Blessing snorted and, kicking, came awake. “Put me down!”

Anna twisted. “Your Highness! I pray you! Keep still. Your Highness! I am with you.”

“Don’t fight,” said the one called Frigo, getting hold of the girl’s ear and pinching.

She shrieked, a sound that ought to have woken the dead and certainly made every man there clap a hand over an ear as she sucked in air to shriek again. Without the slightest expression of anger or pleasure, Frigo tweaked her ear a little farther and she subsided into coughing and mewling. He let go, and she stayed quiet.

The archway of light sprayed fountains of sparks as Lord Hugh strode out of the circle of stones. Twilight shrouded him, but it was lightening quickly. He counted his party, nine soldiers and two prisoners, before turning to survey the crown. It had ten stones standing in eerily perfect order, as if recently raised.

“Where are we, my lord?” asked Frigo as Blessing sucked on her little finger and stared at Hugh with a look meant to slay.

‘According to my map, we are many days east and somewhat north of Darre, but south of the latitude of Novomo.” He consulted his memory; Anna could tell by the way his gaze went vacant as though he were looking at something inside himself. ” ‘Four leagues beyond Siliga, eleven stones.’ “

He marked each stone and gestured toward a vast tangle of bramble that lay a stone’s toss east of the circle just where the hillside had collapsed. Beyond, the land sloped down into a coastal plain. Anna thought she could see water to the south beyond a desiccated landscape of pale grass and stands of paler bush, which were almost white, like stalks of slender finger bones.

“There must be a stone there,” Hugh said.

Scarred John dismounted to investigate. The presbyter lifted the golden disk. He fussed with it, moving one circle on top of another, turned a crooked bar on the back, sighted toward the eastern horizon, read—lips moving—from the back, then shook his head. After this, he fished in the pack he wore, withdrew a square of waxed canvas, wrapped the disk up inside, and returned it to the pouch.

‘Are we lost, my lord?” asked Frigo.

“I hope so,” muttered Blessing.

“My lord! There is a stone under these brambles!” shouted John, withdrawing his spear from the mass of vines and thorns.

“We are not lost,” said Hugh. “We are exactly where I hoped to be. I only wish to know what day. According to my earlier calculations we should have lost three days in the passage. Yet I can’t be sure. So be it. From here we ride east.”

They nodded.

“Where are we going?” Blessing demanded.

Hugh looked at her, nothing more. Anna shivered, not liking the weight of his gaze. He was capable of anything. Blessing hadn’t seen Elene murdered. Better, for now, not to mention it to the girl. It was hard to know how Blessing would react.