Sylvie chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, standing outside the doorway to her grandfather's hut. She gave Starling a tense look, then reached for his hand. "Here goes nothing," she said, as she tapped at the fabric enclosure to the hut. "Grandpapa? Are you there?"

The old man did indeed seem to be there, because the sound that emanated from within could only have been a rudely interrupted snore. "Oh, yes, yes granddaughter, I am still here." The voice had that special clarity one sometimes got when roused from sleep.

But the smell that surrounded the hut was a weirdly sweet odor that had more to do with incense than anything else. "Come in, come in girl."

"His hut smells like Knocksie's quarters . . . " Starling murmured vaguely, looking around. He wore an expression of gazing in wonder on one's last dawn.

"It's the smoke," Sylvie whispered back, and then looked, rather cowed, at her grandfather. "Um. We need to talk to you," she said hesitantly. "About this whole me-getting-married thing."

The smoke was not as thick as one could have feared, most of it filtered out through the roof. But the light was dim enough that the old man almost melded with the back wall where he rested, a patterned blanket carelessly tossed over his legs.

"Yes, yes granddaughter, you hesitate. All girls do I've gone to understand. A marriage is not something to be entered into lightly. However..." And here he smiled, the remaining teeth brilliantly white in the dusk "... it will make you a woman. You are already old for a girl."

Starling clasped his hands behind his back and spoke very rapidly and without inhaling. "We're already married. By which of course I mean to each other."

"I was worried you'd be mad!" Sylvie explained. "We sort of...eloped, and..." She bit her lip, giving her grandfather a sheepish look. "Well. I wasn't going to tell anyone, but...I can't marry someone else."

"You... are married?" The old man raised a graying eyebrow, looking between the pair. "You married... that one granddaughter?" It was not exactly disapproval in the tone, just very honest surprise.

"Well then..." he tapped his long dark fingers on his knee "This is one story I do want to hear. Tell me all about it."

Starling, with surprising eager facility, took over. "Well, you know, love stories are never that interesting unless you're one of the active parties, but boiled down: Monsieur Romain was part of me grandmother's crew for a while in spring, and he brought Si aboard soon after, so that's how we met. And later on me grandmother asked Romain if Si could stay aboard as her 'prentice. That didn't work out so well, since Si knew she had to come back here. But by that time we'd already fallen in love. So I ditched my grandmother, Si ditched her da', and we ended up sneaking on shore and getting married in Cecelia."

"Like he said," Sylvie said shyly, and she reached for Starling's hand, giving him an affectionate smile. "And Elaine took the apprentice job," she added, so there wouldn't be more questions later. "We're just...I love him, Grandpapa. I don't want to marry anyone else."