This delicacy crawled about in my belly, till I cursed myself, all the more since having noted Hwenit’s burned out witch-fire. For it had come to me, bit by bit, that if the island was hidden in haze and night, one bright bonfire atop it might yet serve as a signal for any eyes on the shore.

Hwenit had kept away from me all day, collecting her eternal bundles of herbs, ferns, weeds, thistles, thorns, and osiers, which she set to dry on little wicker frames about the tent. Her red cat stalked minute animal life through the grasses.

I had gathered earlier that a man would row over for them on the morrow, and to bring news to me, providing no danger from the hunt had shown itself on the mainland. I made a resolution that I would go back with him, whatever had or had not happened. To be stuck forever on a mile of wooded rock afloat in water was not to my taste.

In the middle of the afternoon, a scarf of wind blew up and a light drizzle dappled the island. Presently, the sky opened its doors.

The cat flew in the tent, disliking the sudden bath it had got. Soon Hwenit came running, her shawl over her head, and huddled in beside the cat.

I began thinking of the last cloudburst I had crouched through, in the lee of those limestone spurs, that day the wolf hunt caught up to me.

This rain was like an omen added to my former misgivings.

“Hwenit,” I said, “I am going down to the beach. Stay here.”

She gazed up through her hair at me.

“What do you look for?” she asked.

“My back is crawling. I feel the hunt is coming here, after all.”

“The city men?” Her eyes widened. Abruptly she whispered, “I lighted a fire on the rock!”

“Maybe someone saw, maybe not. I’ll watch for a while. In this rain any boat would have rough work coming in.”

“Mordrak,” she cried to me, “I could think only of him—of Qwef—it was to bind him I made the fire. Oh, I am a fool, and have endangered you.”

“No matter,” I said. “Probably it is some old woman of a fear got into me for no reason.”

But as I went between the trees, I recalled she had not liked me much the night before, and though I did not believe she intended to betray me, perhaps an angry mischief in the dark hidden part of her mind, “Light a big fire, and there is a means to thrash this pompous oaf.” For I had been pompous, and an oaf, for all I imagined myself so forbearing with her. Ride a girl, then tell her who else she might or must not ride with. Fine morality.

The tide was coming in, brown and pocked with rain. Through deluge and spray, I could pinpoint nothing moving on the water.

I waited among the sea wrack, on the slick sand where last night Hwenit and I had coupled. I waited there some minutes before I heard her scream in the wood.