Ciri was feeling much better, and to Vysogota’s astonishment and pleasure did not talk about leaving at all. She led her black mare, Kelpie, out of the barn. Vysogota knew that in the North the name kelpie was borne by a water spirit, a dangerous sea monster, according to superstition able to assume the form of a splendid steed, dolphin or even a comely woman, although in reality it always looked like a heap of seaweed. Ciri saddled her mare and trotted around the yard and cottage, after which Kelpie went back to the barn to keep the goat company, while Ciri went to the cottage to keep Vysogota company. She even helped him–probably out of boredom–as he worked with the pelts. While he was segregating the coypu according to their size and colouring, she divided the muskrats up into backs and bellies, slitting the skins along slats inserted into them. Her fingers were exceptionally nimble.

While they worked they had quite a strange conversation.

‘You don’t know who I am. You can’t even imagine who I am.’

She repeated that banal statement several times and slightly annoyed him with it. Of course, he did not betray his annoyance–he wouldn’t betray his feelings before such a chit. No, he couldn’t allow that, nor could he betray the curiosity that was consuming him.

Groundless curiosity, in truth, for he could have guessed who she was without any difficulty. Gangs of youths hadn’t been rare in Vysogota’s younger days, either. Nor could the years that had passed eliminate the magnetic power with which gangs lured whelps, hungry for adventure and thrills. Very often to their death. Whelps flaunting scars on their faces could count their luck; torture, the noose, the hook or the stake awaited the less fortunate of them.

Since Vysogota’s younger days only one thing had changed–growing emancipation. Not only teenage boys, but also reckless girls, preferring a horse, a sword and adventures to lace-making, the spinning wheel and waiting for the matchmakers.

Vysogota did not say all that straight out. He said it in a roundabout way, but so that she knew that he knew. To make her aware that if someone in the cottage was an enigma, it was certainly not her–a young thug from a band of underage thugs who had miraculously escaped a manhunt. A disfigured teenage girl trying to cloak herself in an aura of mystery…

‘You don’t know who I am. But don’t worry. I’ll be leaving shortly. I won’t put you at risk.’

Vysogota had had enough.