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a while in the darkness to make sure he wasn’t going to run into Idris’s mother, who disapproved of her daughter even talking to someone as generally disliked as Conrad. There was a line of yellow light around the door, and someone was moving around. A clear voice started to hum a tune: Idris’s voice. Cautiously he tapped the door.
    “Who is it?” Idris called.
    “Conrad. Are you by yourself?”
    Quick footsteps came to the door and the bolt scraped back. “Yes—everyone has gone to Malling’s house to gape at the foreigners. Come in. I daren’t let you stay, but—Conrad, you’re limping dreadfully!”
    He rubbed his injured knee and explained what had happened. Idris’s round, pretty face set in an angry expression.
    “I think it’s shameful!” she said. “You’re not lazy—you work as hard as anyone, and no one else in Lagwich can make such good soap, and your horrible father squanders your earnings and on top of that Watchman Gelbay says you have to put up with it. It’s a scandal, really. What’s that in your hand?”
    “Something I made for you,” Conrad said shyly. He held it out. “It’s only soap, and it got a bit broken when I was knocked down, but I hope you like it.”
    Her fingers brushed his as she took the carving from him, and he drew away, hoping she wouldn’t notice. He had once held her hand, on harvest-day last summer; indeed, then she had let him kiss her cheek. But it was only at times like harvest-day, sowing-day or New Year’s that he had a chance to cleanse himself of his permanent layer of congealed ash and grease, and he had never felt it right to ask her to touch him when he was in his usual grimy state. So now he drew back, as usual.
    “Conrad, you are clever!” she exclaimed with sparkling eyes. Looking at her, Conrad decided it was just as well he hadn’t tried to improve the likeness of the carving. It would take a master to catch the alive quality of her face, especially now as she flushed at the compliment she had been paid. Probably it would be easier to make a likeness of the whole of her; the buxom curves under her working gown would shape pleasingly to the hand. In fact—
    Conrad checked his line of thought and reprimanded himself.
    “Did you see the foreigners?” Idris asked, turning to put the carving on a shelf behind her.
    “Yes,” Conrad told her bitterly, and recounted his story. Listening, Idris stamped her foot at the injustice of it.
    “I sometimes wonder,” Conrad said at length, “whether I wouldn’t be better off if I just left here. Walked to another town—there’s bound to be work somewhere for a good soapmaker. Or just went to the barrenland where father wished me.”
    “You mustn’t talk like that!” the girl said in alarm.
    “Wouldn’t I be better off in another town, though? I’m not quite serious about the barrenland.”
    “Maybe … Only I’d miss you, I think. I really would, if you went away.”
    There was a noise outside, of the front door of the house being opened. Idris drew her breath in quickly and hissed at him. “You’ll have to go! Here, take this—it isn’t much, but it’s all I can spare.” She snatched handfuls of bread, cheese, onions and salad-greens from the table, and thrust an apple at him as well. “Quick now! Thanks for the carving—and we’ll have lots of ash for you tomorrow because we’ve been baking, so I’ll see you then.”
    She rushed to open the back door for him, and as quickly as he could he limped out of the kitchen. Only just in time, for a moment after the bolt was slid home again he heard the sharp voice of Idris’s mother calling her.
    He ate almost all the food, leaving a little to stop his father complaining when he came back later, and then lay down on the blanket which was the only bed he had. He stared into the darkness for a long time before he fell asleep; when he did doze off, he dreamed that he was riding a horse and waving a long black and red banner on a pole