Read Along with the Audiobook

A strange horn sounded, deep and long, the notes bouncing off the mountain slopes and echoing down the valley. Something about the odd tone, the bell-like timbre, sent a shiver down Caris Dillwyn’s back and made her redouble her efforts.

She had one last sin to accomplish.

The ash tree’s exposed roots made kneeling awkward, especially in long woolen skirts, but after a dozen years of practice, she was used to it. She was grateful that the forest floor wasn’t muddy today as she carefully placed the battered fiddle case inside the half-rotted trunk. She gave the wooden box an extra push to make certain it would stay in its familiar hiding place, then scrambled to her feet and brushed the dirt from her clothes. The guilt, however, could not be so easily swept from her mind, and she sighed. A whole afternoon wasted when I should have been working. Surely that was an extra sin even though her day’s chores had been done early, and she would work several more hours when she got back to the farm. Usually she came to the woods only at dusk, but the rare sunny afternoon had beckoned her. For the first time in a very long time, she’d said yes.

And oh, how she’d enjoyed it, even though the pleasure likely made her list of misdeeds even longer.

As an extra precaution, Caris gathered handfuls of last year’s leaves and piled them at the base of the tree to cover the hollow spot. She would take no chances on losing her one and only treasure, her great-grandfather’s forbidden fiddle.

The plaintive horn sounded again. A strange time of year for a hunting party, she thought. But the wealthy do as they please. And sometimes they pleased to holiday in the little stone village of Beddgelert, where Prince Llywelyn the Great had once kept his sporting lodge. Such guests were more devoted to drinking and didn’t usually venture far in search of game, certainly not this high up the mountainside. How strange that the sound seemed to come from somewhere above her . . . A trick of the echo, she chided herself. But she couldn’t deny that the call of the horn was unusual in its tone, if not its origin. A hunting horn signaled that a quarry had been sighted. It beckoned both riders and hounds. Its call put a thrill in the blood and caused the heart to leap with excitement in both man and beast.

But this horn invited no joyful response. There was something ominous in its voice, a warning rather than an exultation. She thought of the preacher’s sermons about the Book of Revelations, the great trumpets that heralded sorrows and judgments, and the reaping down of sinners . . .

Sinners like her.

Her stocky cob, named Eira for his snow-white coat, seized her jacket sleeve with strong teeth and tugged hard. His rubbery lips left flecks of chewed grass behind. “That was quite unnecessary.” She scolded him without heat, however, and was already putting a sure foot in the stirrup. She mounted easily, sitting comfortably astride even though her stockinged legs were nearly exposed to the knee. (And was that a sin, as well, if there was no one to see?) Thank goodness she’d grown up on a farm, and not on some upper-class estate. Try as she might, she simply could not imagine trying to curl herself around a sidesaddle.

Eira was normally steady as a rock. Now, however, the pony stamped his feet impatiently, then abruptly lurched down the winding mountain path at an awkward trot without her urging. It wasn’t like him at all. He’d been content enough to graze the afternoon away while Caris practiced old bardic ballads, wistful songs of farewell and lost love, and lively Celtic reels. She even dared a bawdy song she’d overheard outside the Royal Goat last week. As usual her da had stopped at the pub for just a pint—which always turned into several—leaving Caris outside to keep an eye on their wagon. Could she help it if she overheard a shanty through the open windows? The randy lyrics had reddened her cheeks: “I wish I was in bed with the captain’s daughter . . .” Yet her fingers had twitched all the same, anxious to apply the bow to the old fiddle and try the tune’s rollicking rhythm for herself. Without its scandalous words, of course—she had faults enough already.