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“We’re going to have to wait until the men get back,” Enid said firmly. “You’re not well enough to walk across the room, yet alone catch a frightened horse, and there’s no one else here skilled enough to bring him in.”

“I will go after him,” Catrin said.

All eyes instantly turned on her.

“You don’t understand, Catrin,” Nerys said. “Glyn’s horse is high-strung. He barely lets anyone else near him.”

“I can do it,” Catrin said. “I have a horse with a similar disposition at home.”

“But if you were to get hurt . . . if you were to end up like Bleddyn . . .” Glyn’s conflicted emotions were manifest in his face and voice.

“I would not offer if I did not consider myself capable of it.”

Huw cleared his throat. “For what ’tis worth, since there aren’t many horses left in the stable, I reckon one of the mares on the lead ropes was likely mine. I don’t suppose she’ll wander as far as Glyn’s stallion, but if Catrin thinks she can round them all up, I’d be right glad to have her do it.”

Nerys crouched down beside Glyn and touched his clenched hand. “I believe her, Glyn. Let her try.”

Glyn’s gaze lingered on Nerys, then he turned to Catrin. “The stallion’s name is Mellten, and Nerys is right; he can be skittish. But he will respond to a firm hand.”

Catrin smiled. “Then he and I shall be fast friends in no time.”

Chapter 23

Catrin followed the muddy hoofprints until she reached the shale at the entrance to the narrow valley. Thankfully, the heavy rain had finally passed, and it appeared that the horses were staying together. Both factors would aid her attempt to find the runaways if she could only locate them before they had time to wander too far.

Carefully crossing the loose rocks, she reached a craggy rise and scrambled to its peak. From there, she scoured the mountainside below. Much of the landscape was rugged, with scrubby bushes and small wildflowers fighting for survival amid the boulders. But here and there, larger patches of grass and clusters of trees thrived, dotting the otherwise gray scene with patches of deep green.

With a cry of alarm, a raven took flight from a copse of trees to her right. Seconds later, Catrin spotted movement between the trunks of the birch trees. Hoping that nothing more ferocious than three horses had startled the large bird from its branch, she started down the hillside toward the small grove. She was within a few yards of the trees when she saw a flash of chestnut brown. Slowing her progress, she approached cautiously.

The two mares were grazing side by side. One looked up, her ears twitching, and Catrin recognized her as the one she’d purchased in Conwy.

“’Tis good to see you, old girl.” She spoke softly in Welsh. “Are you recovered from our long journey together?”

Her horse sniffed the air, snorted, then lowered her head to resume eating.

“I am glad,” Catrin said, slowly moving toward them again. “And it appears that neither of you is overly worried about returning to your new home as long as you get your fill of this grass before I take you back.”

The horses swished their tails and continued chomping. Catrin studied the ground around them. The wet and muddy lead ropes lay in a tangle; it was impossible to tell one from the other.

Talking softly so as not to startle them by her sudden appearance at their sides, Catrin moved close enough to run her hand over her horse’s damp coat. “That’s it, girl.”

She bent and grasped the ropes. Her horse raised its head and looked at her with doleful eyes.

Catrin chuckled. “Accepting your fate, are you?”

The mare snorted, and Catrin moved back, straightening out the lead ropes as she went. Cinching one rope beneath her arm, she tied the other around the branch of the nearest tree. Once it was secure, she stepped over to the next tree and did the same with the second rope.

“That should keep you both in one place until I find the leader of this escape attempt,” she said. She placed her hands on her hips and peered through the trees. “So, where is that stallion?”

It did not take Catrin long before she saw hoofprints in the wet grass. She followed them through the trees until the ground fell away to form the rocky bed of a bubbling stream that ran down the mountain until it disappeared from view over the crest of another hill. The heavy rain had impacted the stream, washing mud into its clear water and swelling its volume so it was now encroaching on the banks. Catrin eyed it warily. If Glyn’s horse had traversed the stream, she would need to find a way across.

She turned downstream, searching either side of the running water for a sign of the missing stallion. A raven cawed, and Catrin wondered if it was the same one she’d seen earlier, still disgruntled over having been disturbed. Then another sound reached her. It was the clop of hooves on stone. Pivoting, she looked upstream and saw the stallion standing on the opposite pebbled bank, his head lowered to the water.

“Of course you chose to cross the water,” she muttered, already seeking the shallowest portion of the stream.

A few feet away, three boulders lay in the water. They were neither smooth nor flat, but they offered a means of getting across without wading up to her knees. Catrin eyed the distance between them, then she pulled up her skirts and leaped onto the first one. She wobbled, stepped across the gushing water to the next boulder, and hopped onto the third. Her right foot slipped on the wet surface, and she teetered precariously before sacrificing one leg to the water to prevent a full immersion.

The sudden cold took her breath away, but smothering a cry that would undoubtedly startle the horse, she took one final leap and landed on the opposite bank in an inelegant heap. She pulled herself to her feet and looked over at the stallion. He was standing still, watching her.