Morgana laughed again. "If that's what you love best, you'll ne'er want for it with him, that's certain. If he e'er goes quiet, worry. He's either sick, dead, or planning mischief."

"Well, I don't fool myself that this is going to last forever," Cara answered. "I like to stay in one place. He gets itchy heels. He's good enough company for right now, though," she explained. "He's patient enough with my idiosyncrasies. Maybe because he has his own, but whatever the reason; it's hard to find someone who doesn't mind all my quirks."

"I have noticed," Morgana said, only half-joking, "that Jochy likes people who stay still. Perhaps because he has no roots of his own and knowing that people will stay where he left them makes him feel safer. Of course going by that it's only a matter of time before he starts to like me."

Cara laughed. "I thought he did like you," she replied. "Not in the wants-to-tear-off-your-knickers way, but he genuinely respects you and cares about what you think."

She shook her head and said, matter-of-fact and resigned, "I think he is a little afraid of me."

"Why?" Cara asked. "Because you're smarter than he is? He has problems with people who are smarter than him. Especially women."

"I don't believe it's women in particular, so much as anyone cleverer than him. As far as I go, I think he's wary of me because he doesn't know what I might want of him. I don't think he realises yet that I'm not going to ask for a favour someday."

"Really?" Cara asked. "I can tell that about you. You're not the type to ask for people to return favors. You'd ask if you needed something, but you're more of a...well, whoever needs, those who have help."

"You make it sound kinder than it is," Morgana said, a little shyly. "The way I see it . . . I can't very well put a price on someone's life, so how could I possibly guess what they should pay? If I had to put a figure on it, people would owe me their lives, and I don't want them, so it's easier to forget the whole matter."

Cara smiled slightly. "I think you make it sound more mercenary than it is," she answered. "You don't sit there trying to calculate, but even if you could, you wouldn't."