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You would get bruises and want to cry. You don’t like to cry where people see you.’
    He felt his heart ache, as though it had been dipped in freezing water. ‘Thetis…try not to hurt people whenyou speak. That’s all. It hurt Old Sesteta when you said her wart looked like a bullfrog.’
    Thetis danced to the next rock, waving her arms as though she was flying. ‘It does look like a bullfrog. And when she sneezes it looks like it’s jumping too. I don’t mean to hurt. I just say what’s there, that’s all.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘Nikko, how do you stop some words coming out, and not others?’
    He shrugged, helpless. ‘I don’t know. It just comes naturally.’
    ‘Not to me. Nikko, can I ride a goat?
    ‘No. You’d fall off.’
    ‘Oh. Nikko?
    ‘Yes?
    ‘I can’t help it, you know,’ said Thetis.
    His anger melted. Suddenly she sounded older, old as the rocks maybe.
    She looked up at him, her eyes steady. ‘When I open my mouth the words just come out…the same things that I’m thinking. I can’t stop them even if I try.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you think I am cursed, Nikko? Do you think that’s why I can’t stop what I say?’
    ‘No!’
    She leaped off her rock and bent down to pick a dried spray of dittany, carefully keeping her face from him. ‘I think…I think other people have the same thoughts as I do, sometimes. But they don’t have to say them.’
    Nikko shook his head. ‘Most people don’t see as much as you. Or think as much, maybe.’
    ‘You see things,’ said Thetis. ‘Things you don’t talk about. But you can pretend things didn’t happen. Likewhen father hit you and said no girl would give a dowry to marry you.’
    The words were like small daggers. He had to stop them. ‘Thetis, can you try to do something for me? Please?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘If we see the High King’s men can you promise not to speak to them? Or even not to speak at all till the King’s men are gone. That would be safest. If you can’t stop some words then stop them all, just till the King’s men have gone. Do you think you can do that?’
    Thetis thought for a moment, her head on one side like a wren. ‘I think so,’ she said at last. ‘If I see a King’s man I will hold my mouth tight shut, like it’s full of bread and I don’t want it to spill out. King’s men wear those shiny leather skirts, don’t they? With tight belts and jingly things in their ears.’
    She jumped over another boulder, then up onto the biggest one around and considered. ‘Maybe it is best if I shut my mouth in front of any stranger, in case he is a High King’s man. Maybe the High King’s men have different clothes they wear at different times, just like the headman’s wife and her red scarf.’
    Nikko nodded. ‘Thetis, if you can do that—learn to shut your mouth tight sometimes, so tight you can’t talk—it would be good. Very, very good indeed.’
    Thetis looked away, down at the green sweep of the valley. ‘I think it was best when I couldn’t speak at all.’
    ‘No!’ He vaulted up onto the rock where she stood, and hugged her. ‘Never say that.’
    ‘All right. You’re not really angry then?
    ‘No. Never at you.’
    She smiled suddenly—the smile that was like the sun gleaming through the trees. ‘Can you make me a butterfly then?’
    He grinned back and nodded. She hopped up, light as a cloud. He caught her, and hoisted her onto his shoulders. She crouched there for a moment, then stood up, flapping her arms like the butterfly. ‘You fly too,’ she called.
    He laughed. ‘If I wave my arms you’ll fall.’
    ‘No, I won’t. I’m safe up here.’
    ‘What if there’s an earthquake?’
    She frowned for a second. ‘I think the birds would all fly up if a big earthquake was coming. The goats would have been baa ing too. Animals do funny things before the earth shakes. Do you know why, Nikko?’
    Nikko shook his head.
    Thetis continued, ‘I think I will be safe even if there is an