She peered once more to the crest of the hill, half hoping to see Genith still there. Her sister was gone.

Misgivings and sorrow suddenly filled her. She had never anticipated how the cost of her promises would become such a burden, and how doing the right thing would bare her heart to lacerations and regrets. For months the excitement of laying her plans had stimulated her, but now, gazing at the spot where Genith had last been seen, a terrible heaviness filled her chest.

She battled the sorrow by reminding herself that this was all bigger than Genith or herself, or Marcus, or even the King. The happiness of one person meant very little in this world. Did a knight think about such things as he donned his armor to fight for his lord or his God? Had her father weighed his own comfort and life before raising his banner?

Nay. Nor would she be diverted by the womanish emotions overwhelming her now.

Dreams had their sacrifices, and quests had their dangers.

It was easy for Marcus to follow them. Within a few days he would know where Llygad’s men were. Once he did, those men would have no choice but to disband.

He looked to the high hills rising beyond the vale. If Dylan led them up there, it would become more difficult to follow, but he did not doubt his ability to do so.

He had learned to track men the only way it could be learned, by doing it. When he was eighteen a band of thieves had holed up on his lands, raiding villages and travelers. With his guardian Addis de Valence teaching him to see the small evidence left behind by men on horse or foot, he had led the small troop that caught them.

Dealing with those men had been the first judgment that he took completely on his own authority. A villager had been killed and his wife raped, and hanging those thieves had been just. Still, saying the words had been hard, as Addis had warned it would be.

That one of the thieves was his own age had made it harder. It had been like watching himself die. He might have ended that way if he had remained in the gutters of London. He knew too well how poverty could make a man fearless, and how one did not debate consequences when stealing bread or apples to ease the pain in one’s stomach.

It had been his first judgment, and his first executions, but also his first mercy. There had been a younger boy among them, old enough to hang to most men’s minds. That one he had spared.