here, but it all had a defeating sameness. As long as there was snow she could follow their footprints and hoof-prints. She would have to come back alone before it melted and mark the trail with notches or scraps of cloth or something. Or breadcrumbs, like Hansel and Gretel.
It was easy to see how they, and Snow White, and the princes, had got lost in the woods. They had only gone a few hundred meters and already, looking back, Kivrin wasn’t sure which direction the road lay, even with the footprints. Hansel and Gretel could have wandered for months and never found their way back home, or found the witch’s cottage either.
Father Roche’s donkey stopped.
“What is it?” Kivrin asked.
Father Roche led the donkey off to the side and tied it to an alder tree. “This is the place.”
It wasn’t the drop. It was scarcely even a clearing, only a space where an oak tree had spread out its branches and kept the other trees from growing. It made almost a tent, and under it the ground was only powdered with snow.
“Can we build a fire?” Agnes asked, walking under the branches to the remains of a campfire. A fallen log had been dragged over to it. Agnes sat down on it. “I am cold,” she said, poking at the blackened stones with her foot.
It hadn’t burned very long. The sticks were barely charred. Someone had kicked dirt on it to put it out. Father Roche had squatted in front of her, the light from the fire flickering on his face.
“Well?” Rosemund said impatiently. “Do you remember aught?”
She had been here. She remembered the fire. She had thought they were lighting it for the stake. But that couldn’t be right. Roche had been at the drop. She remembered him leaning over her as she sat against the wagon wheel.
“Are you sure this is the place where Gawyn found me?”
“Aye,” he said, frowning.
“If the wicked man comes, I will fight him with my dirk,” Agnes said, pulling one of the half-charred sticks out of the fire and brandishing it in the air. The blackened end broke off. Agnes squatted next to the fire and pulled out another stick and then sat down on the ground, her back against the log, and struck the two sticks together. Pieces of charred wood flew off them.
Kivrin looked at Agnes. She had sat against the log while they made the fire, and Gawyn had leaned over her, his hair red in the fire’s light, and said something to her that she couldn’t understand. And then he had put the fire out, kicking it apart with his boots, and the smoke had come up and blinded her.
“Have you remembered you?” Agnes said, tossing the sticks back among the stones.
Roche was still frowning at her. “Are you ill, Lady Katherine?” he asked.
“No,” she said, trying to smile. “It was just … I’d hoped that if I saw the place where I was attacked, I might remember.”
He looked at her solemnly a moment, the way he had in the church, and then turned and went over to his donkey. “Come,” he said.
“Have you remembered?” Agnes insisted, clapping her fur mittens together. They were covered with soot.
“Agnes!” Rosemund said. “Look you how you have dirtied your mittens.” She pulled Agnes roughly to her feet. “And you have ruined your cloak, sitting in the cold snow. You wicked girl!”
Kivrin pulled the two girls apart. “Rosemund, untie Agnes’s pony,” she said. “It is time to go gather the ivy.” She brushed the snow off Agnes’s cloak and wiped ineffectually at the white fur.
Father Roche was standing by his donkey, waiting for them, still with that odd, sober expression.
“We’ll clean your mittens when we get home,” she said hastily. “Come, we must go with Father Roche.”
Kivrin took the mare’s reins and followed the girls and Father Roche back the way they had come for a few meters and then in another direction that brought them almost immediately out onto a road. She couldn’t see the fork, and she wondered if they were farther along the road or on a different road altogether. It all looked the same—willows and little clearings and oak trees.
It was clear what had happened. Gawyn had tried to take her to the manor, but she had been too ill. She had fallen off his horse and he had taken her into the woods and built a campfire and left her there, propped against the fallen log, while he went