"Our friend Thomas is free," the old man said. "Yet, there is much that troubles me."

The girl almost woman beside him turned her face to watch his wrinkled features closely. There is much that troubles me, too. I cannot shake my last vision of him. The reins in his hands. The stallion in full flight. And herSfar too beautiful, and holding Thomas far too tight behind him on that horse.

Katherine did not voice those thoughts. Instead, she said simply, "I am sorry you are troubled."

They stood at the crossroads outside the town walls of York. Behind them, in York, lay the confusion and chaos of an entire population buzzing with the incredible news. The lord's daughter has been taken hostage! Kidnapped in daylight beneath the very noses of the courtyard knights!

Those same knights had already scattered in all directions from the crossroads where the old man and Katherine and a handful of travelers now stood, each knight engaged in useless pursuit of a powerful horse long since gone on roads which would carry no tracks.

One of the nearby travelers pausing at the busy crossroads might have found the picture of the old man and Katherine bent in conversation together to be warmly touching.

Katherine shone with the innocent loveliness given only to those who pay little heed to their own beauty. Her long blond hair was tightly braided. And, pulled back as it was from her face, it only showed more fully the smoothness of her soft skin, and the deep blue of eyes which seemed luminously aware of every detail around her.

She stood nearly as tall as the old man beside her, and when she leaned forward to listen to his quiet words, it was with a gentle grace that promised much for the woman she would mature to become.

The old man, however, would not have seemed exceptional to that same traveler. Despite the warm spring afternoon, the old man was draped in a loose black cloak that left exposed only his hands and sandalled feet. He was not a tall man. Indeed, with the stoop that forced him to lean heavily on the cane, his height had dropped to match that of the 15-year-old girl beside him.

Yet, had that traveler been able to see into the shadows cast over the man's face by his hood, he would have been met by a fierceness of eyes that burned with strength. Had that traveler taken away the old man's cane, he would have seen the stoop disappear, and found no shakes or trembles in the old man's gnarled hands. And had that traveler stolen the old man's cloak, he would have been amazed at its weight and the objects hidden inside.

Katherine and the old man, of course, paid little heed to any stranger's glance, and, with much greater matters of concern, would have cared nothing of that stranger's impressions of their conversation.

The old man, in fact, had his head bent even lower now as he searched the hard ground of the well traveled roads.

"Stay with me," he said softly. "We shall talk as we follow Thomas."

"Follow Thomas?" Katherine echoed with equal softness. "Half an army runs in circles of useless pursuit. If he has escaped them, most surely he has also escaped us."

The old man laughed quietly. "Hardly, my child. Do you not remember the puppy he left behind with his secret treasure of books?"

Of course. In the excitement of his escape, Katherine had allowed herself to forget that Thomas must soon return to the cave which held those books.

"Yes," she said quickly. "We shall find him there. We know he'll have to get back to his books within several days. After all, regardless of his plans, he will not let the puppy die there of starvation."

The old man continued his low chuckle. "That only demonstrates that once again when you think of Thomas, you think with your heart. You wish him to have the nobleness of mind that would not let an innocent animal die a horrible death."

"It is otherwise?" Katherine challenged, even though her face flushed at the old man's remark.

"Perhaps not. But others might believe Thomas will return to his puppy merely because of the more valuable books nearby."

Katherine ignored that. "So we proceed back to the valley of the cave and wait."

"Not so," the old man replied. "That is far too long, and time is now too precious."

"Until then?" Katherine asked. She did not want to think about the days which Thomas would pass in the company of such an attractive hostage, one who had once claimed a true love for Thomas.

"We will find Thomas by night fall," the old man promised. His head was still down, and he still examined the ground carefully.

"That shows much confidence."

"No," the old man smiled. "Forethought."

The old man grinned in triumph and then hurried ahead on the road which led east to Scarborough on the North Sea. Neither found it unusual that several of the strangers behind them followed the same road.

Several minutes later, the old man stopped and dropped his voice to a whisper.

"Speak truth now," he warned. "An hour back, in York, you were convinced I had lost my mind to purchase that sack of flour in the midst of our hurry to reach Thomas in the lord's courtyard before he could attempt to take his hostage."

Katherine hummed a non-committal comment.

"Answer enough."

The old man tapped the ground at his feet with the end of his cane.

"There," he said. "Our trail to Thomas."

He rubbed the tip of his cane through a slight dusting of coarse unmilled flour.

Katherine nodded, unable to hide her own sudden smile at the old man's obvious delight in himself and at the implications of that flour. After all, in the courtyard had she not distracted the keeper of Thomas's horse while the old man loaded that flour into a saddlebag?

"Yes," the old man said as if reading her mind, "I cut a small hole in his saddle bag, and of course, in the sack of flour. Unmilled and still coarse, the flour that falls through is heavy enough to leave a trail where ever he goes."