[Firefoot]

Harold sighed at Arthur’s attempts to turn recent events into verse. Whatever his elder son might be, a poet was not one of them. He tried to block out the sound, and concentrated instead on how far they had gotten thus far. He estimated they had been travelling for about seven hours, since the sun showed the time to be mid-afternoon. Seven hours... two or three leagues per hour... makes about 18 leagues. That sounded right. It also meant they were almost sufficiently far away from the estates to start circling back around. He began to turn around to tell his sons this when he became aware of another sound, previously unheard because of Arthur’s pathetic attempts to rhyme: hoofbeats. He could not see the riders yet, as they were still a good way off and the land was not flat, but they were coming closer. Harold did not want to be seen. Under normal circumstances they would not draw attention, but rumors of Sandrina’s return would have reached other ears, and the three of them heading away from the estate... No, he did not want to be seen.

“Hurry, follow me!” Harold hissed, cutting Arthur’s words short. Harold heeled his horse into a full gallop and turned sharply off the road. There was a downward slope in the land only a few hundred yards away; if they could get that far, then they would not be seen. They drew nearer, but so did the hoofbeats. Harold did not dare turn around to see if the riders were visible yet. Then, he had reached it. He slowed his horse so that it could get down, and saw that Samuel and Arthur, who had been only a little way behind him, were doing the same. The slope was just deep enough for them to be unseen from the road. Harold crept back up the slope to see whether they had been spotted or not.

What he saw made him worry. There were three of them, and they had slowed to a walk approximately parallel to the road. One of them was pointing in their direction and scowling; the other two were shaking their heads and their reins as if impatient to be moving on. Harold knew they had been spotted. Now what? He sighed in relief when the riders again booted their horses into a faster pace. Apparently they had somewhere to be in a hurry, and it was lucky for them. All he could do was hope they would not remember seeing the three of them. There was nothing more to be done for it, so he returned back down to where his sons and the horses were waiting.

“We were not seen,” he lied. “There were three of them, and they just went right on past.” He wondered if they believed him or not. Somehow he doubted it, but they couldn’t prove otherwise.

“As long as we have left the road, we may as well continue. We are far enough away from the estates to start circling back around. Within a few days we will return there to see what has happened. If Sandrina is dead as she should already be, we will have no more need of plans. If not, we will decide what to do then.” What he really meant was that he would decide and they would listen, but he wasn’t about to say that. He mounted his horse again and headed off across the country.