This was my own trade, where I knew more than Shalah.

I tested the thing in my mouth and between my fingers.
"This is London stuff," I said.

"The man who had this on his person bought his clothes from the Bristol merchants, and paid sweetly for them.

He was no Rappahannock farmer." Shalah trailed like a bloodhound, following the hoof-marks out of the valley meadow to a ridge of sparse cedars where they showed clear on the bare earth, and then to a thicker covert where they were hidden among strong grasses.

Suddenly he caught my shoulder, and pulled me to the ground.