with the bit between his teeth. We have to do with bishops andcanons,” said Mark severely, “and they can be troubleenough. Pray to be spared any worse encounters.” But he didnot sound too convinced. The ride had brought colour to his thin,pale face and a sparkle to his eyes. Mark had been raised with farmhorses, slaving for the uncle who grudged him house-room and food,and he still rode farm fashion, inelegant but durable, now that thebishop’s stable had provided him a fine tall gelding in placeof a plodding farm drudge. The beast was nutbrown, with a lustrouscopper sheen to his coat, and buoyantly lively under such a lightweight.

They had halted at the crest of the ridge overlooking the lushgreen valley of the Dee. The sun was westering, and had mellowedfrom the noon gold into a softer amber light, gleaming down thestream, where the coils of the river alternately glimmered andvanished among its fringes of woodland. Still an upland river here,dancing over a rocky bed and conjuring rainbows out of its sunlitspray. Somewhere down there they would find a night’slodging.

They set off companionably side by side, down the grassy trackwide enough for two. “For all that,” said Cadfael,“I never expected, at my age, to be recruited into such anexpedition as this. I owe you more than you know. Shrewsbury ishome, and I would not leave it for any place on earth, beyond avisit, but every now and then my feet itch. It’s a fine thingto be heading home, but it’s a fine thing also to be settingout from home, with both the going and the return to look forwardto. Well for me that Theobald took thought to recruit allies forhis new bishop. And what is it Roger de Clinton’s sendinghim, apart from his ceremonial letter?” He had not had timeto feel curiosity on that score until now. Mark’s saddle-rollwas too modest to contain anything of bulk.

“A pectoral cross, blessed at the shrine of Saint Chad.One of the canons made it, he’s a goodsilversmith.”