lose."
"And if anybody tries to stop him or harm him, they'll have to deal with me first," said Mike Fink. "I'm going with you, Alvin, wherever you go. If these people have the president in their pocket, they're going to be all the more dangerous and you ain't going nowhere without me to watch your back."
"I wish I was younger," said Armor-of-God. "I wish I was younger."
"I don't want to travel alone," said Alvin. "Rut there's work to be done here, especially if the curse is lifted. And you have responsibilities, too, you married men. It's only the single ones, really, who are free to wander as I'll have to wander. Whatever I find out at the weaver's house, whatever happens when and if I talk to Tenskwa-Tawa, I still have to learn how to build the Crystal City."
"Maybe Tenskwa-Tawa can tell you," said Measure.
"If he knows, then he could have told me back when you and I was boys and in his company," said Alvin.
"I'm unmarried," said Arthur Stuart. "I'm coming with you."
"I reckon so," said Alvin. "And Mike Fink, I'll be glad of your company, too."
"I'm not married either," said Verily Cooper.
Alvin looked at him oddly. "Verily, you're already a dear friend, but you're a lawyer, not a woodsman or a wandering tradesman or a river rat or whatever the rest of us are."
"All the more reason you need me," said Verily. "There'll be laws and courts, sheriffs and jails and writs wherever you go. Sometimes you'll need what Mike Fink has to offer. And sometimes you'll need me. You can't deny me, Alvin Smith. I came all this way to learn from you."
"Measure knows all I know by now. He can teach you as well as I can, and you can help him."
Verily looked at his feet for a moment. "Measure's learned from you, and you from him, since you're brothers and have been for a long time. May it not be taken as an offense, I beg you, if I say that I'd be glad of a chance to learn from, you directly for a while, Alvin. I mean to belittle no one else by saying that."
"No offense taken," said Measure. "If you hadn't said it, I would have."
"These three then to go with me on the long road," said Alvin. "And Miss Larner to go with me as far as Becca Weaver's house."
"I'll go too," said Armor-of-God. "Not the whole road, but as far as the weavers. So I can bring back word about what Tenskwa-Tawa says. I hope you'll forgive my presumption, but I crave the chance to be the one as brings the good news to Vigor Church, if they're set free."
"And if they're not?"
"Then they need to learn that too, and from me."
"Then our plans are laid, such as they are," said Alvin.
"All except how to get out of Hatrack River alive, with all these thugs and ruffians about," said Verily Cooper.
"Oh, me and Armor already got that figured out," said Mike Fink. with a grin. "And we pretty much won't have to beat nobody to a pulp to do it, neither, if we're lucky."
There was such glee in Mike Fink's face when he said it, though, that more than one of the others wondered whether Mike really thought it would be good luck not to have to pulverize somebody. Nor were a few of them altogether sure that they didn't wish to do a little pulp-beating themselves, if push came to shove.
Fink and Armor-of-God were about to head downstairs with Horace then, to freshen up from their journey before he put them to bed in his attic, a good clean space but one he never rented out, just in case of late-night sudden visitors like these, when Measure called out, "Mike Fink."
Fink turned around.
"There's a story I got to tell you before I go to sleep tonight," he said.
Fink looked puzzled for a moment.
"Measure's under the curse," said Armor-of-God. "He's got to tell you or he'll go to bed with bloody hands."
"I came this close to being under the curse myself," said Fink. "But you? How did you get under it?"
"He took it on himself," said Miss Larner. "But that doesn't mean the same rules don't apply."
"But I already know the story."
"That'll make the telling of it easier," said Measure. "But I got to do it."
"I'll come back up when I've peed and et," said Fink. "Begging your pardon, ma'am."
There they were, then, looking at each other, Alvin and Peggy -