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chilling temperatures followed. This year the villagers had at least finished gathering the harvest when he arrived.
    One villager didn't even see this onslaught, this precursor of winter. Icewind fever was seldom serious; those who suffered it usually spent two or three days with a cold, a sore chest and a headache. Leith, however, could not shake it off. The cough broke after three days, the fever dissipated, but still he stayed in bed. He seemed not to hear the often-expressed concern of his mother and, as his lassitude grew, answered conversation more and more seldom. For most of the time he lay quietly in front of the fire, eyes closed. The village Haufuth called in on organisational matters for the Midwinter festival, but even he failed to get a response from the youth.
    'It isn't natural!' the stout headman puffed, leaning on his staff, a recent affectation. 'He should be out and about, helping you get the house ready for winter, not lying about in bed. It looks like a long and hard winter this year. Had I known, I would have sent one of the young men around to give you a hand.'
    'Thank you, Haufuth,' the woman replied carefully. In the North March the elected village headman was always known as the Haufuth, for reasons long forgotten, and his birth-name was seldom used. 'To tell you the truth, Leith hasn't been the same since his father left. I'm sure he will be all right when Mahnum returns home.'
    The Haufuth frowned. 'But how long will that be? You have work to do before winter's heart.
    Your boy won't be able to lie about when the snow sits heavy on your unrepaired roof. And Kurr came in to see me yesterday. He tells me that Mahnum owes him a few days on the farm
    - I forget how many exactly - and asked me if Leith would do in his stead.'
    She stared at him, eyes cold, the familiar anger stirring within.
    'I've already agreed, Indrett,' he said, his forehead furrowed and his troubled eyes pleading with her. 'Please don't cause any trouble with old Kurr just now. You know how I need him for Midwinter. Without his mutton we just couldn't have a Midwinter. Please get Leith to go and work for him this week. For all our sakes.'
    Indrett nodded reluctantly. It was past time for stern words. She wasn't worried about Kurr; the old man was all smoke but no fire. In fact, she rather liked his hard-bitten manner. Better than the polite standoffishness she encountered daily at the market. But the village Haufuth could cause Leith a great deal of trouble if he desired. Perhaps the Haufuth was right. Perhaps she had been too soft on the boy. If only Mahnum was here ...
    'He'll be there,' she said flatly.

    'Good, good. Now, about Midwinter. The council have decided that this year we will have new masks. Would you be so good as to make the Snowmask and the Flowermask? You always do such good work.'

    'What about the Sumar?" Indrett believed in giving them their proper names: Snaer and Falla, not Snowmask and Flowermask. Sumar, not Sunmask. Strange, she reflected, that a woman from the civilised south would want to hold on to traditions the uncouth northerners seemed so careless about. Still, she would make no comment; it would be wise not to antagonise the village headman.
    'Herza is making the Sunmask this time. We thought that with Mahnum away, you wouldn't have time ...'
    'Of course I'll do it.' Indrett's quick answer covered his awkward¬ness.
    'Excellent, excellent!' the big man beamed. 'And we would so much like to see the reappearance of your honey cakes. They went so fast last year I never got to try even one.'
    In spite of herself, Indrett smiled. The appetite of the Haufuth of Loulea was legendary. Other villages could boast the quickest runner, the strongest woman or the fastest woodchopper, and these claims were put to the test when the villages gathered for Midsummer at Vapnatak. But Loulea was famous for the culinary capacity of its Haufuth, and this distinction had never been seri¬ously challenged. At the table,