“Armed!”
That got everyone’s attention. They all looked to the track leading west, the access point of the isolated farm to the main road.
“My lady,” Goswin said. But Angelet had already seen the same thing.
On the road, on a small rise so the sunlight shone behind him and turned him into a silhouette, was a black-clad knight on an equally black horse.
“Rafe,” she murmured. The image was so similar to the one she saw in her visions that she wondered if a seizure was imminent.
Then the horse reared once, and Rafe began to ride directly toward her.
Chapter 31
Earlier that day, the knightshad made one discovery very quickly—a group of boys ran toward Alric, shouting that one of their number couldn’t be found.
“We’ve been looking for ages!” one shouted.
Rafe asked, “Was it Goswin?”
“The new boy, yes!”
“Where did you see him last? Were there any others in the woods today?”
The boys conferred, and reported that a big man asked one of the boys the way to Cleobury, and if they were at hide and seek—which prompted the boy to start exactly that game. The man had been armed, and he was described as a giant.
“A stranger,” Alric said under his breath. “And a giant, if he’s bigger than Peter, as the guard described. He must have watched the boys playing and took Goswin when he was hiding during the game.”
“But where?”
The boys directed the knights to the area of the woods where the game had been played. There, they found evidence of several people walking. That led to a clearing, where they found signs that a whole group of people had been there, with horses and all.
“Too many riders,” Octavian said. “Too many to be hiding out in the woods, that is.”
“They were afraid to use the road this close to Cleobury,” Alric agreed. “We’ll have to track this backwards. They might have gone through Bournham without resorting to stealth. We’ll ask if a party of this size rode through today, and which direction.”
In the nearby village of Bournham, where Alric was very well known, several residents told him that a party of at least ten men came through in the morning, and then again later in the day.
“There were women too,” added Margaret Dyer, whose giant tubs of fabric dye sat in the yard of her business. She always saw who passed by, since her work kept her outside much of the day. “One or two, I think. Odd, for the men looked to be soldiers. They rode out the north way.”
Alric thanked her, and they rode on.
“North could be anywhere,” Octavian said. “They could be hours away by now.”
“We’ll keep looking till we find a reason to stop,” Rafe said. He hated to think that Angelet was getting further from him by the moment. Why had he wasted a whole morning talking to everyone but her?
“There’s a place I’ve got in mind,” Alric said suddenly. “If they’ve been following you, Rafe, they might have come across it. You wouldn’t have noticed on your ride here—you had other concerns.”
At Alric’s instruction, the three men rode toward the abandoned farm he told them about, one that had yet to gain another owner after two years of neglect. “They might be using it, if they needed to stay close for a few days.”
The knights rode on. Though anxious to reach their destination, Rafe still had the impression that someone was following them. He looked back often, but saw no one. He decided that he’d been trailed for so long he no longer had any ability to forget the feeling—he would simply have to get used to the creeping sensation of being followed for the rest of his life.
The bright sun crawled across the sky, then began to drop toward the horizon. Rafe felt that everything was taking too long. It took too long to discover Angelet’s absence. Too long to hear about Goswin. Too long to prepare to ride out.
Then, Alric pulled his horse to a stop where the road climbed a small rise, obscuring the other side. The others followed suit.
“The farm is up ahead, just beyond this hill. It’s possible they took Lady Angelet there.”
Octavian nodded, saying, “We should plan how to approach the place.”
