text: They made good progress as they trudged southward. Dunston had for a time contemplated setting snares and traps for their pursuers to stumble upon. He could rig traps that would injure them with sharpened stakes and sprung branches whipping forward when triggered by a clumsy footfall. But he quickly dismissed the idea as a waste of effort. To fashion such traps would take time and there was no way of knowing whether the men who followed would encounter them. He had seen nothing that made him believe they knew how to track them through the forest. And, encumbered by their valuable mounts, which would impede their progress through the foliage, he believed they would more than likely head to the main north–south road.
  
  For a long while, Aedwen had walked beside him in silence. Whenever he glanced at her he saw her face set in a determined mask. Something had changed between them, he knew, but he could do nothing to alter that. He thought of Eawynn and how she had always said he was a better man than others saw.
  
  "They see the great warrior," she had said. "I see the true man who hides behind his axe and fearsome face."
  
  He smiled to himself at the memory.
  
  "Fearsome am I?" he'd laughed, grabbing hold of her. She'd squirmed, pliant curves soft under his firm grip.
  
  Giggling, she had kissed him.
  
  "I do not see what frightens others," she'd said. "I only see my lovely bear of a man."
  
  As always when he thought of Eawynn, the memory of her stirred and warmed him, but all too soon, the bitterness of her loss returned and he frowned.
  
  Aedwen had seen in him what others had always seen. The warrior. The killer. The Wolf. He wondered whether the girl would ever believe that there was another side to his nature that only Eawynn had been able to coax from him.
  
  "Do you think they are close behind us?" Aedwen asked, breaking the silence between them and bringing him back to the present.
  
  They had walked for a long while. Dunston looked up at the sky that was visible between the limbs of the trees. The clouds had thickened and the warmth that the day had promised with the dawn had fled, replaced with a greying light and the scent of rain.
  
  "They might be," he replied, "but I do not believe so. They won't be able to bring their horses this deep into the woods and they will not wish to leave them." He paused, listening to the sounds of the forest. There was no indication they were being followed. "No. I think they will have gone on towards Tantun, or at least the road that leads from Exanceaster to Bathum."
  
  "If they have not followed us into the forest, how can they think to catch us?" she asked, hope of escape colouring her tone.
  
  "They might send men along the road in both directions, hoping to hear news of our passing or to spy us when we leave the woodland." He set off once again, wincing at the constant ache in his knee. It hurt more when he was still, but all the same, he longed to sit and stretch out before a fire. Not much chance of that any time soon. Aedwen trotted along beside him, her youthful energy bringing the hint of a wistful smirk to his lips. By God, he missed being young.
  
  "Won't they head towards Tantun?" she asked.
  
  "They may well do that. But I think that they will soon fathom out that we have gone south and there is only one reasonable destination for us in this direction. After all, they must know we either have the message or know of it, so we need to take it somewhere. Knowledge is useless if it is not shared."
  
  "And so we just plan to walk to Exanceaster and pray for the best?"
  
  He shrugged.
  
  "I would rather trust to our wits than rely on God to see us safe. We should head south of the town until we reach the River Exe. Then we can follow the river back to the walls of Exanceaster. In that way, with a bit of luck, we can avoid any prying eyes on the road."
  
  They walked on for a time, following the course of a small river until it widened into a broad expanse of water. Aedwen held her oaken staff as if she had been born with it in her hand and Dunston smiled as he watched her halt for a moment to casually inspect the tracks of an animal in the mud beside the lake. Days ago she would not have noticed the small marks. She turned to him, eyes bright and inquisitive.
  
  "What are these tracks?"
  
  "Look about you," he answered. "What animal do you think might have made them?"
  
  She gazed around her, forgetting about the men pursuing them, focusing solely on the matter at hand. Dunston lowered himself down, leaning his back against the trunk of a sallow. He turned his head this way and that, grunting as his neck popped. They needed to rest for a while and this place was as good as any. He pulled the ham and cheese from his bag, cutting off a slice and watching Aedwen as she thought.
  
  She knelt on the earth and inspected the tracks carefully and methodically, before looking back at him.
  
  "I don't know," she said. "I've never seen anything like this before. It looks as though a creature has dragged something behind it through the mud."
  
  He grinned and took a drink from his leather flask.
  
  "And so it has."
  
  "But what?" she asked, confused.
  
  "Animals do not only leave their prints in the earth," he said. "Look about you and take the time to really see. Think carefully and you will find the answer."
  
  She got up and went close to the pool. A dense tangle of spearwort grew at its edge, the yellow flowers bright against the green of the leaves.
  
  "Careful not to touch that plant," he called. "It will cause your skin to blister."
  
  Moving warily past the flowering spearwort, Aedwen looked about her.
  
  A large alder had fallen and its leafy boughs trailed into the still waters. Dunston broke the last of the smoked cheese into two pieces and ate his half. He was enjoying watching the girl discover the truth for herself. She moved to the toppled tree and touched the bright, fresh wood where its trunk had been split. Then she gazed out at the water, at last taking in that which Dunston had seen immediately.
  
  She turned, pointing to a mound of branches that rose from the water.
  
  "Is that where it lives?" she asked. Her face glowed with childish excitement.
  
  "It is," he said, returning her smile. "So what left the tracks?"
  
  "It is a beaver," she said. "The thing it is dragging behind is its tail."
  
  When he nodded, she clapped her hands with delight.
  
  After they had eaten, they continued on, leaving the beaver's dam and lodge behind them. Aedwen had been pleased with herself and Dunston had revelled in her simple pleasure. But their spirits were soon dampened when the rain that had been threatening to fall all morning finally began to waft down from the sky in a light, yet soaking drizzle. For a time, the tree cover kept them dry, but soon, the water trickled down to drench them. All about them the forest was dank, gloomy and wet. The birds that had filled the morning with song and cheer fell quiet and the only sound was that of the rain, pattering and dripping from leaf and limb. Where there were patches of open ground, the earth squelched underfoot.
  
  There was still no sign they were being followed, but their conversation of that morning nagged at Dunston. They had followed the course of the river for a time, but now they had left it behind. Dunston pointed to a hill in the distance.
  
  "Let us take a look at the land about from up there," he said, wiping the rain from his eyebrows and forehead.
  
  The hill was bare, save for a stand of yew on its crown. If he judged rightly, the Bathum to Exanceaster road would lie someway off to the west.
  
  "If we approach the rise from the east and head to the trees," he said, "we should get a good view of the road and the land to the north. Careful now, let us not be out in the open for too long."
  
  It was steeper than it had looked and they both slipped and slid on the wet grass. All the while he worried that they might be seen. He felt exposed and began to question his decision to climb up here. Too late for that now. There was nothing for it but to press on. As they got higher and could see the rain-swept wooded hills of Somersæte rolling away to the north, he was relieved to see no movement.
  
  Their clothes were sodden by the time they reached the shelter of the trees. After the exposed slopes of the hill, it felt almost warm beneath the branches.
  
  "We will rest here awhile," he said, panting from the struggle up the hill.
  
  They settled down under an old yew, beside the twisted skeletal remnants of a dead juniper bush. Old, brown needles crunched beneath them. They were wonderfully dry and it was good to be out of the rain even if only for a short time.
  
  Below them, they could make out the unnatural straight line of the road, a shadow like a spear haft plunged through the undulating verdant curves of the forest. They sipped at the water from their flasks and watched, each silent and anxious. As if to speak would somehow give away their presence on the hill.
  
  Thin trails of mist formed over parts of the woodland, like wisps of lamb's wool caught on thorns. Dunston drew in a deep breath, finally allowing himself to relax. He was rummaging in his bag, looking for the last of the ham, when Aedwen touched his arm. He followed her pointing finger. Far in the distance, where the road ran between two steep-sided hills, a great flock of birds was flapping into the misty sky, pale against the dark of the rain-slick leaves of the wood. His eyes were not as good as they had once been, but he thought the flock was a mixture of wood pigeons and doves.
  
  As he watched, he noticed that the air was clearer now, making it easier to pick out details from afar. The rain had stopped and the wet land shone in a sudden blaze of golden afternoon light.
  
  A croaking cry split the silence of the hill as half a dozen crows flapped into the sky from where they had been roosting on the branches of the yew trees.
  
  Cursing silently, Dunston peered up and saw that the clouds had parted, sending brilliant sunlight down upon the trees and hills of Wessex. A flash of silver, as bright and flickering as distant lightning, drew his gaze back down to the road. He squinted.
  
  "What is it?" he asked.
  
  For a moment, Aedwen did not speak.
  
  "I'm not sure how many," she replied at last, "but there are at least two horsemen down there on the road. The sun caught their horses' harness, I think."
  
  Dunston spat.
  
  "Riding south?"
  
  "Yes," Aedwen said without hesitation.
  
  By Christ's bones, he should not have brought them up here. He reached for her arm and pulled her back into the shade beneath the trees.
  
  "Come, we must leave this place."
  
  He led her through the copse, and then they proceeded to slip and slide down the southern slope, putting the hill between them and the riders on the road.
  
  "You think they saw us?" she asked, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
  
  "I do not know," he said. But he could not believe anyone could have missed the black-feathered crows that had taken to the wing above their vantage point. He hoped they were more foolish than he thought, but they would not have to be woodsmen to understand that something or someone had disturbed the birds from the trees.
  
  He glanced at Aedwen and could see from the set of her jaw that she was thinking the same thing. She did not protest when he urged them into a trotting run southward, away from the hill and back under the canopy of the forest.