Across the river the further bank rose, sandy and steep,undercut here and there by the currents, and levelling off into anarrow plain of grass, with a rising ridge of bushes and treesbeyond. When they stepped from the boat they had some minutes ofwalking along this belt of pasture, and then they stood at thecorner of the Potter’s Field, and had the whole expanseobliquely before them.

It was a very fair place. From the sandy escarpment of the riverbank the slope of grass rose gradually towards a natural headlandof bush and thorn and a filigree screen of birch trees against thesky. Backed into this crest in the far corner the shell of theempty cottage squatted, its garden unfenced and running wild intothe embracing wildness of the unreaped grass. The crop Haughmondhad not found worth his while to garner was bleaching into earlyautumn pallor, having ripened and seeded weeks earlier, and amongthe whitened standing stems all manner of meadow flowers stillshowed, harebell and archangel, poppy and daisy and centaury, withthe fresh green shoots of new grass just breaking through the rootsof the fading yield. Under the headland above, tangles of brambleoffered fruit just beginning to blacken from red.

“We could still cut and dry this for bedding,” saidBrother Richard, casting a judicial eye over the wild expanse,“but would it be worth the labor? Or we could leave it to diedown of itself, and plough it in. This land has not been under theplough for generations.”

“It would be heavy work,” said Cadfael, viewing withpleasure the sheen of sunlight on the distant white trunks of thebirch trees on the ridge.

“Not so heavy as you might think. The soil beneath is