'Good morning, ladies,' the Gypsy king (for so the leaders of these roving bands prided themselves, as little kings) stood up on the steps of his wagon and bowed to them. 'Please tell our friends in the village we'll be knocking on their doors - pots and pans of the best quality, charms to keep away the night things, cards to read and keen eyes that know the lie of a line in your palm. Bring out your knives for sharpening, and your broken axe-handles. All will be put to rights. Why, this year we've even a good pony or two, to replace the nags that pull your carts! We'll not be here long, so make the best of our bargains before we move on.'

'Good morning to you,' the oldest of the pair at once answered, if in a breathless fashion. 'And be sure I'll tell them in the village.' And in a hushed aside to her companion: 'Stay close; move along with me; say nothing!'

As they passed by one of the wagons, so this same older woman took a small jar of hazelnuts from her basket and a double handful of plums, placing them on the steps of the wagon as a gift. If the offering was seen no one said anything, and in any case the activity in the camp had already resumed its normal pace as the women headed once more for home. But the younger one, who hadn't lived in Halmagiu very long, asked:

'Why did you give the nuts and plums away? I've heard the Gypsies give nothing for nothing, do nothing for nothing, and far too often take something for nothing! Won't it encourage them, leaving gifts like that?'

'It does no harm to keep well in with the fey people,' the other told her. 'When you've lived here as long as I have you'll know what I mean. And anyway, they're not here to steal or work mischief.' She gave a small shudder. 'Indeed, I fancy I know well enough why they're here.'

'Oh?' said her friend, wonderingly.

'Oh, yes. It's the phase of the moon, a calling they've heard, an offering they'll make. They propitiate the earth, replenish the rich soil, appease... their gods.'

'Their gods? Are they heathens, then?... What gods?'

'Call it Nature, if you like!' the first one snapped. 'But ask me no more. I'm a simple woman and don't wish to know. Nor should you wish to know. My grandmother's grandmother remembered a time when the Gypsies came. Aye, and likely her granny before her. Sometimes fifteen months will go by, or eighteen - but never more than twenty-one - before they're back again. Spring, summer, winter: only the Szgany themselves know the season, the month, the time. But when they hear the calling, when the moon is right, when a lone wolf howls high up in the mountains, then they return. Yes, and when they go they always leave their offering.'

'What sort of offering?' the younger woman was more curious than ever. 'Don't ask,' said the other, hurriedly shaking her head.

'Don't ask.' But it was only her way; the younger woman knew she was dying to tell her; she bided her time and resolved to ask no more. But in a little while, fancying that they'd strayed too far from the most direct route back to the village, she felt obliged to inquire:

'But isn't this a long way round we're taking?'

'Be quiet now!' hushed the older woman. 'Look!'

They had arrived at a clearing in the forest at the foot of a gaunt outcrop of grey volcanic rock. Bald and domed, with several humps, this irregular mound stood perhaps fifty feet high, with more forest beyond, then sheer cliffs rising to a fir-clad plateau like a first gigantic step to the misted, grimly forbidding heights of the Zarundului massif. The trees around the base of the outcrop had been felled, all shrubs and undergrowth cleared away; at its summit, a cairn of heavy stones stood like a small tower or chimney, pointing to the mountains.

And up there, seated on the bare rock at the foot of the cairn, working with a knife at a shard of stone which he held in his lap - a young man: Szgany! He was intent upon his work, seeing nothing but the stone in his hands. He gazed down across a distance of little more than one hundred feet - gazed seemingly head on, so that the women of the village must surely be central to his circle of vision - but if he saw them he gave no sign. And indeed it was plain that he did not see them, only the stone which he worked. And even at that distance, clearly there was something... not quite right with him.

'But what's he doing up there?' the younger of the two inquired in a hoarse whisper. 'He's very handsome, and yet... strange. And anyway, isn't this a forbidden place? My Hzak tells me that the great stone of the cairn is a very special stone, and that -'

Shhhr the other once again cautioned her, a finger to her lips. 'Don't disturb him. They don't take kindly to being spied upon, the Szgany. Not that this one will hear us anyway. Still... best to be careful.'

'He won't hear us, you say? Then why are we talking in whispers? No, I know why we're whispering: because this is a private place, like a shrine. Almost holy.'

'Un holy!' the other corrected her. 'As to why he won't notice us - why, just look at him up there! His skin's not so much dark as slate-grey, sickly, dying. Eyes deep-sunken, burning. Obsessed with that stone he's carving. He's been called, can't you see? He's mazed, hypnotized - doomed!'

Even as the last word left her lips, so the man on the rock stood up, took up his stone and ground it firmly into position on the rim of the cairn. It sat there side by side with many dozens of others, like a brick in the topmost tier of a wall, and anyone having seen the ritual of the carving would know that each single stone of that cairn was marked in some weird, meaningful way. The younger woman opened her mouth to say something, but her friend at once anticipated her question:

'His name,' she said. 'He carved his name and his dates, if he knows them. Like all the other names and dates carved up there. Like all the others gone before him. That rude stone is his headstone, which makes the cairn itself a graveyard!'

Now the young Gypsy was craning his neck, looking up, up at the mountains. He stood frozen in that position for long moments, as if waiting for something. And high in the grey-blue sky a small dark blot of cloud drifted across the face of the sun. At that the eldest of the two women gave a start; she herself had become almost hypnotized, stalled there and without the will to move on. But as the sun was eclipsed and shadows fell everywhere, she grabbed the other's elbow and turned her face away. 'Come,' she gasped, suddenly breathless, 'let's be gone from here. Our men will be worried. Especially if they know there are Gypsies about.'

They hurried through the shadows of the trees, found the track, soon began to see the first wooden houses on Halmagiu's outskirts, where the forest thinned down to nothing. But even as they stepped out from the trees into a dusty lane and their heartbeats slowed a little, so they heard a sound from behind and above and far, far beyond.

Not quite midday in Halmagiu; the sun coming out from behind a small, stray cloud; the first days of true winter still some seven or eight weeks away - but every soul who heard that sound took it as a wintry omen anyway. Aye, and some took it for more than that.

It was the mournful voice of a wolf echoing down from the mountains, calling as wolves have called for a thousand, thousand years and more. The two women paused, clutched their baskets, held their breath and listened. But:

'There's no answering cry,' said the younger, eventually. 'He's alone, that old wolf.'

'For now,' the other nodded. 'Aye, alone - but he's been heard all right, take my word for it. And he will be answered, soon enough. Following which...' She shook her head and hurried on.

The other caught up with her. 'Yes, following which?' she pressed.