"Now then!" cried the deaf old woman, shaking her ladle at them with mock minacity. "How much longer you lazy wenches goin' to sit there on your bums? Anyone for any more, 'fore it's cleared away?"

Everyone, however, seemed as replete and contented as Maia felt herself. Indeed, they struck her as such a cheerful, good-natured little society and the whole atmosphere seemed so pleasant, that she couldn't help feeling, rather wistfully, that she'd have liked to stay with them. Well, but it was only a fancy, she thought, as she began helping to clear away. Like enough she'd soon be tired of getting up early to milking and dirty hands from morning till night.

She watched her opportunity to take the older girl on one side and ask her about clothes. As she had hoped, Gehta proved helpful. Between them, she and the deaf old woman fitted her out with a tidy, serviceable smock, as well as a clean shift, neither much the worse for wear, and a pair of sandals. They firmly refused to accept so much as a meld.

"Never in the world!" cried Gehta, closing Maia's fingers over her money and pushing her fist back into her pocket. "Think we're going to take money for helping out a guest? You'll be helping us one of these days. Fact, you can," she added in a lower voice (though the old woman was their only company). "Let's you and me just have a little stroll outside, shall we?"

She led the way across the yard to the gate of the stockade, where a fire was burning in an iron basket and the night-watchman was already pottering about near his hut beside the sheep-pens.

"We're just going for a bit of a turn before bed-time, Brindo," said Gehta. "We'll be back directly-don't worry."

The old fellow, smiling as he pretended to grumble, unbarred the gate and the two girls went out into the big, smooth-grazed meadow beyond.

"They let you go out alone after the gate's been shut?" asked Maia in some surprise.

"Well, we're not really supposed to," replied Gehta, "but Brindo's never one to make trouble, and everyone here takes the rules pretty easy. The land's open as far as

the forest, you see, and there's not really much harm you could come to."

The moon, directly ahead of them, had already risen clear of the distant trees. Bats flitted noiselessly here and there and the breeze carried a resinous scent from the pines.

"Peaceful, isn't it?" said Gehta after a minute or two. "You wouldn't think there was any danger in all the world, would you?"

Something in her tone made Maia turn her head and look at her.

"What's up, then? You mean, there is?"

"Well, that's what I wanted to ask you, really," replied Gehta, "but I didn't want the others to hear. You've been living in Bekla, haven't you-working in that gentleman's house as you're with? I don't want to ask a lot of inquisitive questions, only I thought p'raps you might sometimes have heard one or two of these big barons and such-Iike talking-you know, at their parties and dinners and that."

"What about?" asked Maia.

Gehta stopped and faced her squarely. "I'll tell you straight out. My dad's got a farm-not so big as this- about twenty miles west of here. One day it'll be mine and my husband's; when I've got a husband, that's to say; only I've no brothers, you see. I'm here for a bit to learn one or two things-well, like buying and selling the timber- that I couldn't pick up so well at home. But never mind that-what I want to find out is whether there's going to be trouble-you know, real bad trouble."

"D'you mean the war?"

"S'ssh!" said Gehta; though there was no one in sight. "Everything we hear-you know, from pedlars and visiting timber-dealers; oh, yes, and from our own men when they take stuff up to Bekla: they believe there are barons-you know, heldril-in some of the outlying parts that are getting ready to make trouble for the Leopards. They're the ones that really killed that fat old Counselor or whatever he was, because he was the one as knew most about what they're up to; he had his spies everywhere, or so we heard. They say some of the barons living right the way over there"-she pointed eastward-"they'd even be ready to see King Karnat take Bekla, because they reckon they'd be better off than they are under the Leopards."

"The Leopards tax the farmers and peasants and favor

the merchants and city people," said Maia. "I've heard that said again and again."

Gehta looked at her with tears in her eyes. "If King Karnat crosses the Valderra river and makes for Bekla, dad's farm's slap in the way, near enough. That's why the other girls say I'm a Leopard-because I'm afraid of what might be going to happen. If there's going to be fighting, I want to go back home now, before it starts. That's my proper place-with dad and mum. Only you can't get any reliable news, living here. I thought if you've been-weft- in service in the upper city, p'raps you might have heard- you know, something or other-"

"Well, truth is I reckon you know more'n what I do," said Maia, "About the Leopards, I mean. All I know is they're all in a great taking about the killing."

"I know the Leopards are hard on farming folk," said Gehta, "but even that's better than war. I was only nine when Queen Fornis and her lot came up from Paltesh to Bekla. They took everything we had; and the soldiers, they-you know." She began to cry. "If there was to be all that over again-oh, what's going to happen, Maia? What ought I to do?"

Maia, liking her and grateful for her help over the clothes, longed to be of some comfort. "I reckon you're troubling yourself too much. I've heard General Kembri talking; I've-well, I've waited on him at dinner, you know, and that kind of thing. And I've never heard him speak as if he thought they couldn't stop King Karnat crossing the river. As for the heldril, well, it's true you hear a lot of talk about trouble and rebellion and so on, but it never seems to come to anything."

"Oh, I do just about hope you're right," said Gehta. "It's such a worry. 'Course, I know there's nothing I could really do to make Dad any safer if I did go home, but all the same, if there's going to be trouble I'd rather be there than here; it's only natural." She paused. "Anyway, thanks, Maia. At least it's some relief that you don't seem worried. We'd best go back now, 'fore old Brindo starts shouting after us."

Before the night was over Maia experienced another instance of the easy-going ways of the farm. Given a very comfortable spare bed at one end of the girls' big sleeping-shed, she quickly fell asleep. Waking some time during the night she sensed, drowsily but surely enough, a kind

of muted disturbance near-by. After a few moments she realized what it was. One of the girls was not alone in bed, and unless she was much mistaken her companion was not another girl. Turning over, she saw in the moonlight that Gehta, next to her, was also awake. Putting a finger to her lips, Gehta beckoned to her and, leaning a little way out of bed, put her mouth to her ear.

"We never tell: you won't?"

Maia shook her head and fell asleep again.

As she had expected, the girls were up soon after dawn to milking, fowl-feeding and the other tasks of the farm. After breakfast they said good-bye to Maia with warmth and regret on both sides.

"We don't often get someone like ourselves stopping by," said the little, black-eyed girl. "Makes a nice change." She kissed Maia. "What a pity you couldn't have stayed a bit longer." Maia was soon to find herself in full agreement with this.