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I approached the rock. It was a perfect disc, a full hand-span across and flat on top and bottom, heavy on my one palm. What I could see was featureless, an even grey, but as I picked it up I saw flecks of green in the stone, malachite or chrysoprase. I turned the stone over. On the other side, as flat as the first, the green flecks formed letters, not bonded on but an integral part of the rock itself. Maggie, reading the impossible lettering over my shoulder, gasped.
    DANGER – LEAVE NOW – MC

6
     
    Mother Chilton. She must have known where I was – for how long? That fragile web of women who ‘studied the soul arts' with varying degrees of skill, how far did it extend? Was there someone here in Applebridge, someone I saw every fortnight ...
    Maggie said, ‘It's from ... from ...'
    ‘Yes. Jee, were you outside when this stone fell down the chimney?'
    ‘Yes.'
    ‘What did you see?'
    ‘Naught.' The boy touched each of his eyes and squeezed them shut, the country folks' charm against witches. And yet he knew what I was.
    ‘Nothing?' I said. ‘Think hard, Jee!'
    ‘Naught. Except ...'
    ‘What?'
    ‘There be a hawk, circling high up.'
    I hefted the stone – too heavy for a hawk to carry, especially ‘high up'.
    Maggie had recovered from her shakiness. She had always respected Mother Chilton, the ‘great apothecary', and now her fear of Mother Chilton's message catapulted Maggie into what was most natural to her, getting things done.
    ‘We can leave within the hour, Peter. I'll pack food. Jee, fill that old water bag from the cupboard under the stairs, and mind that you rinse it out three times first. Then roll up our winter cloaks as tight as you can and bind them with the string from the peg in the kitchen. Peter, you should— Oh, what about the animals? I don't think we can take them with us, although maybe if you kill a chicken – no, two – I'm sure there's time ...'
    I put my one hand on her shoulder and turned her to face me. No avoiding this battle. As Jee ran off to do Maggie's bidding, I took a deep breath.
    But she was there first. ‘No, Roger,' she said quietly, using my true name. ‘You can't leave me behind. Nor Jee, either. There are savages in that army who will recognize me. They captured me once before in order to get to you, remember? If the Young Chieftain is as smart as you say he is, then he will use those men again. I am in as much danger as you. And so is Jee. You can't leave us behind, even though—' and being Maggie, she could not leave off the last phrase ‘—even though you want to.'
    Yet last night she had argued that none of us would be recognized. Still, she was right on both of today's points. The Young Chieftain would use her, as his father had, to get to me. And I wanted to leave her and Jee behind.
    Her face had the crumpled, defiant look it got whenever we alluded to our living arrangements. Not for the first time, I wished that Maggie did not feel so compelled to name hard truths. I capitulated – for now.
    ‘Maggie, you said yourself that we have little time. We are all three going, and within the hour. Pack the food and I'll kill the chickens. We must be away before anyone comes to the inn.'
    She nodded vigorously and sped into the kitchen, where I could hear the rattle of pots and slamming of keeping-box covers. I strode outside, caught two chickens, killed and blooded them. All I could do for the sheep was open the door to their shed and hope that they would wander to pasture and into some farmer's flock, or that an inn patron would find us all gone and take them, along with the rest of the chickens.
    Within the half-hour we had left the inn, slipping into the wooded slope behind the cottage. Shadow followed. When we were deep enough into the woods to not be seen, Jee stopped and said, ‘Where be we going?'
    A reasonable question. The child looked at me expectantly, and with some pride. Jee, snarer of rabbits and gatherer of nuts and berries, knew the countryside