Searching the moorlands north of York took us to its northern extremity into Bernicia. Deliberately heading north-westwards, I remembered a particular wooded area from my travels with the coffin-bearing monks some years before, which I wanted to rediscover as part of my plan.
Eadwine nudged his horse close to mine,
“Lord, are we not going out of our way?”
I grinned at him and mocked him for the hundredth time,
“What way would that be, O wise and temperate one?”
He pretended to ignore the jibe but I knew it rankled.
“I just thought that we should be heading back towards York, not away.”
“Well, old friend, I’m looking for a grove of Scots pines. There are very few of them in Bernicia and none at all south of our homeland.”
“If we go much farther this way, we’ll fall into the lakes.”
