They were indeed. Even as Tarma spoke, something separated itself from the side of the wellhouse. Shrouded in layers of clothing, for a moment it looked more bearlike than human. But as they neared, they could see that waiting beside the public well was a stoop-shouldered old man, gnarled and weathered as a mountain tree, with a thick thatch of snow-white hair rucked under a knitted cap the same bright red as the wellhouse roof.
'Evening,' Tarma returned the greeting, crossing her wrists on her saddlebow and leaning forward -- though not dismounting. 'What kind of hospitality could a few coins purchase a tired traveler around here, goodman?'
He looked them up and down with bright black eyes peeping from beneath brows like overhanging snowbanks-eyes that missed nothing. 'Well-armed travelers,' he observed mildly.
Tarma laughed, and a startled crow flapped out of the thatch of one of the houses. 'Travelers who aren't fools, goodman. And two women traveling alone who couldn't take care of themselves would be fools.'
The old man chuckled. 'Point taken, point taken.'
He edged a little closer. 'Be any good with that bow?'
Tarma considered this for a moment. 'A fair shot,' she acknowledged.
'Well, then,' the oldster replied tugging his knit cap a bit farther down over his ears. 'Coin we got no use for till spring an' the traders come -- but a bit of game, now -- that'd be welcome. Say, hearth and meal for hunting?'
Tarma nodded, and seemed satisfied with the tentative bargain, for she dismounted. Kethry was only too glad to follow her example.
'I can't conjure game out of an empty forest, old man,' Tarma said warningly as he led them to a roomy shed that already sheltered a donkey and three goats.
'There's game, there's game. I wouldn't set ye to a fool's task. Just we be no hunters here.' He helped them fork hay into the shed; for bedding the mare and the mule would have to make do with the bracken already layering the floor.
'Not hunters?' Kethry said, puzzled, as they took their packs and followed their guide into the nearest house. 'Out here in the middle of nowhere? What on earth do you--'
The answer to her question was self-evident as soon as the old man opened the door. The house was a single enormous room, combining sleeping, living and working space. It was the working space that occupied the lion's share of the dwelling. In one corner stood a huge sink and pump, several wooden boxes of clay, and a potter's wheel. Various ceramic items were ranged on two long wooden tables in the center of the room according to what stage they were in, from first drying to final glazing. The back wall was entirely brick, with several iron doors in it. It radiated heat even at this distance; it had to be a kiln of some sort, Kethry reckoned. Most of the windows were covered with oiled parchment, but there was a single glass window in the wall opposite; directly beneath that was a smaller workbench with pots and brushes, and a half-painted vase. The rest of the living arrangements were scattered haphazardly about, wherever there was room for them.
It was, to Kethry's mind, stiflingly warm, but Tarma immediately threw off her coat with a sigh of pure bliss.
'Put yer bedrolls wherever, ladies,' the old man said. 'There's porridge as supper.'
Kethry rummaged out a packet of some of their dried fruit and tossed it to the oldster, who caught it deftly, grinned his thanks, and added it to the pot just inside one of those iron doors.
'Directly supper's finished, we'll be gettin' visitors,' their host told them, as they found places to spread their bedrolls on the clay-stained, rough board floor. 'I be Egon Potter; rest of the folks out here be kin or craft-kin.'
Kethry's curiosity had turned her attention to the half-finished pottery. It was more than simple pots and bowls, she realized as soon as she had a good look at it. It was really exquisite work, the equal or superior of anything she'd ever seen for sale in Mournedealth. 'Why--' she began.
'--are we way out here, back of the end of the world?' Egon interrupted her. 'The day, lady. No match for it anywhere else. Got three kinds of day right here; got fuel for the kilns; got all winter t'work on the fancy stuff an' all summer t' trade. What else we need?'
Tarma laughed. 'Not a damned thing else, Guildmaster.' At his raised eyebrow and quirky, half-toothless grin she laughed again. 'I've always wondered where the best of the Wrightguild porcelain and stoneware came from -- it certainly wasn't being made in Kata'shin'a'in. You think I can't recognize the work of the Master when I see it?'
'Then there be more about you than shows on th' surface, swordlady. But you tol' me that, didn' ye?'
'Oh, aye, that I did.' They matched grins in some kind of wordless exchange that baffled Kethry, then the Shin'a'in edged her way past the crowded work-table to the oldster's side. 'Here. Let me give you a hand with that porridge.'
