The two women left the laboratory in a dizzy, drunken stumble. Rosetta helped Mandy as far along as the Elder's door, kissed her gently, and giggling, gave her a shove up the stairs.

Hiccuping lightly still, Mandy clambered up the ladder into the loft. Drenched there both in moonbeams and in sweat, sat Boukey. He was trembling in the warm of the evening, and eyes wide, mouth speechless, he stared at her.

Mandy pulled the blankets back, and re-arranged the pine boughs. She curled her feet beneath her and brought the Green Man's head to her shoulder. They would wait for sunrise together.

Her mind drifted, in its half-drunken state, to the events of the evening and the wealth of song in Rosetta's care. To Farkin, and the massive loss in her heart of a dear friend. Of the many times his cool demeanor had kept her Mandolan temper under wraps, and the blue eyes that lost their glow, now lying blank and still on the chemists table.

'Well met, well met my own true love
Well met, well met cried he
I've just returned from the south, south sea
And it's all for the love of thee
Well I could have married the king's daughter, dear
She would have married me
But I've forsaken all her gold
And it's all for the love of thee
Well if you could have married the king's daughter, dear
Then you should have married she
For I have married a young carpenter
And a nice young man is he
Well if you forsake your house carpenter
And come along with me

I'll take you to where the grass is growing green
To the banks of Sicily
She picked up her tender little faces
And kisses gave him one, two, three
Stay at home, stay at home, my tender little face
And keep your lover company
They hadn't been at sail but on two weeks
I know it was not three
When this fair lady began to weep
She wept most bitterly
Are you weeping for your house?
Are you weeping for your stores?
Or are you weeping for your house carpenter
Who never you'll see no more?
Oh I'm not weeping for my house,
Nor am I weeping for my stores
I'm weeping for my tender little babe
Who I left sitting on the floor'