BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) JANE ADAMS (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📖

above the line of trees. It was hot for the time of year, welcome heat on Treven’s back as he crouched beside the track looking at the sign. It eased the knot between his shoulders and the pain lower down from his night of watching, seated in the hard, wooden chair.

The fire in his gut was back and he wished he’d had the foresight to ask Osric for his potion before leaving. The pain was made worse when he did not eat and he had not waited to break his fast, eager, instead to see the place as soon as it was light. Treven knew that a full day had passed since Cate had been found and that any sign he might have found to help him unravel this tangle would be stale or even gone. It had not rained now for three nights, but the dew lay heavy on cold ground and the yellow sky and band of bruised grey cloud he had seen at dawn, caused him to expect rain before the day was out.

The grass had been flattened where Cate had fallen and her blood, moistened again by the dew fall, stained brown when Treven touched it with his fingers. There was a great deal of blood.

“You saw her lying here?”

Ranuf, the charcoal burner, nodded. “I thought she was already dead. Then I saw her breath. The air was cold and her breath misted. I ran for help and brought my brother back with me to carry her home.”

“Why delay?” Treven demanded. “The lady was of no weight. You could have carried her home yourself.”

The man cast his eyes down. “I should have done, Lord. The truth is, I was so frighted by the scene, I did not think clearly. I thought . . . I thought that the one who’d harmed her would still be close by.”

“So you left him to finish her?” Treven snorted his disgust, but the matter would have to wait. He didn’t think the fellow’s tardiness made much difference to the outcome — Cate would have died anyway — but it seemed unconscionable to have left her lying in the open longer than necessary.

Treven got to his feet and scanned the area. The narrow trackway led off the main path from Theading towards Theadingford. It was about two miles distant from the village, Treven guessed, but the going was rough once the main path had been left behind and could be reached only on foot or by horseback.

Woodland surrounded them. On one side of the trackway it had been cleared and coppiced. Hazel and ash thickets of some three years growth showed careful tending. They would be cut back again next spring and for a season or two the increase in light would allow bramble and nettles to thrive if the woodsman did not keep the ground free. Further back, beyond the stand of birch that stood white in the autumn sun, this year’s growth of coppiced wood waved slender branches in the little breeze. The wood was golden, sunlit, tamed, unlike that which stood to Treven’s back.

Here, was wild wood. Thickset oak and slender birch. Hazel, grown into a tangle through the branches of the larger trees. Late woodbind filled the air with a heady fragrance and the fierce thorns of brambles guarded the last of the shining berries. At his right hand, where a spring rose and trickled into a shallow stream, the track was lined with withys and a single, ancient crack willow, hollow hearted but still full of life. Treven had a deep affection for such trees and was glad that this one, though of no practical use, had been allowed to stand. He knew from boyhood conversations that the withymen often left an old guardian tree like this out of some ancient respect and belief long past words or stories and, Pagan though he supposed this was, Treven was glad the custom seemed to have been followed here.

To his left, the land rose a little and the path curved out of sight beyond the thickness of hedge and tree.

“That way leads only to your home?”

“Mine and my brother’s. With our wives and children. Go on further and it leads to Bearwell, though the way is not passable in winter. It crosses a stream which is low enough to ford in summer, but much past Winterfilleth, it is impassable.”

Treven nodded. It was close to that date now, though the month had been unusually dry. According to his calculations it wanted only three more days to the full moon that marked the beginning of winter.

He stepped away from them and once more scanned the area for sign of what had happened, not easy when the dozen people who had followed him here crowded his every move. Impatiently he waved them back and ordered them to be still. So many trampling feet could blur any rune that might remain. Treven was aware that he was being tried here, as thoroughly as Hugh would be when his turn came. They did not fully understand what it was he did, Treven, king’s scout and battle-hardened warrior, used to reading that which might be invisible to others. But they respected the fact that he was here, even though they had heard some whisper that what he sought to do was magic.

“Someone walked there,” he pointed and Edmund, standing beside him, followed where he indicated. “The grass is parted and the long reeds beside the withys broken. See?”

Edmund frowned and then nodded. He followed as Treven went to look more closely. “Look,” Treven said. “Someone waited here, crouched in the damp. Shod feet and handprints where they leaned down and took their weight.”

“They must have crouched low as she passed by,” Edmund agreed. “A grown man might just be hidden if he kept his head low.” He glanced about, puzzled. “But if it was concealment they sought, why