We drove on to Three Trees Farm, which lay within the border of Silverlake, southeast of Whistling Tor. In this region Maenach had once been chieftain, Maenach whom Nechtan had viewed as a bitter enemy. Pigs unloaded, the farmer offered us mead and oatcakes and a chance to warm ourselves before his fire. It was plain that the carter intended to start straight back as soon as the simple meal was over.
“I’m not going with you,” I told him. “I must get to Whistling Tor as soon as possible. If there’s nobody who can take me, I’ll walk.”
The farmer, his wife and the carter all turned their heads to the half-open door, beyond which the rain was falling steadily.
“You’re crazy,” the farmer said.
“We could give you a bed for the night.” His wife sounded dubious. “But you won’t find anyone to take you to Whistling Tor today, tomorrow or any time soon. It’s not just the Normans. Nobody goes to that place.You know what they say about it.”
“That the chieftain is a misshapen good-for-nothing and that the hill is swarming with monsters and giant dogs?” I said, fighting to stay calm. “Yes, I know that; I lived at Whistling Tor all summer. I must get there. Isn’t anyone using the roads?”
They looked at each other, and I thought there was something they were not saying, or had been forbidden to say.
“What? What is it?”
“Nothing,” said the farmer.“We know nothing, except that if you head for Whistling Tor, you take your life in your hands. Fair warning.You’re not really planning to walk all the way?”
“I have no choice. How long do you think it will take me?”
If they believed me out of my wits, it did not stop them from offering help, and I blessed them for that. I set out from the farm with a thick felt cloak on top of my damp clothing.They gave me a strip of leather to tie around my writing box so I could sling it over my shoulder along with my pack, leaving my hands free.They gave me a walking stick and a packet of food. Best gift of all was a crude map of the path I must take, with landmarks scrawled in charcoal on a piece of birch bark. I sheltered it under my cloak against the rain. The farmer advised me to stop at one of the farms along the way and go on in the morning, since I had no chance of reaching Whistling Tor by nightfall. The moon would be near full, but with heavy cloud covering the sky it would not light my path. I did not say that I had no intention of stopping before I reached my destination. Never mind if night fell; never mind if there was no moonlight. Somehow I would find the way.
I walked through the afternoon and into the dusk. I walked on the road and, when I heard a body of horsemen approaching in the fading light, down beside it, under the cover of trees. I could not see the riders well, but as they passed I heard the jingle of metal and voices speaking a tongue unfamiliar to me. Reinforcements for the besieging army, perhaps. How could Anluan prevail against so many? I set my jaw and walked on. It grew dark. I followed the paler ribbon of the earth road; on either side, in the gloom, there might have been anything. Sudden steep rises; abrupt, perilous drops. Cattle, sheep, monsters. Old stories swirled in my mind, full of the menace of what lurked in the shadows beyond the light of hearth fires. I kept on walking. I would get there in time. I must get there in time.Why would the mirror show me what it had chosen to show, if only to draw me back to Whistling Tor after Anluan was dead?
When my feet ached and my back hurt, when the layers of damp clothing and the chill night air had begun to leach away my courage, when I could no longer pretend that I need not rest, I sank down in the shelter of a crumbling stone wall.The moment I stopped moving my knees began to shake. My head was dizzy. My fingers were so cramped I struggled to unfasten my bag. The clouds had thinned, and there was a suggestion of moonlight. I ate some bread and cheese from the package I’d been given and drank some water from my flask. It was too dark to tell if I was on the right track. It was too dark to read my birch-bark map.
I packed the remains of the food into the bag, my hands touching the edge of the mirror as I did so. “Now would be a good time to show me something useful,” I muttered.“A lamp, for instance, or a candle; something to light my way.” But I did not draw it out. That last vision was strong in my mind: Anluan’s gray face, his limp form; my bending, sorrowful figure holding him; and Muirne standing in the doorway with that odd, impassive look on her face. That look made my skin crawl. It was as if she had no understanding of right or wrong . . .
