She yanked a small purse from her neck. “Take this, for food and shelter, and give the rest to Carwyn. Dylan will see to your safety, and I will join you soon.” Leaning toward Genith, she managed a clumsy embrace. “Go now. Dylan, my sister’s future and honor are in your hands. I want your oath to protect her with your life.”

Dylan swore as she asked. He turned toward the hill, and gently called for Genith to ride ahead of him.

Genith hesitated, and turned soulful eyes on Nesta. “I know that this is no different from leaving you at the village, but it saddens me more. If something happens, and we do not see each other again—”

“We will be together again soon.”

“It could be many years—”

“Nonsense, sister—”

Genith placed her fingers on Nesta’s mouth, silencing her. Eyes tearing, she had her say. “It could be many years. Do not deny me these words to you. I love you very much, Nesta, and I will always cherish this time we have had together. For a short while it was like the old days, and I would have gladly kept Sir Marcus dangling for another month to preserve it a bit longer.”

Nesta smiled ruefully. “It was our misfortune that Sir Marcus does not dangle so well, eh?”

Despite her tears, Genith had to laugh at that.

Dylan waited twenty paces away, looking to the hills and not them. Nesta swallowed her emotion and patted Genith’s hand. “Go now, before he has two wailing women to deal with.”

Reluctantly, and with many long looks over her shoulder, Genith rode over to Dylan. They filed up the hill, the long fur cape sweeping like a train behind the mule’s tail, smoothing the snow behind them.

Nesta watched as their forms grew small and hazy through her filming eyes. Her mind’s eye saw her sister as an infant and a little girl, and she felt again the small arms hugging her during the night.

At the crest of the hill, Genith stopped and once more looked back.

Nesta had to be the one to break that poignant connection. Turning, she headed back into the vale, making sure that she rode over their tracks to confuse the evidence.

At the point where they had turned to the hill, she removed her cloak and tied it to her horse just as Dylan had tied the fur to his mule, only she draped it so that some of her horse’s prints would show. Hopefully, if Marcus followed today, he would assume that a faulty attempt had been made to cover the tracks of three horses, and that a few still survived.

Kicking her horse, she trotted down the vale. Two hundred paces along, she pulled up and added one final touch. She took Genith’s veil, and snagged it low in a bush.