"And the villagers would have stoned her to death, and the babe too. But she knew, and fled away." She straightened up and her eyes had grown bleak and stern. "We take their silver, and that is sin enough. And I have spoken too much, and will speak no more."
"No, please!" Trehearne said. "Who are these strangers—these Vardda? You must know. You must tell me!"
But she sat like an image carved from dark wood, her head bent forward over the pale wool spread in her lap. Trehearne stood up, mastering a desire to shake her until the words came, and then he went outside. He walked the few paces to the end of the muddy street and looked out upon a moor that stretched still and desolate under the stars. He stood there for a long time, staring out across the empty heath, his eyes narrowed and intense with thought.
Into these wastes, the landes, Shairn had gone with Kerrel. Why, for what purpose, he could not guess, any more than he could guess the answers to all the other riddles, and he knew better than to ask his host. The silence mocked him, full of secrets.
He had made some progress. He had traced his family back to Keregnac, and he knew now the reason for their leaving. A Vardda hybrid snatched from death at the hands of an irate peasantry—a romantic story, but unrevealing. The answer to the riddle of his birthright lay still farther on.
How much farther, he did not dream.
At dawn he paid off his driver and his host, mounted the horse that was ready for him, and struck out into the moor. He had no idea what direction he should take. However, the moor could not be endless in extent, and if he searched long enough he was almost bound to find what he was looking for. If Kerrel and Shairn and other "sons and daughters of the devil" came into the landes, they must have shelter of some kind.
But all that day he rode, across marshland and stony soil, through gorse and bramble and stunted trees, without seeing a cottage or a solitary sheep or even a distant smoke to mark a human habitation. Only here and there a lonely tor stood like a druid sentinel against a lowering sky.
It drew on to dusk. The wind blew, and it began to rain, a fine soaking drizzle that showed promise of going on all night. And still the heath stretched on all sides of him, featureless, without comfort or hope.
There was nothing to do but go on. He let the horse find its own way, sitting hunched in the saddle, wet and wolfishly hungry and at odds with the world.