"I know why that girl of Mara's would not tell who set her on you. It is not like a maid to be sparing with her mistress' secrets, and Morfed is at the back of it. It is his work, and he laid a curse on the girl if she told who sent her. About the only thing that would keep her quiet."
"Why would Morfed want to hurt me?"
"Plain enough is that. If you were slain, Gerent would hold Ina responsible for Owen's sake, and Ina would blame Gerent, and there would be a breach at the least in the peace that your bishop has made."
Then we were silent, and presently sleep came to me, until the first light crept into the house and woke me.
In an hour we were riding across the hills with Evan, for whom we had brought a horse, and there were fifty men with us. We should leave them at a place which Evan would show us, and so go on with him without them. It was not so certain that we might not run into the nest of the men who had taken Owen, though this would surely not be in the lost valley.
Many a long mile Evan led us into the hills northwestward, and far beyond where I had yet been. I cannot tell how far it was altogether, for the way was winding, but I lost sight of all landmarks that I knew, and ever the bare hills grew barer and yet more wild, and I could understand that there were places where even the shepherds never went.
At first we saw one or two of these watching us from a distance, but soon we passed into utter loneliness, and nought but the cries of the nesting curlew which we startled, and the wail of the plover round our heads, broke the solemn stillness of the grey rocks on every side. Even our men grew silent, and the ring of sword on stirrup seemed too loud to be natural at last. We were all fully armed, of course.
Then we came to a place where the hills drew together, and doubled fold on fold under a cloud of hanging mist that hid their heads, and as we rode, once Evan pointed silently to a rock, and I looked and saw strange markings on it that had surely some meaning in them, though I could not tell what it was. And when I looked at him in question I saw that his face was growing pale and anxious, so that I thought we must be near the place which we sought. So it was, for after we had left that stone some two score fathoms behind us, as we passed up a narrow valley, there opened out yet another, wilder and more narrow still, and at its mouth he would have us leave the men and go on with him.
Now, we had seen no man, but when it came to this, Howel said:
"By all right of caution, we should have an outpost or two on those ridges. If we are going into this place it will not do to be trapped there."