Sigurd

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"I ain't been into the village for a few days, Mister Waite," said Mother Yilese, resuming weeding with a business-like tone. "I ain't seen this doctor's face yet, so no, I don't reckon I have noticed anythin' about him."

She accepted Sigurd's thanks with scarcely a word, continuing to tend to her garden. When he asked what he could do for her in return, she looked round at him with an evaluating look in her eye.

"I'd say you could tell me what your real business is here," she said, "but I don't think I'd get much of an answer, would I?" The driest sliver of a smile crossed her wrinkled face. "If you do find anythin' more about poor Alexa and this city doctor, though, it would be kind of you to keep an old woman informed."

"Oh, and one other thing. I was hoping there might be a family of loggers or trappers hereabouts. Someone who'd be willing to show me at least some corner of the woods here, even if it's nowhere near the barrow mounds. Don't get me wrong, I'm duly reluctant to go seek the barrows now--everyone in the village agrees with you, and so do the caravan guards Mister Faulebrand hired. At this point I'd be happy just to stroll the nearby woods and get the lay of the land. Surely someone gathers mushrooms or....?"
"Most of the folks round here know the woods well enough. If you want to go far, speak to Hans Suster an' his wife Greta, out past the mill. Hans is a woodsman, and between him and his wife they have a charcoal mound somewhere out by the brook."

Turning over a broad dock-leaf, she frowned.

"Damned slugs," she said, pulling up a slowly-writhing specimen by its flattened tail. "The slimy things are breedin' early this year."