Swimming and eating and swimming again through the calm, sunlit waters had made her much stronger. She stood up as he did, and toddled along behind him, leaving her baby footprints in the mud.

Though she walked as fast as she could, she could not keep up with him, and once a green grabber burst from some thick leaves and snatched at her with claws that were those of a big owl, but ten times larger. Grabbers are horrible animals without feathers or hair, and they change color in ways that make them very hard to see. Think of a bad child as big as a grown man, with a long tail and hands like owls' feet, and you will have pictured one. This grabber forced her to hide in the water for a long while, while the leader walked on.

As Fava spoke, I had been picturing the events in her story; and by the time her little girl had leaped from the green water and seen me, they were painfully vivid.

We had called the "grabbers" colorcats from their claws and the shape of their faces; and I could picture the colorcat at that moment much more clearly than Mora, Inclito, and his mother, or the curving wall of age-old ashlars and the fire in the big fieldstone fireplace: a bull colorcat as green as grass, humpbacked with muscle, splashing through the shallows with high-kneed caution, its snakey tail waving behind it like a detached liana, peering into the water, turning and peering again-and at length pouncing, its horrible claws stretched wide, and coming up with nothing more than a crumbling half load of mud. My hand groped my side for the sword I no longer wore, and found it.

The little girl I've been telling you about would have been left hopelessly behind (Fava continued, with a puzzled expression) if the leader had not turned back. Apparently he had caught sight of the grabber, or more likely had heard it grunting and splashing as it searched for her. I doubt that the leader can have known it was hunting a little girl, but he seemed determined to save that innocent creature, whatever it might be. As soon as he caught sight of the grabber, he drew his sword and advanced upon it fearlessly. At the sight of his resolute face and that slaughtering black blade, the grabber lost heart.

My host's mother could contain herself no longer. "This leader, Fava? Was he-"

"Grandmother!" Mora exclaimed. "You're not supposed to interrupt. You know you're not. You're the one who always objects when Fava and I do it."

"Interruptions are permitted in cases like this, " my host's mother declared with great firmness. "Fava, I have to ask you about Incanto's leader, because Incanto never did describe him. Was he tall? As tall as Incanto?"

Fava shook her head. "That's funny. No, he wasn't. But almost as tall, though he didn't look it, and-"

Stocky. You can think of him as muscular if you like, and he certainly looked strong enough to fight and climb and the rest of it, but there was nothing heroic about him except his eyes.

The little girl whose adventures I have been recounting to you knew nothing about heroes and swords, or any such thing, but she was as curious as a monkey, and as soon as she realized what was happening she pushed her little head up out of the water, and as soon as the grabber was dead she overcame her natural shyness sufficiently to speak to the leader who had killed it and saved her, offering her timid thanks and after some hesitation venturing to say that she thought his was the best shape for everyone.

The colorcat lay dead, half in and half out of the muddy water, scarlet blood that looked no different from a man's or a hog's spurting from the gaping wound below its jaws. Dozens of young inhumi rose to drink it; wading in, I caught one by the nape of the neck and carried it to the bank with its tail lashing futilely and its arms and legs pawing air. "Can you talk?" I shook it.

It swung its head from side to side, then nodded. Already its lizard's face was softening a little, melting.

"You see that tree?" I pointed dramatically. "All I've got do is grab you by your tail and swing you against it, so you'd better do everything I say. What's your name?"

"Mee."

"You're changing your looks, and that's good, but you're making yourself too childlike. I want you older, so grow those legs. Are you a male or a female, Mee?"

"Girl."

"That's good too, " I told her. "I think I'll keep you. I need a little help. If you'll come with me and do your job, I won't hurt you, and I'll see to it that nobody else does, either."

So he cut off a big piece of the grabber's skin for her (Fava continued), and scraped it until it was thin and smooth, and as flexible as grabber-skin can be made. She wrapped it around herself, and they picked flowers and pretty leaves for her to wear in her hair.

Incanto's leader had merely wanted her to frustrate the plans his son and a young woman were making in one of the human settlements. But without in the least intending to, he had made the little girl I have been talking about into a little girl from that day forward, a very good little girl, too, in her way, very fond of pretty dresses and playing nicely with other little girls.

Now I am tired and all of you have finished eating. I have a long way to go tomorrow, so I end her story here, and end it happily.

Perhaps I ought not to have drawn the three whorls, for I only corked my little bottle of ink, wiped my pen, stretched, and talked to Oreb. Now here I am again, the same man in the same place, with the same ink, paper, and pen – though I have sharpened my nib a trifle, as you see.

As I see, I interrupted myself at the place where Fava and Mora came in here in their nightdresses last night, and went off storytelling. I hope to get back to that, but first I ought to say that Fava has gone, and that the two young men who are to carry the letters I wrote for Inclito had dinner with us tonight.

One is certainly the mercenary with whom Inclito spoke; when I entered the room, I saw him glance at Inclito and nod. His name is Eco, a fine, stalwart young man whose dark face and flashing teeth and eyes remind me of Hari Mau.

I have been trying to place him in the group I spoke with in the palace. To my left at the back of the room, I believe. He is quite tall, and I am reasonably certain that I remember him looking over the heads of those in front of him. No smiles then. I saw a very young man about to be sent into battle, and wondering whether he had the courage to bear himself well. From what Inclito said, I feel sure he did.

Indeed, I would be equally sure if Inclito had said nothing about him.

When Mora and Fava came last night, I sent Onorifica for the other maid, Torda, the sullen, good-looking young woman who fetched lap robes for us on the night that Inclito drove me back to Blanko. "I've been wanting to talk to you, " I told her. "You are in danger-in deadly danger, in fact. I'm going to save you if I can. I had not intended to speak to you with Mora listening-"

I stole a glance at her; her heavy, coarse face told me very little, but her mouth seemed narrower than ever.

"Still, this may be the best way. And if Fava listens as well, it can do no harm and may do some good."

"You think you got me out of bed." Torda looked at me accusingly. "You think that-"

"I know I didn't. Onorifica brought you much too quickly for that. You were up and dressed, or dressing."

"I'm supposed to heat madame's bathwater. She bathes every morning. She'll be furious."

"Then Onorifica will have to do it."

"She's supposed to set the table for breakfast."