The beekeeper was walking with honey pots in his pockets. One mile north along the line of the valley, up on the rise above the stream. The hives seemed further from the house this year, and the old man kept what felt like a steady pace, but his progress through the winter grass was slow. Eyes set on the first group of beeches where his hives were placed, he had been thinking about the neat row of cones for days: backs to the east wind and the sheltering copse, westward faces watching for the spring bloom of the blackberries, the wildflowers’ first flush. Waiting. The beekeeper’s legs were a year older again, and his heart, and he stopped often on the narrow path. Standing, breathing among the wet clumps of grass. And this is when he saw it. A speck of movement, easier to see out of the corner of one eye. A small shadow, beating a steady path across the low plain below him. Upright, not animal. The old man stopped, held in his rattling breath. Stood watching the dark fleck and its dogged progress.
