He completed the return-stroke then pushed forward again, seeming to consider this. “I would know it, madam.”
“I am Shekalane,” she said. “I was a teacher ... before being handed the black coin. Now I don’t know what I’ll be. Dead, perhaps.” She laughed a little. “We shall look just alike.”
The ferryman drew on his oar and said nothing—but her intuition told her he was withholding something. Again the dream-like feeling stole over her, and she said, with a rush of realization, “You know—don’t you? You know how it is I’ve been selected to serve ...”
He pushed forward on his oar and drew it back. At last, he said, “We are sometimes given special instructions for the handling of a charge. You are to be unharmed, or, if force is required, no marks are to be left upon your person. Based on t
