The stream begins in a park near the military school on the outskirts of the medieval Saxon-built town of Sibiu. It burbles through grassy meadows and pine forests as nearby roads turn to dirt tracks and dignified nineteenth-century homes yield to occasional thatched huts and sheds. On a sun-dappled Sunday afternoon families play in the park. From time to time lovers vanish down the path, escaping from prying eyes in the rows of gabled houses and shops within a double ring of huge stone walls that were thrown up seven centuries ago to ward off the Tatars. "People here are afraid," says the young woman, a schoolteacher. She is perched on a walkway atop one of the outer walls. Beneath us ancient churches and towers shadow the town's twisting streets. "You don't know our rules."