“Aye, but not yet. There’s a place a little way from here, an old road-metal quarry. There’s trees there, growing thick, in out of the winds. Plenty of cover. It’s all we can do – get in there, and hope they’ll maybe pass by.”

“Or that they’re harmless travellers, and nothing to do with us?”

But on that desperate night, with the beat of hoofs hard behind the fugitives, it was not possible to believe it. She said no more until, in a very few minutes, Goren pointed ahead, and then she saw the thicker darkness of the quarry and its sheltering trees. They turned their horses in. Goren slid from the saddle, took the reins of the three horses, and led them deeper among the trees, then stood holding them with their heads against his body, muffling their nostrils in the folds of his cloak. The fugitives waited, still and tense. The approaching hoofbeats grew rapidly louder, then all of a sudden were upon them. No pause as they breasted the quarry; the headlong pace never slackened. The pursuit was going past.

Alexander, rousing more fully as Sara’s horse halted, and finding himself uncomfortably bundled up in a strange place in the dark, thrust his shawls aside with furious fists and gave a yell of rage and fright.

The gallop checked. The horses stopped with a slither and clatter and some command in an undervoice. Then they wheeled back across the mouth of the little quarry, and a man’s voice called out.

“Princess Anna?”

There was nothing for it. She cleared her throat and answered him. “Who is that? I know your voice, don’t I? Sadok?”

“The same, lady.”

“And your business with me?”

There was a pause as full of meaning as a shouted message. Then he said: “The king would not have you leave the court. He charges me to say that he is not your enemy. What happened tonight –”

“Sadok, do you know what happened tonight?”

Another pause, while the horses stamped and blew. She leaned over the bay’s neck and whispered hurriedly to Goren: “Let my rein go. I’ll go out and talk with them. Get back on your horse, and take the boy from Sara. They may not know you’re here with us, and there might just be a chance for you to get away, and the boy with you –”

“There’s just two of them, lady. I could hold them long enough –”

“No. No. Do as I say, but wait till I’ve spoken with them. Sadok was a friend of my lord’s. If there’s no help for it, and I’m forced to go with them, then leave Sara – they won’t hurt her – and save the boy if you can. You know where we were going. Keep him safely, and God go with you.”

“And with you, my lady.”

He drew back into the darkness, and to cover his exchange with Sara she raised her voice again: “Who is that with you, Sadok?”