I heaved a sigh, and got down on my hands and knees to peer under the dark tangle of branches. The gap between them and the ground was so low that I had to take off the pack, the stone sword and the bow and quiver and shove them through before crawling after them. Resuming my burdens on the other side, I grimaced at my muddy hands and was glad the knees of my trews were doubled.

An orchard of small fruit trees grew on the other side of the hedgerow in long meandering lines. I could just make out Maruman picking his way fastidiously along the wet, boggy lane between the hedgerow and the nearest apple trees.

I hurried to catch up to him, and then slowed down, grimacing at the loud squelching of the ground underfoot. Meanwhile Maruman had turned to cut across the rows of trees to the other side of the orchard, where there was a stone wall. It was not the high outer wall that surrounded Obernewtyn but a low inner wall, beyond which lay the remnant of the wild park that had once covered the whole area between the main house and the outer wall.

Maruman turned to follow the low wall towards the farms, and when I caught up to him, I realised the ground was higher along the side of the wall, and therefore drier. No doubt this was the way Maruman had entered the grounds to ensure he was not seen, and I wondered, as I ducked to avoid a long branch, if he and Darga had come to Obernewtyn together.

I thought of Gahltha, but resisted the impulse to farseek him, knowing that my sending would be overheard by other beasts between us. Maruman had said no one must know I was leaving and he had not specified humans. Most likely Maruman had already spoken to Gahltha, and the black horse was waiting beyond the wall.

As I slowed down to pick my way over a particularly hummocky patch of earth, I found myself remembering an encounter with Maryon in the days before the land for the orchard had been cleared. There had been a small clearing in the wilderness of old trees and tangled bramble thickets that grew between the outer wall and the stone maze wall, centred on an eroded stone seat dating back to the Beforetime. I had developed the habit of retreating there when I needed an hour or so to myself. One day I had been startled and somewhat indignant to find the Futureteller guildmistress there before me. I had thought no one else knew about the seat. Maryon had spoken to me that day as never before or since, recalling a childhood that had been shattered as brutally as my own by death and destruction.