Boar spears hung on the wall, great antlers and boar's tusks and,
carved in the oak of the wall and again on a high, dark chair that
stood at the end of the long table empty, a crown with oak leaves
that Rodriguez recognised. It was the same as the one that was cut
on his gold coin, which he had given no further thought to, riding
to Lowlight, and which the face of Serafina had driven from his
mind altogether. "But," he said, and then was silent, thinking to
learn more by watching than by talking. And his companions of the
road came in and all sat down on the benches beside the ample
table, and a brew was brought, a kind of pale mead, that they
called forest water. And all drank; and, sitting at the table,
watching them more closely than he could as he walked in the
forest, Rodriguez saw by the sunlight that streamed in low through
one window that on the copper disks they wore round their necks on
green ribbon the design was again the same. It was much smaller
than his on the gold coin but the same strange leafy crown. "Wear
it as you go through Shadow Valley," he now seemed to remember the
man saying to him who put it round his neck. But why? Clearly
because it was the badge of this band of men. And this other man
was one of them.
His eyes strayed back to the great design on the wall. "The crown
of the forest," said Miguel as he saw his eyes wondering at it,
"as you doubtless know, senor.
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