`We're looking for a meal and a fire to warm us and then we'll be on our way. We're told there's an inn here in Craikennis?'

The watchman nodded, satisfied that the two men offered no real threat to the security of the village. He glanced out into the darkness, making sure they had no companions lurking in the shadows. But there was no sign of movement on the road. He stepped back.

`Very well. But don't cause any trouble. You'll have us and a dozen others to reckon with if you do.'

`You'll see no trouble from us, friend,' Halt told him. `Where do we find this inn of yours?'

The sentry pointed down the single main street of the village.

`The Green Harper, it's called. Just fifty metres that way.'

He stepped out of the road to let them pass and they rode on into Craikennis village.

The Green Harper stood at the midpoint of the main street. The village itself was a substantial establishment, with fifty or sixty houses grouped around the central street and a network of lanes and lesser streets that ran off it. They were all single-storey, of mud brick and thatched roof construction. They looked smaller than the houses Halt and Horace were used to – lower. Horace guessed that if he were to enter one, he would have to stoop to avoid the door lintel. The inn was the largest building in the village, as would be expected. It was also the only two-storey building, with narrow dormer windows in the upper storey suggesting that there might be three or four bedrooms provided for guests.

The Green Harper's identifying sign swung, creaking noisily in the wind that gusted down the main street of the village. It was a weathered board showing the faded remnants of a dwarf-like figure dressed all in green, plucking the strings of a small harp. As Horace studied the sign, he noted that the face was twisted in a rather unpleasant leer.

`Not a friendly type, is he?' he said.

Halt looked at the sign. 'He's a laechonnachie,' he replied and, sensing Horace's inquiring look, he added, `A Little Person.'

`I can see that,' Horace said but Halt shook his head.

`The Little People are the subject of a great deal of superstition in this country. They're enchanted figures, faerie folk if you like. Good people to avoid. They have a nasty sense of humour and they tend to be spiteful.'

There was a burst of noise from the inn as a score of voices rose in song, joining in the chorus to one of Will's numbers. He had ridden into Craikennis an hour ahead of Horace and Halt. Apparently, from the noise and the burst of applause they now heard, he had been roundly welcomed by the locals.

`Sounds as if he's bringing down the house,' Horace observed.

Halt glanced up at the building, noticing the way none of the walls were true and the upper storey seemed to lean and teeter over the narrow main street of the village.

`That wouldn't take a lot of doing,' he muttered. 'Come on. Let's get inside while it's still standing.'

He led the way to the tethering rail outside the inn. There was one other animal tethered there, a disinterested pony harnessed to a small cart. Aside from the driver, there were seats for two passengers, set either side of the cart and facing outwards.

`Quaint,' Horace said, as he tethered Kicker to the rail. Halt, of course, merely dropped Abelard's rein over the rail. There was no need to tether a Ranger horse.

Horace glanced around. 'Where's Tug, do you think?'

Halt jerked a thumb at a side alley leading to the rear of the inn. 'I imagine,he'll be nice and warm in a stall in the stables,' he said. `If Will's taken a room, he wouldn't leave Tug out in the street.'

`True enough,' Horace said. 'Let's get on with it, Halt, I'm famished.'

`Are you ever not famished?' Halt asked, but Horace was already heading for the inn. He led the way to the door but before he could push it open, Halt stopped him with ahand on his arm. Horace looked at him enquiringly and the Ranger explained.

`Wait until Will's started again and we'll slip in while everyone's attention is on him. Remember, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. I'll do the talking.'

Horace nodded agreement. He'd noticed during the day that Halt's accent, which usually showed only the slightest trace of a Hibernian brogue, had been thickening and broadening whenever he spoke. Halt was obviously working to recapture the accent of his youth.

`No need to let everyone know we're foreigners,' he had said when Horace had commented on the fact.

They paused now, hearing Will's voice raised in song, and the rippling accompaniment of his mandola. Then the noise redoubled as the entire room joined in on the chorus. Halt nodded to Horace.

`Let's go,' he said.

They slipped into the room, hesitating briefly as the wave of heat from the open fire and thirty or forty bodies hit them. Will stood in a well-lit space by the fireplace, leading the company in song – not that they needed much encouragement, Halt thought wryly. Hibernians loved music and singing and Will had a good repertoire of jigs and reels. As the two Araluans paused in the doorway, two of the spectators in front of Will, a man and a woman, leapt to their feet and began dancing and heel-and-toeing in time to his driving rhythm. The rest of the room roared encouragement, clapping in time to urge the dancers on. Halt and Horace exchanged a glance, then Halt nodded his head towards a table at the rear of the room. They moved to it. Will, of course, ignored their entry. Only one or two of the people in the room seemed to notice them. The rest were totally engrossed in the music and the dancing.

But the innkeeper noticed the two new arrivals – it was his business to notice such things, after all. Before too long, a serving girl made her way through the customers to their table. Halt ordered coffee, and lamb stew for them both, and she nodded, sliding away with the skill of long practice through the packed customers.

Will crashed out the final chord of the song and the two dancers slumped, exhausted, onto their benches. At Halt's suggestion, he had discarded the distinctive mottled Ranger's cloak when he left their camp, wearing a long, thick woollen outer coat instead. By the same token, he had left his bow and quiver behind, and unclipped his throwing knife and sheath from the double scabbard arrangement at his belt, leaving the larger saxe knife in a single scabbard. The throwing knife had gone into a sheath sewn inside his jerkin, under the left arm. Some years earlier, Will had experimented with a sheath sewn into the back collar of his jerkin, with near disastrous results.

Halt, of course, wore his normal Ranger's outfit and carried his bow. There was nothing significant about that in a countryside where everyone seemed primed for trouble. The mottled appearance of the cloak might be a little unusual but, even so, he had the appearance of a woodsman or farmer. Horace wore a plain leather jacket over his leggings and boots, with his sword and dagger in a belt round his waist. He wore a cloak, of course, to keep out the biting cold of the wind. But unlike Halt's, it had no cowl. Instead, he wore a close-fitting wool cap, pulled down over his ears. He wore no armour or insignia ofany kind. To outward appearances, he was a simple man at arms.

As a result of these varied costumes, there was nothing to connect the two newcomers to the foreign minstrel who had arrived earlier in the evening. And with Halt's carefully renewed Hibernian accent, they didn't even appear to be foreign.

Their food arrived, and the coffee, and they fell to eating with a will. Horace was particularly willing but, over the years he had known the young warrior, Halt had become more or less accustomed to the younger man's prodigious appetite. Horace spooned the savoury lamb and potato stew into his mouth, using the thick slice of bread that came with it to mop up the juice. Finishing his own bread, Horace noticed the half slice remaining in front of Halt and reached for it.