An April breeze ran across the meadow, stirring the bushes and the trees in one long chilly sigh. The cat-eared woman tossed her curly hair back from her face, and said, “You are under a prior obligation, are you not? You have something that does not belong to you, which you must deliver to its rightful owner.”

The star’s lips tightened. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I told you. I was the bird in the caravan,” said the woman. “I know what you are, and I know why the witch-woman never knew that you were there. I know who seeks you and why she needs you. Also, I know the provenance of the topaz stone you wear upon a silver chain about your waist. Knowing this, and what manner of thing you are, I know the obligation you must be under.” She leaned down, and, with delicate fingers, she tenderly pushed the hair from Tristran’s face. The sleeping youth neither stirred nor responded.

“I do not think that I believe you, or trust you,” said the star. A night bird cried in a tree above them. It sounded very lonely in the darkness.

“I saw the topaz about your waist when I was a bird,” said the woman, standing up once more. “I watched, when you bathed in the river, and recognized it for what it was.”

“How?” asked the star. “How did you recognize it?”

But the dark-haired woman only shook her head and walked back the way that she had come, sparing but one last glance for the sleeping youth upon the grass. And then she was taken by the night.

Tristran’s hair had, obstinately, fallen across his face once more. The star leaned down and gently pushed it to one side, letting her fingers dwell upon his cheek as she did so. He slept on.

Tristran was woken a little after sunrise by a large badger walking upon its hind legs and wearing a threadbare heliotrope silk dressing-gown, who snuffled into his ear until Tristran sleepily opened his eyes, and then said, self-importantly, “Party name of Thorn? Tristran of that set?”

“Mm?” said Tristran. There was a foul taste in his mouth, which felt dry and furred. He could have slept for another several hours.

“They’ve been asking about you,” said the badger. “Down by the gap. Seems there’s a young lady wants to have a word with you.”

Tristran sat up and grinned widely. He touched the sleeping star on her shoulder. She opened her sleepy blue eyes and said, “What?”

“Good news,” he told her. “Do you remember Victoria Forester? I might have mentioned her name once or twice on our travels.”

“Yes,” she said. “You might have.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m off to see her. She’s down by the gap.” He paused. “Look. Well. Probably best if you stay here. I wouldn’t want to confuse her or anything.”

The star rolled over and covered her head with her arm, and said nothing else. Tristran decided that she must have gone back to sleep. He pulled on his boots, washed his face and rinsed out his mouth in the meadow stream, and then ran pell-mell through the meadow, toward the village.

The guards on the wall this morning were the Reverend Myles, the vicar of Wall, and Mr. Bromios, the innkeeper. Standing between them was a young lady with her back to the meadow. “Victoria!” called Tristran in delight; but then the young lady turned, and he saw that it was not Victoria Forester (who, he remembered suddenly, and with delight in the knowing, had grey eyes. That was what they were: grey. How could he ever have allowed himself to forget?). But who this young lady could have been in her fine bonnet and shawl, Tristran could not say; although her eyes flooded with tears at the sight of him.

“Tristran!” she said. “It is you! They said it was! Oh Tristran! How could you? Oh, how could you?” and he realized who the young lady reproaching him must be.

“Louisa?” he said to his sister. And then, “You have certainly grown while I was away, from a chit of a girl into a fine young lady.”

She sniffed, and blew her nose into a lace-edged linen handkerchief, which she pulled from her sleeve. “And you,” she told him, dabbing at her cheeks with the handkerchief, “have turned into a mop-haired raggle-taggle gypsy on your journeyings. But I suppose you look well, and that is a good thing. Come on, now,” and she motioned, impatiently, for him to walk through the gap in the wall, and come to her.

“But the wall—” he said, eyeing the innkeeper and the vicar a little nervously.

“Oh, as to that, when Wystan and Mister Brown finished their shift last night they repaired to the saloon bar at the Seventh Pie, where Wystan happened to mention their meeting with a ragamuffin who claimed to be you, and how they blocked his way. Your way. When news of this reached Father’s ears, he marched right up to the Pie and gave the both of them such a tongue-lashing and a telling-of-what-for that I could scarcely believe it was him.”

“Some of us were for letting you come back this morning,” said the vicar, “and some were for keeping you there until midday.”

“But none of the ones who were for making you wait are on Wall duty this morning,” said Mr. Bromios. “Which took a certain amount of jiggery-pokery to organize—and on a day when I should have been seeing to the refreshment stand, I could point out. Still, it’s good to see you back. Come on through.” And with that he stuck out his hand, and Tristran shook it with enthusiasm. Then Tristran shook the vicar’s hand.

“Tristran,” said the vicar, “I suppose that you must have seen many strange sights upon your travels.”

Tristran reflected for a moment. “I suppose I must have,” he said.

“You must come to the Vicarage, then, next week,” said the vicar. “We shall have tea, and you must tell me all about it. Once you’re settled back in. Eh?” And Tristran, who had always held the vicar in some awe, could do nothing but nod.

Louisa sighed, a little theatrically, and began to walk, briskly, in the direction of the Seventh Magpie. Tristran ran along the cobbles to catch her up, and then he was walking beside her.

“It does my heart good to see you again, my sister,” he said.

“As if we were not all worried sick about you,” she said, crossly, “what with all your gallivantings. And you did not even wake me to say good-bye. Father has been quite distracted with concern for you, and at Christmas, when you were not there, after we had eaten the goose and the pudding, Father took out the port and he toasted absent friends, and Mother sobbed like a babe, so of course I cried too, and then Father began to blow his nose into his best handkerchief and Grandmother and Grandfather Hempstock insisted upon pulling the Christmas crackers and reading the jolly mottoes and somehow that only made matters worse, and, to put it bluntly, Tristran, you quite spoiled our Christmas.”

“Sorry,” said Tristran. “What are we doing now? Where are we going?”

“We are going into the Seventh Pie” said Louisa. “I should have thought that was obvious. Mister Bromios said that you could use his sitting room. There’s somebody there who needs to talk to you.” And she said nothing more as they went into the pub. There were a number of faces Tristran recognized, and the people nodded at him, or smiled, or did not smile, as he walked through the crowds and made his way up the narrow stairs behind the bar to the landing with Louisa by his side. The wooden boards creaked beneath their feet.

Louisa glared at Tristran. And then her lip trembled, and, to Tristran’s surprise, she threw her arms about him and hugged him so tightly that he could not breathe. Then, with not another word, she fled back down the wooden stairs.

He knocked at the door to the sitting room, and went in. The room was decorated with a number of unusual objects, of small items of antique statuary and clay pots. Upon the wall hung a stick, wound about with ivy leaves, or rather, with a dark metal cunningly beaten to resemble ivy. Apart from the decorations the room could have been the sitting room of any busy bachelor with little time for sitting. It was furnished with a small chaise longue, a low table upon which was a well-thumbed leather-bound copy of the sermons of Laurence Sterne, a pianoforte, and several leather armchairs, and it was in one of these armchairs that Victoria Forester was sitting.