The dogs were wary of an armed human. They waited for a few moments to make sure she really was coming after them, then broke and ran, at first into the field and then back into the woods.

She chased them for a while, making a lot of noise, but there was no chance of catching them on foot. So there was a strong possibility that if she left then they would come back, and Bel would still be vulnerable.

Clariel sighed, the longest sigh of her life. She stared up at the sky for a long, long time before finally starting to gather ferns for bedmaking. Combining the fern fronds with large armfuls of grass, cut ignominiously with Bel’s sword, she made two beds next to each other in a slight hollow between some exposed roots of the lone oak, and when they were ready, dragged Bel over and laid him down.

She found herself quite tenderly tucking his cloak over him, and drew her hands back. Was this the beginning of caring for someone? Of falling in love? If she let herself go would she become like the girls in Estwael, fussing over their lovers?

Clariel scowled at the notion and told herself she cared no more for Bel than she would for any wounded animal.

‘You could be a fawn and I’d treat you the same,’ she said to the sleeping Bel, somewhat belying her words by straightening out his legs so he would be more comfortable.

Bel did not answer, only shifting slightly in his sleep. Clariel lay herself down on her own bed, the sword at her side. She watched the stars and moon above, framed by branches, and listened to the small sounds of the forest and meadow return now the dogs were gone. The light breeze ruffling tree branches; a barking owl flapping overhead; a single small animal, probably a fox, coming close but not too close; the yip of that same owl over in the field as it caught a field mouse …

Slowly the tension that had been held inside her for all her time in the city drained out into the good soil beneath her bed of fern and grass. As Clariel let it go, sadness welled up, and tears began to slide down her cheeks – tears for her slain parents and tears for herself.

But she cried silently, without moving, and eventually exhaustion overcame emotion, and she went to sleep.

chapter twenty-one

hillfair, horses and dogs

Clariel woke first, just before the dawn, in that cool half-lit world where shapes begin to become clear again. Mist was already rising as the dew felt the warmth of the as-yet unseen sun. The sky was clear, with the promise of blue, and looked to be warm. Clariel got up, strapped Bel’s sword back on from where it had lain ready to hand, wrapped her cloak around herself, and went into the trees for her toilet.