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council meeting and voice your grievance,' he said gently. 'The council will listen.'
    She nodded her head dumbly, unable to speak through the hurt and loss that seemed suddenly to well up within her. Watching her with sympathetic eyes, the Haufuth relaxed tense muscles and looked towards the door. He wasn't much good when it came to crying.
    'Now, don't forget about Kurr, will you?'
    'No, Haufuth, I won't.'
    The sweaty man raised himself from the chair with a groan and walked slowly to the door. 'I'd better be going. It's nearly lunchtime!' he said lightly, in an effort to break the tension. 'I should be just in time for Herza's table. Good day to you.' He touched her shoulder on the way out.
    Indrett shook her head as the door closed. She sighed and turned towards the figure sleeping in front of the fire. Time for tears later.

    This was not going to be easy; if she didn't handle it right she might lose her son's heart forever.
    The wind that blew straight off the snow-cloaked mountains to the northeast rattled the gnarled branches of the oaks and bent the tall, leafless poplars towards the sea. A blond-headed boy with a knapsack on his back trudged down a frosted road, stamping irrit¬ably on any ice-covered puddles in his path and only occasionally glancing up at the wispy clouds scudding across the pale blue sky. Around him the rolling hills sparkled silver in the early morning light, speckled here and there with farm animals grazing or lying asleep, their breath steaming around cold nostrils. The road on which he walked led to a farm, where the boy was going to work for the day.
    The name of the farm was chiselled on the mossy, slatted farm gate, and on his mind. For a long time the boy rested there, leaning against the half-opened gate, running his fingers absently over the name carved in the splintering wood. Heaving a vast sigh, he straightened and looked beyond the gate and down the rutted track that disappeared over a grassy ridge in the distance.
    Better get it over with, Leith thought. Kurr was a legend to the children of the village, the old man who caught boys and girls and locked them in his dark, cold barn. What he did with them then no one knew for sure, though many of the young boys claimed to have escaped from his clutches. Leith himself had once stolen some apples from the bottom paddocks, and had hidden in fear under a hedge while the irate farmer scoured the area for the thief. It had only been for a dare. He didn't really believe all the stories told about the old man - at least, he hadn't believed them last night as he lay in bed - but he would rather have been at home in front of the fire than shivering in the crisp morning air. He thought of what his mother had said, how angry she had been. Rather the old farmer than more of that. Shutting the gate to Stibbourne Farm behind him, he walked slowly down the narrow road.
    How could she have thought that he was betraying his father? Would his father really have been hurt by his behaviour? Would he have thought it childish? Well, if he had been here, things would have been different, he thought angrily. It's not my fault! Where was his father?
    When would he come home? If he had really loved them, if he had really loved Leith, he would never have gone away.
    Leith vividly remembered the day his father had left them. It was at the end of a back-breaking afternoon of seed planting, and the family were sitting quietly together on freshly cut, upturned logs in front of their small house, backs to the reddening sun. A group of finely clad men rode up on tall horses, mail-shirted and armed with glittering swords menacingly drawn, the children of the village trailing excitedly behind them. The men dismounted and hailed his father. Leith could remember how frightened he had felt then. There had been a discussion that rapidly heated into a quarrel, ending with the men abruptly mounting their horses and riding noisily, arrogantly off down the road through the