chest were broad, his arms and neck as thick as Besh's thighs. But for all his brawn, he had the temperament of a cleric. He spoke softly, even when angry, and while he might not have been the most learned man in Kirayde, he might well have been the wisest.
"We heard you talking to them," he said, as Besh took his seat. "It was foolish of me. I should have ignored them."
"Perhaps," the blacksmith said, grinning. "If for no other reason than to leave us in suspense as to how you might vote on the matter."
A few of the others laughed, but not all. This would be a difficult discussion, even without the rest of the villagers awaiting their decision.
Tashya, the youngest in their circle, fixed him with a hard glare. "You think she's coming back."
Besh gave a small shrug. "I don't know. That, I believe, is the point. None of us knows."
He expected an argument, but she merely nodded. She was in her eleventh four, her second as a widow. Her husband died of a fever soon after the birth of their seventh child, and though the years since had been trying for her, she remained beautiful, with glossy raven black hair and pale green eyes. Many men in Kirayde had hoped that she would choose to marry again after a suitable time of grieving, Besh among them. But she had made it clear to all that she neither needed nor wanted another man in her life.
She could be stubborn at times and she had a fiery temper, but most in the village admired her strength. That was why they had chosen her as an elder at such a tender age.
"Where do you think she's gone then?" she asked after a brief silence.
Besh wasn't certain how he had become the village authority on Old Lici, but they were all watching him, awaiting his answer. It really had been a mistake to say anything to the crowd.
"I don't know. It had occurred to me to wonder if she might have gone off to die. But that doesn't sound like Lici to me."
"Nor to me," Tashya said. "It's more likely that she's moved on and is making mischief for others. Which, as far as I'm concerned, means that she's no longer our problem."
Pyav grinned again. "The fact that we're here would seem to belie that last statement."
Tashya gave him a sour look, but said nothing.
Marivasse, the old herbmistress, looked at Besh, and then at the eldest. "Why does it matter where she's gone?" she asked. "We don't meet to discuss the comings and goings of others who live in the village. Nor do we find ourselves forced to post guards at their houses. Lici should be no different from the rest of us."
"But she is different," Pyav said gently. "She has no family. More to the point-and may the gods forgive me for saying this-she has no friends. If something has happened to her, if she's not coming back, then it falls to us to take care of her belongings and her home. That's why we're here."
"There's more to it than that, my friend," Besh said. "You know it as well as I. That crowd outside has heard rumors of Lici's wealth. All of us have. Even if everything else about her was the same, take away the belief that she's hidden her riches away in that house of hers, and we'd all be home, preparing our evening meals."
Pyav smiled wanly. "I suppose. But even with that, if she had family it would be none of our affair." He raised his eyebrows. "Unfortunately, that blade is double-edged. She has no family or friends, so we have to take responsibility in her absence, but since there's no one who can tell us why she's gone, we don't know what her absence means."
Tashya nodded. "Then it falls to us to decide exactly that." She glared at all of them, as if challenging them to disagree.
"That may well be true," Besh said evenly. "But we have to err on the side of caution or else every time future elders decide as we have, using what we do here as justification, our children's children will curse us for our haste."
She appeared to consider this, and when at last she asked "How long do you think we should wait?" there was no hint of ire or mockery in her tone.
"I don't know."
"She's been gone for more than a turn," said one of the others. "She left her garden plot untended. It won't be long before all her crops are lost."
Tashya looked around the table. "So do we wait until the rise of the Reaping Moon?"
"That's half a turn," Besh said, shaking his head. "That seems awfully soon."
"By that time she'll have been gone for nearly two turns. At her age, that's an eternity."
Pyav pressed his fingertips together. "Has she ever been gone for this long before?"
"When she was a younger woman," Marivasse said. "She used to go on journeys with Sylpa. They'd go to the shores of the Ofirean Sea, even as far as the Qosantian Lowlands. It wasn't unusual for them to be gone for an entire season."
"What about since Sylpa died?"
"She never went as far after that. But still, she'd go to trade with the Fal'Borna or the people of Aelea."
"And yet," Besh said, "even that's more than she's done over the past ten years."
Marivasse turned to face him. "True. But isn't it possible that in her last years, she seeks to return to some of the places she visited in her youth? The only times I knew her to be happy were those she shared with Sylpa. Couldn't it be that she's gone back to the sea or even to Qosantia?"
"The question isn't so much where she's gone," Tashya said, sounding impatient once more. "Will she return? That's what I want to know. And if she's gone that far, I'd have to say that I doubt it. I think it's also possible that we could learn more about her intentions by searching her hut. Perhaps if we knew what she took with her, we'd have a better sense of when and if she plans to return."
Pyav nodded slowly. "That seems a fair point."
Even the notion of a simple search of her home made Besh uncomfortable, but if Pyav supported the idea, the rest would as well. There seemed little point in arguing against it.
"So who would do this?" he asked instead.
"You," Tashya said, without hesitation.
"Me?"
She smiled. "Given your scruples with regard to this whole matter, there's no one I'd trust more."
The eldest nodded and grinned. "I'm inclined to agree."
"So am I," Marivasse said.
In the end, the choice was unanimous, but only because they wouldn't let Besh vote. He had no desire to get anywhere near Old Lici's house. Not only did he disapprove of what they were having him do, he still wanted nothing to do with the woman, even after all these years, even though she was probably a hundred leagues away, or dead. Especially because she might be dead.