to stubs, and then left to smoke listlessly in their rusted cradles. Only the waning brightness of the stars overhead marked the slow passage of the hours, and they, for the better part of the night, had been cloaked behind drifting banks of opaque mist.
Dampness and cold were Servanne’s only companions. Biddy had fallen fast asleep within an hour of her declared tenacity. Apart from the odd restless nicker from the horses and the contented snores of the men who had made their beds on piles of old rushes, there was only the occasional hiss and crackle from the dying fires to break the leaden silence.
Slowly, however, the gloom and shadow that had enveloped the abandoned abbey distilled to a murky, half-lit dawn. The mist began to receed into the forest. Figures and objects, smothered by darkness, slowly took shape and substance again and, responding to some inner timepiece, the huddled figures began to stretch and yawn, and push knuckled fists into crusted, bleary eyes. A round of coughing and spitting bestirred the dogs, who took up where they had left off the night before rooting in the rushes in search of food scraps. The men greeted one another, some groaning over swollen heads and sour tongues, some exchanging ribald complaints over other stiffened, ill-exercised joints. Somewhere a goat bleated and an ax bit into wood. Beyond the stone walls, a flock of birds were startled out of their rookery and rose above the gaping, scorched beams in a screaming black cloud.
Sparrow came swooping down out of nowhere, landing with a whoop and cry that nearly sent Biddy tumbling sideways off her log stool.
“You said you did not want to sit,” he chirruped good-naturedly to Servanne. “Did you also mean you did not care to wash or clear away the night vapours?”
Servanne was too weary to take offense at his humour. “I would like very much to refresh myself.”
“Follow me, then. Follow me.”
Biddy’s stiffened joints creaked and cracked as she tried to heave herself to her feet, and with Servanne’s help, she finally managed. Moving was another matter entirely and she scooted her mistress on ahead while she followed at a slower, more cautious gait.
Sparrow led them out into the courtyard and around to the rear of the stone buildings. Here, the thick outer wall had once boasted a low postern gate through which the monks could enter or leave the grounds without disturbing the main gates. The entryway was all but overgrown by weeds and thick ropes of ivy, but a space had recently been hacked through the bramble and it was there Sparrow paused, grinning back at Servanne as he beckoned her through the gap.
For a brief, lack-of-sleep-induced moment, she thought the little man was helping her escape.
The spurt of newfound energy the thought triggered lasted only until she was on the other side of the wall and saw the path that led into the greenwood. Returning to the abbey along the path were the two women she had seen the previous night, both of them carrying full buckets of water.
“The cistern inside the abbey has gone dry,” Sparrow explained, ignoring Biddy’s muffled oaths as she fought off a web of vines that had fallen on her. “But there is a sweet stream just ahead. Follow me. Follow me.”
He danced cheerfully into the deeper woods, his stubby hands fluttering as he pushed aside the saplings and pale green fronds that overgrew the pathway. He kept chattering to himself, or singing—Servanne cared less which. Nor did she care that the air was fresh and cool, tinged with the pungent smell of evergreen, or that their footsteps made very little sound on the rich, loamy earth they walked on. So absorbed was she in her own misery, she did not see Sparrow halt. A sharp cry and quick hands saved them both from tumbling headlong over a ten-foot drop of rock that marked the abrupt end of the path.
To the left was a steep, rounded escarpment which rose to a high, bare promontory of jagged rock. Silhouetted against the metallic blue of the morning sky was the outline of a man, undoubtedly a sentry, who, from his elevated position, would be able to see a fair distance in all directions. Halfway down the rocky escarpment, a wide smooth sheet of water flowed out of a fissure in the wall, streaming over a series of moss-covered ledges, cut like steps into the curve of the cliff. It collected in a deep