Neither Rosie nor Berry looked happy to keep up, but neither would they let themselves be left behind. Jumble seemed to find their progress rather too slow, for he raced up ahead, turned and scampered back to them again and again, traveling two miles for every one trod by the horses. Trees drew in, oak and elm around the tiny hamlet of Thicket. The grange smelled of hay and threshing, the woodlot of hewed hardwood. Edmund expected a challenge, at least a call from Thicket manor, but all lay mute around them. No one stirred in the houses, no one came out to ask who passed in the dark. “We’re really going.” It was Tom who said it. They rode on through the Widows, past the rotted cottages and thrown fields and by the place where stood the battle marker and lay the long graves. The clouds had blown wide and left the moon alone in the sky. The dead commons of the old abandoned village lay to the left, straggled grass chased in silver light.
