'A marker?' said Cait.

'A heap of stones, my lady,' replied Svein.

'But who would -' she began, and then the answer came to her. 'Abu?'

Svein nodded. 'We think he is marking out the way for us.'

'Show me,' said Cait, swinging back into the saddle.

'It is not far,' said Rognvald. 'But we have a decision to make.'

Something in his tone gave her to know that he was talking about her. 'Yes?'

'The day is growing foul. I think a storm is coming.'

'We will find what shelter we can along the way. I am not giving up the search because of a little wind and rain.'

'I am not suggesting we give up the search,' Rognvald replied, his voice growing tight with exasperation. 'But there is no need for all of us to grow wet and miserable with it. You could go back down and wait with Dag at the wagon. By the time you join him, he will have reached the waiting place and will have a fire going.'

'You can sit and warm yourself by the fire,' Cait told him. 'I am going to find my sister.'

'Then we move on.' Rognvald motioned to the others to mount their horses, and the party continued.

Halfway down the slope, the rain started. It was not long before Cait felt the cold wet begin to seep into her cloak. Before they reached the valley floor she was chilled to the bone and wishing she had not dismissed Rognvald's offer so hastily. But now, having rejected the suggestion, she was determined not to allow him the satisfaction of proving her wrong. So she put all thoughts of warmth and comfort behind her and pulled the hood of her damp cloak lower over her head to keep the rain out of her face.

The valley was shallow and did little to slow the wind gusting down from the mountains. They came to the marker-a pile of stones at the edge of the stream; on the opposite side was another-this one in the rough shape of an arrowhead pointing upstream. They rode in the direction indicated by the marker, following along the grey stream as it wound its way around the large rocks and boulders which had fallen from the slopes above. After a while the rain turned to sleet, and they stopped in the shelter of some young pines to eat a little dried meat, but the trees offered so little protection from the stinging, wind-driven pellets of ice that they quickly decided to take to their saddles again before the horses grew too cold, and their sweaty coats began to freeze.

As the day wore on, Cait's hopes of quickly rescuing Alethea began to dwindle; they were briefly revived when another marker was found and, a short distance beyond it, the remains of a small campfire in a bend in the valley where the stream pooled. The Moors had stopped there-to water the horses and prepare a meal, no doubt-but aside from a small heap of soggy ashes and unburnt ends of branches, there was nothing to see.

Rognvald examined the tracks leading from the campsite, and concluded that the bandits no longer feared pursuit.

'How do you know?' wondered Cait. One set of water-filled hoofprints looked very like another, and these were no different from any she had seen so far.

'The gait of the horses tells the tale,' replied Rodrigo. 'The riders are in no great hurry. See here,' he pointed to a series of moon-shaped tracks pressed deep in the mud, 'see how the leading edge of each hoof-print is scuffed -'

'I see.' Cait looked more closely. 'They look smudged.'

'The horses are tired,' the Spanish knight told her. 'They are ambling – dragging their feet, yes?' He made a slow, flicking motion with his hand. 'That means the riders are no longer pushing them.'

'It is good for us,' said Svein. 'They do not know we are chasing them.'

'With luck,' said Rodrigo, 'we may soon catch sight of them up ahead.' He indicated the ridge wall which formed the end of the valley. 'We will be able to see into the next valley from up there.'

The trail led around the edge of the pool; the tracks in the rain-sodden bank were now easy to follow, and Cait began to feel they were making real progress at last. However, the ridge was further away than it first appeared, and the rise far more steep. By the time they reached the bottom of the ridgewall, daylight had begun to fade. Although the sleet had stopped, the wind was growing more fierce. Rognvald halted the party and, with a glance at the sky, said, 'We are losing the light. It is time to turn back.'

The words struck Cait like a blow. Her first reaction was to defy him, to challenge his judgement, to contradict his command. In her heart she knew he was right, however, and besides, she was cold and hungry, and no longer had it in her to fight futile battles with either men or the elements. Still, for Alethea's sake, she asked, 'Might we go just a little further?'

'It is no use. Even if we gain the top, we will not be able to see anything in the dark. We must go back now if we are to meet Dag before nightfall.'

That was the end of it. As before, they marked the place so they could find it the next day and turning to the high hills to the west of the pool, rode away. The sky had grown dark by the time they gained the wagon trail; the deep-rutted track was treacherous in the dark, so they were forced to dismount and cross the undulating hills on foot – which meant a cold slog along rocky, water-filled furrows.

They saw the glint of Dag's fire from a hilltop long before they reached the place. Cait watched the glimmering of flame as it grew slowly larger, step by step. Her fingers, stiff on the reins of her horse, were numb and her toes stung with the cold; she imagined stretching her feet before a blazing fire, clutching a steaming bowl of porridge between her hands, and feeling the blessed heat warm her frozen bones.

This reverie proved so pleasant, she imagined sleeping in a dry bed heaped with furs in a room warmed with burning braziers, and the delicious feeling of fur against her skin-then realized with a start that she was imagining her chamber at home in Caithness. How many times, she wondered, had she slept in that room in just that way?

Dag had the wagon unhitched and a small store of firewood collected by the time they reached the camp. Despite his throbbing head, he had spent the short span between midday and dusk doing what he could to set up the camp, and they were grateful for it. Indeed, the prospect of warming themselves by the fire so cheered the knights that, with wild whoops and ecstatic cries, they raced down the last slope to the picket line Dag had strung between the trees beside the trail; they hurried through unsaddling and grooming the horses-rubbing them down with handfuls of dry straw before watering them and tying on the feedbags. That chore finished, they hastened to thaw their freezing hands and feet before the flames.

After they had warmed themselves awhile, Rognvald said, 'We will need more firewood tonight. See what you can find.'

While the others moved off in search of more wood, Cait, Dag, and Rognvald set about making a supper of boiled salt pork with beans and hard bread. It was ready by the time the knights returned, and the childlike abandon with which they gave themselves to their food made Cait smile. 'They are just overgrown boys,' she observed as she and Rognvald followed them to the bright circle of warmth and light.

'It is good they should enjoy a dry night out of the wind and rain,' the knight replied. 'It will be the last we see for a while.'

Cait glanced at him for an explanation.

'Tomorrow we must abandon the wagon,' he told her. 'I had hoped we would be able to give Dag another day or two longer to recover, but the Moors are fleeing into the mountains. If we are to have any hope of catching them, we cannot return to the wagon each night.'

'Do you think it will be very many nights?'

'In truth, I hoped we would get sight of them today, and the matter would have been decided.' He paused, and then as if thinking aloud, said, 'We shall take with us as much food and fodder as we can carry, but the tents, poles, and irons and all the rest will have to stay behind.' His expression became apologetic, and Cait realized he meant the chests of extra clothes and personal belongings.