"Sit by the fire," Giles said, pulling a coverlet across Bess's battered, peaceful face. "It's all over with her. She's gone to find her Jesus, and nothing else can be done. It's different with you. What happens to you depends on whether you're caught." Giles drew a breath. "Your stepfather's dead, isn't he?"

The boy nodded.

"I thought so. Otherwise you wouldn't have come here. He'd have tended her."

All of Joseph's hurt went into a single cry. "I'm glad I killed him!"

"I'm sure you are. But the fact is you're a murderer. Archer won't employ a murderer, and I can't say I blame him. Still —"

His voice softened; his pretense of sternness had been a failure. "I don't want to see you hanged or quartered, either. What can we do?" He started pacing. "They'll search for Joseph Moffat, won't they? All right, you'll be someone else."

The decision made, Giles inscribed a paper with a statement that the bearer, Joseph Hazard, a nephew, was on an errand of family business. After a moment's hesitation, Giles signed his own name, adding the words Uncle & Guardian and several flourishes beneath; the flourishes somehow lent it authenticity.

Giles promised to bury Bess in a Christian manner and insisted the boy could not afford to stay and help. Then, giving him two shillings and some bread tied in a kerchief, instructions about avoiding main roads, and finally a long, fatherly hug, Giles sent a bewildered Joseph Moffat out of the door and into the mist-grayed hills.

On a lonely road in Gloucestershire, something made Joseph pause and look up. The night was flawlessly clear, with thousands of stars alight. Eastward, above the roofline of a dairy barn, he saw a streak of white. Something afire, dropping very fast toward the earth.