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and ask if these truants ever reached there, and whether they’ve moved on, and by what road. Six days it must be now since he parted from them, at Foxwood you said. If they came safely to the lands of Wenlock priory they may well have made their way either to Wenlock or Shrewsbury by now, and all the coil over them will be done. Then we can all breathe freely.”

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
    GODSTOKE, SUNK IN ITS DEEP, WOODED VALLEY BETWEEN THE HILLS, was held by the priory of Wenlock, a third of the manor fanned in demesne, the rest leased out to life tenants, a prosperous settlement, and well-found in stores and firing for the winter. Once over the bleak hills and into this sheltered place, a party of fugitives could rest and be at ease, and make their way onward at their own pace, moving from manor to manor of the prior’s wide-ranging properties.
    But these fugitives had never reached Godstoke. The prior’s steward was quite certain.
    “We got word already they were being sought, and though we had no great call to suppose they would be heading this way, any more than by Ludlow or any other road, I’ve had inquiry made everywhere. You may take it as sure, brother, that they did not reach us.”
    “The last known of them,” said Brother Cadfael, “was at Foxwood. From Cleobury they were in company with a brother of our order, who urged them to come on with him to Bromfield, but they would continue north over the hills. It seemed to me they must make for you.”
    “So I would say also,” agreed the steward. “But they did not come.”
    Cadfael considered. He was not perfectly familiar with these parts, yet he knew them well enough to make his way. If they had not passed here, small profit in searching beyond. And though it would be possible to work backwards along the way they should have taken to reach this place, and look for traces of them between here and Foxwood, that would certainly have to wait for another day. This one was already too far spent. Dusk was closing in faintly, and he had better make his way back by the nearest way.
    “Well, keep watch in case some word reaches you. I’m for Bromfield again.” He had come by the most used roads, but they were less than direct, and he had a good eye for country. “If I make straight southwesterly from here, I take it that’s the way the crow flies for Bromfield. How are the tracks?”
    “You’ll be threading part of Clee Forest if you try it, but keep the sunset a little on your right hand and you’ll not go wrong. And the brooks are no stay, nor have been since the frost set in.”
    The steward started him off in the direction he should go, and saw him out of the wooded hollow and on to the narrow, straight track between gentle hills, turning his back upon the great, hunched bulk of Brown Clee, and his left shoulder on the grimmer, more rugged shape of Titterstone Clee. The sunlight had long withdrawn, though the sun itself had still some way to sink, and hung in a dull red ball behind veils of thin grey cloud. The inevitable nocturnal snow should not begin for an hour or two yet. The air was very still and very cold.
    After a mile he was in the forest. The branches still held up roofs of frozen snow, trailing long icicles where the noon sun had had room to penetrate, and the ground underfoot, deep in leaf-mold and needles, was easy riding. The trees even created a measure of warmth. Clee was a royal forest, but neglected now, as much of England was surely being neglected, left to rot or to be appropriated by opportunist local magnates, while king and empress fought out their battle for the crown. Lonely country, this, and wild, even within ten miles of castle and town. Assarts were few and far between. The beasts of the chase and the beasts of the warren had it for their own domain, but in such a winter even the deer would starve without some judicious nursing from men. Fodder too precious to be wasted by the farmer might still be put out by the lord