Cadal was holding well back; I could hear the thud of the mare’s hoofs like a heavy echo of my pony’s canter. The small rain had stopped, and the air was fresh and cool and resinous with the scent of pines. A woodcock flighted overhead with a sweet whispering call, and a soft tassel of spruce flicked a fistful of drops across my mouth and down inside the neck of my tunic. I shook my head and laughed, and the pony quickened his pace, scattering a pool of mist like spray. I crouched over his neck as the track narrowed, and branches whipped at us in earnest. It was darker; the sky thickened to nightfall between the boughs, and the forest rolled by in a dark cloud, wild with scent and silent but for Aster’s scudding gallop and the easy pacing of the mare.

Cadal called me to stop. As I made no immediate response, the thudding of the mare’s hoofs quickened, and drew closer. Aster’s ears flicked, then flattened again, and he began to race. I drew him in. It was easy, as the going was heavy, and he was sweating. He slowed and then stood and waited quietly for Cadal to come up. The brown mare stopped. The only sound in the forest now was the breathing of the horses.

“Well,” he said at length, “did you get what you wanted?”

“Yes, only you called too soon.”

“We’ll have to turn back if we’re to be in time for supper. Goes well, that pony. You want to ride ahead on the way back?”

“If I may.”

“I told you there’s no question, you do as you like. I know you don’t get out on your own, but you’re young yet, and it’s up to me to see you don’t come to harm, that’s all.”

“What harm could I come to? I used to go everywhere alone at home.”

“This isn’t home. You don’t know the country yet. You could lose yourself, or fall off your pony and lie in the forest with a broken leg—”

“It’s not very likely, is it? You were told to watch me, why don’t you admit it?”

“To look after you.”

“It could come to the same thing. I’ve heard what they call you. ‘The watchdog’.”

He grunted. “You don’t need to dress it up. ‘Merlin’s black dog’, that’s the way I heard it. Don’t think I mind. I do as he says and no questions asked, but I’m sorry if it frets you.”

“It doesn’t—oh, it doesn’t. I didn’t mean it like that . . . It’s all right, it’s only . . . Cadal—”

“Yes?”

“Am I a hostage, after all?”

“That I couldn’t say,” said Cadal woodenly. “Come along, then, can you get by?”