Under the slam of hoofs the ground broke, crumbled, and slid into the water. The horse fell, pitching his rider sideways into the river. The doe, untouched, flew the broken bank like a bird and was soon lost in the trees on the far side, while the hunting party, breaking from the woods a few moments later, found their hounds circling at a loss at the water’s edge, and Alexander’s big chestnut floundering up the river bank.

Alexander himself lay still where he had been flung, half in the rush of water, half on the stony rubble of the broken bank.

16

Alexander woke to a headache, a sharp pain in the left foot, and a nagging soreness in the left forearm. He was in bed, and it was dark, but a candle burned beside the bed, and its little light showed him that he was back in the bedchamber in the Dark Tower where he had slept last night. Last night? He felt drowsy, and slightly sick, with a heaviness in his limbs that set him wondering how long he had slept, or indeed – as the wraiths of dream still hung about him – whether he had ever ridden out from the place at all. The candle-light swam against his eyes. He shut them, and slid into sleep again.

When he awoke it was to daylight, and the click of the door-latch. The door opened to admit a stout woman with a basket over her arm and a beaker in one hand. She was followed by the boy who had served him yesterday, carrying a steaming bowl and an armful of linen towels.

“Well, and so you’re with us again!” The woman spoke with a sort of familiar, almost professional cheeriness. From this, and from her plain dress and amply aproned figure and the white wimple hiding her hair, it was a good guess that she had been nurse to a couple of generations, at least, of the owners of the castle. She dumped her basket on the table. “And in more ways than one, young master! You thought you’d got away from us, didn’t you, and found it wasn’t quite as easy as that! Eh, well, you were lucky they found you so soon. You’ll come to no harm, but you’ll have to bide a few days, and let old Brigit look after you … Here, drink this. Can you sit up? That’s right … Put the bowl down here, Peter, and get the other things set out for me. Quickly now! Come along, young master, all of it … Done you good already, by the looks of you. If you could have seen yourself yesterday morning when they brought you in from the river, like a drowned corpse you were, as white as wax and with that black bruise on your face and the blood, and dripping with water as cold as snow-broth –”

“The river?” The word brought the beginnings of memory. He put his good hand to his head, winced at the touch, and said anxiously: “My horse? He took a toss. There was a deer … That’s right, a doe jumped into the road. Is he hurt?”