The Girl and the Guardian

Gullquill was troubled. The Trader he had let out at midnight on ‘Urgent Business, a matter of Life and Death,’ as he had put it, disturbed him. There was a lean, hungry look on the man’s face, and also a shadow of fear. Now Gullquill couldn’t sleep, so he lit a candle and began to read the little book which Korman had given him, Poems of the Kortana. It comforted him greatly. ‘Almost I begin to believe that old Tímathian,’ he thought as he nodded off. Just then, there was a loud rap at the gates. ‘Who can it be now? If it is that Trader again, wanting to get back in, I’ll box his ears!’