"Then I shall show you in the morning," she declares. "The empty house across the way would work for that. And a ward to keep out snakes and scorpions."

She coughs slightly. "If you want a place of your own, I can help you get set up there too. Or you could stay with me." She works on applying balm to the last places. "There would be gossip, of course. Well, more gossip. For some of them, merely bringing you into my home would have left them convinced you were mounting me like a bull does a cow.