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cheeks.
    “I will find that man,” Stres said suddenly, raising his voice. The words came harshly through his teeth, with a menacing ring, and his deputy, who had known Stres for years, felt that the passion his chief brought to the search for the unknown man went well beyond the duties of his office. As they walked away, the deputy allowed himselfto glance now and again at his boss’s shadow. It revealed more of Stres’s disquiet than the man himself. It even seemed to him that one of the two halves of Stres’s twin characters was standing beside the other, to help him solve the mystery.

CHAPTER TWO
    Stres issued an order that reached all the inns and some of the relays along the roads and waterways before the day was out. In it he asked that he be informed if anyone had seen a man and woman riding the same horse or two separate mounts, or travelling together by some other means, before midnight on 11 October. If so, he wanted to be informed which roads they had taken, whether they had stayed at an inn, whether they had ordered a meal for themselves or fodder for their horse or horses, and, if possible, what their relationship seemed to be. Finally, he also wanted to know whether anyone had seen a woman travelling alone.
    “They can’t escape us now,” Stres said to his deputy when the chief courier reported that the circular containing the order had been sent to even the most remote outposts. “A man and a woman riding on the same horse. Now that was a sight you wouldn’t forget, would you? For that matter, seeing them on two horses ought to have had more or less the same effect.”
    “That’s right,” his deputy said.
    Stres stood up and began pacing back and forth between his desk and the window.
    “We should certainly find some sign of them, unless they sailed in on a cloud.”
    His deputy looked up.
    “But that’s exactly what this whole affair seems to amount to: a journey in the clouds!”
    “You still believe that?” Stres asked with a smile.
    “That’s what everyone believes,” his aide replied.
    “Other people can believe what they like, but we can’t.”
    A gust of wind suddenly rattled the windows, and a few drops of rain splattered against them.
    “Mid-autumn,” Stres said thoughtfully. “I have always noticed that the strangest things always seem to happen in autumn.”
    The room grew silent. Stres propped his forehead with his right hand and stood for a moment watching the drizzling rain. But of course he could not stay like that for long. In the emptiness of his mind, a pressing question emerged and persisted: Who could that unknown horseman have been? Within a few minutes, dozens of possibilities crossed his mind. Clearly, the man was aware, if not of every detail, at least of the depth of the tragedy that had befallen the Vranaj family. He knew of the death of the brothers, and of Kostandin’s besa . And he knew the way from that central European region to Albania. But why? Stres almost shouted. Why had he done it? Had he hoped for some reward? Stres opened his mouth wide, feeling that the movement would banish his weariness.The notion that the motive had been some expected reward seemed crude, but not wholly out of the question. Everyone knew that, after the death of her sons, the Lady Mother had sent three letters to her daughter, one after the other, imploring her to come to her. Two of the messengers had turned back, claiming that it had been impossible to carry out their mission: the distance was too great, and the road passed through warring lands. In keeping with their agreement with her, they refunded the old woman half the stipulated fee. The third messenger had simply disappeared. Either he was dead or he had reached Doruntine but she had not believed him. More than two years had passed since then, and the possibility that he had brought her back so long after he set out was more than remote. Perhaps the mysterious traveller meant to extort some reward from Doruntine but