Why had he lingered even so long? Why had he not left the day after the funeral? Why had he come here every day of the winter since then? A dead boy did not need him.

Was it that /he /needed the dead?

His smile - or grimace - became more twisted.

He did not need anyone or anything. He had spent his whole life cultivating such a detachment. His instinct for survival had demanded it of him. He had lived here most of his life. His mother and father, who had raised him here, their firstborn son, were lying in their graves just beyond Jon's. He did not look in their direction. So were numerous brothers and sisters, none of whom had survived early infancy - only he, the eldest, and Jon, the youngest. Strange irony, that. The two undesirables had survived.

But now Jon too was gone.

Soon there would be another man here in his place. "You will be able to do without me, Jon?" he asked softly.

He leaned forward and touched the hand that held the riding crop to the top of the headstone. It was cold and wet and hard and unyielding.

He could hear the approach of another horse - his own whinnied in greeting. His jaw tightened. It would be /him/. He could not leave him alone even here. Con did not turn. He would not acknowledge the man's presence.

But it was another voice that hailed him. "/Here /you are, Con." The voice was cheerful. "I might have guessed it.

I have been searching everywhere. Am I intruding?" "No." Con straightened up and turned to squint up at Phillip Grainger, his neighbor and friend. "I came here to celebrate good news with Jon.

The search has been successful." "Ah." Phillip did not ask /which /search. He leaned forward to pat his horse's neck and stop it from prancing about. "Well, it was inevitable, I suppose. But this is devilish weather in which to be standing around in a churchyard. Come to the Three Feathers and I'll buy you a mug of ale.