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was there, with her retinue. In the middle of the knot ofpeople Tighe could just make out the tall figure of one of the wood traders, his precious package strapped close to his back. Wittershe was there too, but she was making no serious attempt to engage the wood traders in any dialogue. There were too many wealthier villagers with more to offer. Tighe approached her.
    ‘Hello,’ he called. ‘Wittershe.’
    She noted him with a sly smile, utterly distinctive to her. ‘Well well, is it the little Princeling?’
    ‘I spoke to your pahe,’ he told her, coming up close.
    She tossed her head, the short black hair flipping. ‘My pahe sent me up here to trade monkey for wood,’ she said, ‘but there’s no trading here for such poor exchange.’
    ‘Are you free then?’ Tighe asked.
    ‘Why?’ Wittershe giggled. ‘You want us to go play? Like boy-boy and girl-girl?’ Tighe flushed and Wittershe giggled again. ‘I can’t do that now, little Princeling. But why don’t you come down our ladder this evening? I have chores until the end of the day, but when the sun goes over the top of the wall we might do things.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Tighe, too eagerly. ‘Yes, I’ll come.’
    She leant towards him to kiss him on the bridge of his nose, and he got the fleetingest scent of her, the odour of her skin, of maringrass and cheap chandler’s soap, and then she was moving away from him.
    Tighe felt a ridiculous joy in his heart, but almost at once the sweet emotion fell away. His Grandhe grabbed him by his shoulders, scaring him, and shouted into his ear. ‘Young Tighe!’ he bellowed. ‘My grandchild!’
    ‘Grandhe,’ squealed Tighe, squirming round to evade his Grandhe’s grip. There was the old man, leaning close to him, his ancient face as wrinkled and ledgy as the face of the worldwall itself.
    ‘What are you scheming at here, boy-boy?’ shouted Grandhe. A few of the people who had gathered on the main-street shelf to join in the trading haggle turned to see why the chief Priest of the whole Princedom was shouting. Tighe dropped his shoulders and slunk about in front of his Grandhe.
    ‘Nothing, Grandhe.’
    ‘Nothing? Nothing! It doesn’t dignify the office of Prince’, he bellowed, ‘for the heir – and the grandchild of the Priest as well – to spend all day skulking about doing nothing.’
    ‘I’ll be off and find something to occupy myself then, Grandhe.’
    ‘You should be working!’
    ‘Yes, Grandhe, I’ll just be away and find some work now.’
    But his Grandhe’s hand bolted out and caught Tighe’s hair, yanking it painfully. Tighe stumbled and almost fell. The old man was speaking in amuch lower tone now. ‘And I like it
very little
, he was saying, ‘that you converse with that girl, Old Witterhe’s sluttish girl. Hear me?’
    ‘Yes Grandhe!’ The tender hairs near the base of his hairline felt as if they were being torn out.
    ‘
Hear
me?’
    ‘Yes Grandhe!’
    ‘You’ll do
better
, he said, with an emphatic tug of the hair, ‘to shun the company of that girl.’ And he let go of the hair, and stalked away. Tighe took hurried steps backward, and saw the old Priest fold into a company of his deputies, and the whole crowd of them moving away over main-street shelf.

4
    His Grandhe’s words made a deep impression upon Tighe, but come the end of the day and the disappearance of the sun over the top of the wall, he could only think of Wittershe: the pretty constellation of her features; her smell; the lines of her figure. He slunk down the ladder to Old Witterhe’s house with a guilty look up and down the main-street shelf.
    She met him outside her pahe’s house, and brought him in. Old Witterhe was there, smoking his thorn-pipe vigorously, and offering grass-bread and a monkey bone to chew on, pulling out bits of marrow. They passed the bone round and Witterhe talked. His daughter sat at his feet. ‘You’re a boy who likes to ask questions,’ the old man said.
    ‘I am that,’