When we woke up, of course, Caradog was gone, and all the gold with him. Bleary-eyed as we were, it took a little while for the awful truth to sink in, but there was really no room for doubt.

“Leave it,” I said after a while, breaking in on Ieuan’s colorful description of what he would do to Caradog when he found him. “We will not catch him. He has had all night to be gone in, and the wherewithal to buy the best horse in the valley to go on. If we find him somewhere else, it is our word against his. Come on, let us see if the inn-folk will let us work for our breakfast—and hope it does not involve a shovel!”

Later that morning, while I was mucking out the stable at the inn, I heard the sound of trotting horses. Into the yard rode half a dozen mounted men, light-armed with swords and daggers, and in their midst, with his hands tied before him and his horse on a leading rein, was our old friend Caradog.

“Good day to you, Lord,” called the inn-keeper from his doorway. “I see you got him.”

“We did indeed, just as you said, with the gold from my land in his saddlebags.” Sitting at ease on his big bay horse, the red-cloaked leader of the troop was smiling. “We are looking now for his two companions, who he says are still here.”

“Ah, and there is one of them now, Lord,” cried Cara-dog, gesturing at me with his bound hands. “It was them as led me into it, they did, almost forced me to join them!”

“So much so that you were escaping from them in the dawn?” But the leader was looking at me with interest nevertheless. “And who might you be, young fellow?”

“Only a wandering storyteller, Lord,” I said. “Down on my luck, and forced to work for my breakfast.”

“Indeed, Lord, and I think that is true,” said the inn-keeper, with a wink at me. “Certainly, I never saw this lad nor his friend up at the mine”—and that was true enough, for he’d never come up there!—“and they do seem to be poor, harmless folk. I doubt they would be mucking out my stable if they had gold in their purses.”

“Gold, is it, that you are seeking?” I said. “And stolen? Lord, if you can find aught of gold in my gear or my friend’s, then by Pryderi’s pigs! May I drop down dead before you from pure astonishment!”