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Page 375
effort. But the grumbles were smiling ones; they were accustomed to their lord's softness, and they made ready cloths for gagging and thongs for binding. Then Siorl and Echtor set out on foot to do a little spying. Silence lay heavy. The orders had been uncompromising. Any man who made a sound louder than soft breathing would get his throat slitand Simon's soft-footed Welsh prowled round and about so that no one dared to whisper lest the shadow behind him take note and report. Rhiannon also moved about, stroking and murmuring to the ten horses that were to go. If someone leaned close, he might hear her voice. A foot away it could not be distinguished from the breeze moving the bushes and leaves.
In half an hour, without sign or sound, Siorl and Echtor reappeared. They made two brief gestures, and Simon nodded to Bassett. Everything was as he had expected it to be, and the Welshmen had removed two men who were patrolling the periphery of the area. The ten chosen remounted and rode south and then a little west, picking their way around farms and through coppices so that they would not alarm the dogs. There was one bad section, where open land had to be crossed to reach the sanctuary of the small grove of trees that surrounded the churchyard.
Eventually they were all in the shelter of the trees again, not a secure shelter because the grove was thin, many of the leaves fallen. Still, the trunks of the trees and the brush with the few leaves that remained moved fretfully in the erratic breeze; these broke the lines of horse and man and turned them into something unrecognizable, part of the shifting shadows.
One by one the men dismounted. As each did, Rhiannon touched his horse, uttering a faint cooing sound of reassurance. When all were afoot they moved away cautiously until they were opposite the side of the church where the cemetery lay. The animals stood like rocks. Looking back over his shoulder, Simon nodded

 
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