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Acknowledgments
Gaye Godfrey-Nicholls of Inklings Calligraphy Studio provided expert guidance on all aspects of scribing. John Aris helped me with the Latin invocation. The members of my writers’ group assisted me through this book’s bumpy road to completion, sharing practical advice, moral support and strong coffee. My multiskilled family helped with everything from brainstorming to proofreading. My editors, Anne Sowards at Penguin, Julie Crisp at Tor UK, and Mary Verney at Pan Macmillan Australia, worked cooperatively to produce a single editorial report, making my life much easier. My agent, Russell Galen, continued to provide excellent support. A big thank you to all.
at a place where two tracks met, the carter brought his horse to a sudden halt.
“This is where you get down,” he said.
Dusk was falling, and mist was closing in over a landscape curiously devoid of features. Apart from low clumps of grass, all I could see nearby was an ancient marker stone whose inscription was obscured by a coat of creeping mosses. Every part of me ached with weariness.“This is not even a settlement!” I protested. “It’s—it’s nowhere!”
“This is as far west as your money takes you,” the man said flatly. “Wasn’t that the agreement? It’s late. I won’t linger in these parts after nightfall.”
I sat frozen. He couldn’t really be going to leave me in this godforsaken spot, could he?
“You could come on with me.”The man’s tone had changed.“I’ve got a roof, supper, a comfortable bed. For a pretty little thing like you, there’s other ways of paying.” He set a heavy hand on my shoulder, making me shrink away, my heart hammering. I scrambled down from the cart and seized my bag and writing box from the back before the fellow could drive off and leave me with nothing.
“Sure you won’t change your mind?” he asked, eyeing me up and down as if I were a prime cut of beef.
“Quite sure,” I said shakily, shocked that I had been too full of my woes to notice that look in his eye earlier, when there were other passengers on the cart. “What is this place? Is there a settlement close by?”
“If you can call it that.” He jerked his head in the general direction of the marker. “Don’t know if you’ll find shelter. They’ve a habit of huddling behind locked doors at night around here, and with good reason. I’m not talking about troops of armed Normans on the road, you understand, but . . . something else.You’d far better come home with me. I’d look after you.”
I slung my bundle over my shoulder. On the tip of my tongue was the retort he deserved:
I stooped to examine the weathered stone, keeping a wary eye on the carter. He wouldn’t attack me, would he? Out here, I would scream unheard. The stone’s inscription read
I headed off along the misty track to Whistling Tor. I had hoped to reach the settlement quite quickly, but the path went on and on, and after a while it began to climb.As I made my way up, I could see through the mist that I was walking into ever denser woodland, the dark trunks of oak and beech looming here and there above a smothering blanket of bushes and briars. My shawl kept catching on things. I wrenched it away with my free hand, the other holding tight to my writing box. I stumbled. There were odd stones on the path, pale, sharp-edged things that seemed set down deliberately to trip the unwary traveler.
The last light was fading. Here under the trees, the shadows and the mist combined to make the only safe speed a cautious creep. If only I were not so tired. I’d been up at first light after an uncomfortable night spent in the rough shelter of a drystone wall. I’d walked all morning. At the time, the carter had seemed a godsend.
Footsteps behind me. What now? Hide in the cover of the trees until the person had passed? No. I had made a promise to myself when I fled Market Cross, and I must keep it.
