It took him a day to search the first twenty cargo-filled wagons from top to bottom — time Bartolo could ill-afford to lose — first emptying out each cargo with the traders' reluctant help, then searching the wagon and moving on to the next.

Bartolo raged as he searched, knowing that every moment he spent with the wagons was taking Ella and Shani further away. He owed a debt to Miro, he knew. Bartolo had been asked to take care of his friend's sister, but the woman — that scratched Petryan! — had gotten to him, and he'd left the two women unprotected.

Only for a moment, but that was all it took.

The following day, when Bartolo had demanded to search the other twenty wagons, the wagon master, a broad-shouldered trader named Ingo Bacher, flatly refused, demanding compensation from Bartolo for the lost time — much of the cargo was perishable, he said. Bartolo had grinned, loosening his zenblade. He would give the man compensation; that was for certain.

At that moment a boy had run up to where the confrontation was about to get heated. He'd found something, he said. The boy led Bartolo deep into the forest that lined both sides of the road, pointing out the remnants of a fire that couldn't have been more than a day old.

Bartolo was no tracker, he was a swordsman, but he recognised the white rope that the Petryan woman, Shani, had used as a belt around her red robe. Bartolo's thoughts darkened. If either of the two captors had harmed Shani, or Ella, he would face the bladesinger's wrath.

The fire proved to Bartolo that his quarry wasn't with the wagons, and anxious to make up for lost time, Bartolo walked back to where Ingo Bacher stood frowning. "Sorry, trader, but you won't get anything from me. Tell your people they shouldn't consort with those barbarians from the Hazara Desert. Seek your compensation from Hermen Tosch."

Ignoring Ingo Bacher's reply, Bartolo passed the wagons that had escaped his search as he walked past.

Then something attracted his attention. Next to a wagon where an elderly woman in a black robe regarded him with cold dark eyes, he saw loose strands of golden hair, blowing gently in the breeze.

Bartolo knelt and picked up the lock of hair. "Ella," he murmured to himself.

Bartolo pocketed the lock of hair and put the white rope in his rucksack. He swiftly out-distanced the wagons, searching, zigzagging between the forest and the road, desperately searching for the women he'd been charged to find.

Now Bartolo sat alone at the dock in Castlemere, breaking his vigil of the ocean and looking on disconsolately as the wagons he'd left behind so long ago arrived to unload their cargo.

Three were unloaded at one ship, four at another. Two more vehicles were unloaded at a third ship, and eight at one huge cargo vessel. Bartolo squinted at one squat ship where only one wagon was unloaded.