Chapter 288

Later, Dimitri went to the old woman's family tent. He needed to have another discussion about what he had bought into.

An agreeable, forgiving lifestyle might be somewhere in his future, but that somewhere certainly isn't here and now. Confusion was in charge, and he was compelled to dance to its tune whether he wanted it or not, though Dimitri still got to decide a step here and there. He had a little moment before the feast, and he needed to deliver a few messages, which he dictated to Lena.

The old woman busied herself with basket-making while Lena and he labored away. Roland was sent off to look for suggestions down at the wharves. Dimitri hoped he might stumble across something we could build while he was poking around. It took him a while to clarify to him that he was paying for him to go out and just be interested in anything he came across that looked intriguing.