I begin to sew, but my thoughts run like a wolf through a shifty wilderness of fears and hopes that have grown up in me. They bring me at length and inexorably to the Wolfsgate Valley, to the moment that I woke at the bottom of the cliff over which I had fallen, utterly bewildered.
After dusting myself off and gathering my wits as best I could, I set off for the rise I could see, but the ground sloped down and I soon lost sight of it. I walked for half an hour using the position of the sun to keep a straight course, trying to figure out what had happened. It was impossible that this wilderness was on an island in the midst of a city. No, somehow I was somewhere else. The only thing I could imagine was that the man, Ranulf, who had given me the stone circlet, found me unconscious at the bottom of the cliff and carried me in a boat to some remote place on the mainland.
It made no sense and yet there was no other explanation.
I noticed that the carved ring had grown tight about my upper arm and I was about to ease it down when I noticed a small track winding through the trees to my right. My heart leapt, for a path meant people and I set off at once upon it. Gradually it wended its way up into a dense copse of trees and though there was no sign of human habitation, it curved in the direction I had originally intended to go, and I felt sure that it would eventually bring me to the bare hill I had seen that would offer a better vantage point from which to study the terrain.
Half an hour later, I spotted a small clearing a little way down one side of the ridge, where there was a rough hut. A subsidiary path split off and ran down to the hut, which seemed as picturesque as an illustration in a children’s book as I drew closer. Then I saw a man sitting on a stool by the door, whetting the edge of an axe. This sight was alarming enough that I hesitated, but feeling sure he had already noticed me, I did not feel I could turn tail like a frightened rabbit, so after a slight pause, I continued on. When I came to a halt, I saw the whetting stone still a moment as the old man looked at me, then he went calmly on with his work.
The sound of the stone on the metal set my teeth on edge, but I was in no position to be finicky. ‘Excuse me, but I am lost,’ I said. ‘I wonder if you have a map and could show me where I am.’
He scowled at me, or maybe it was a smile. It was hard to tell in a face so seamed and leathery and sprouting great feathery tufts of hair from incongruous parts. It occurred to me belatedly that he might not understand English, so haltingly I began to translate my request into the language of the land, but the man wagged his head and said something to me in words that, if they bore any relationship to the language I had just spoken, must be distant. A dialect, I told myself, dismayed. But I smiled reassuringly and tried to convey by hand motions and mime that I needed to find a way out of the wilderness. The man looked suspicious and even offended as I persisted, my cheeks growing redder and redder, but suddenly he laughed uproariously.
Completely taken aback, I stopped and watched him bellow and rock and slap his knee until his mirth had run its course. Then he pointed to me and to a path that ran away from the clearing towards a heavily wooded hill. I tried to ask if the path led to a village, but the best I could get from him was that I must go that way and that I should not stray from the path. He made the latter very clear. I mimed that I was thirsty and hungry, but he shook his head sternly and showed three fingers to me. Then he pointed along the path again. I took the show of fingers to mean I must walk three kilometres to find what I needed, for surely he would not send me off on a three-hour walk without water. In any case there