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‘No!’

‘Yes This will be dangerous There’s soet into the yard behind Capricorn’s house’

The boy gazed at him with eyes full of astonishment Eyes that sometimes looked as if they had seen too er suppressed a sht I had any friends in Capricorn’s house!’

The boy shrugged his shoulders and looked over to the village A vehicle was driving into the car park, a dusty truck with two goats tethered on the open loading platforoats!’ ive them up freely, or there’d have been a note pinned to his stable door this evening’

Farid looked at him, an unspoken question in his eyes

‘The red rooster crows to Capricorn’sa dead rooster above the door Anyone can understand that’

‘Red rooster?’ The boy shook his head ‘Is it a curse or so?’

‘No! Good heavens, you sound like Basta’ Dustfinger laughed quietly Capricorn’sout of the truck The ss filled to bursting; the other was hauling the goats off the loading platforht in the farroves And sometimes the rooster crows in the attic of the house or, if a farmer has been particularly stubborn, in his children’s bedroo we love dearly’

The er knew by his limp that one of them was Cockerell He had often wondered whether Capricorn knew about all the little deals hisfor therasshopper in the hollow of his hand and watched it through his fingers ‘I’ with you all the same,’ he said

‘No’

‘I’m not afraid!’

‘That hts installed after the escape of his captives – outside the church, on the roof of his house and in the car park They didn’t exactly ht after their arrival here Dustfinger had stolen into the village, his scarred face blackened with soot because it was too easily recognisable Capricorn had also reinforced the guards on sentry duty, probably because of all the treasure Silvertongue had brought him By now, of course, that treasure had disappeared into the cellars of his house and was carefully locked in the heavy safes that Capricorn had fitted there He didn’t care to spend end, he hoarded it Soer, or put a necklace round the neck of a maid who happened to take his fancy Or he sent Basta out to buy hi to rasshopper go again It hopped rapidly away on its spindly olive-green legs

‘A woer ‘One of Capricorn’s maids She’s helped me a couple of times before’

‘The one in the photo in your rucksack?’

Dustfinger lowered his binoculars ‘How do you knohat’s in my rucksack?’