She was going very fast – faster than she needed to, for this had given her an excuse to stretch cold stiff leg-muscles. She'd entered the southeast corner of the Hofvijver, which extended perhaps a hundred yards north–south and thrice that east–west. Slicing up along its eastern bank, she was distracted by musket-fire from open ground off to her right, and had a wild moment of fear that she was about to be cut down by snipers. But not to worry, it was a party of gentlemen honing their markmanship on a target-range spread out between the bank of the pond and an ornate building set farther back. She recognized this, now, as the headquarters of the St. George Guild. Beyond it, wooded land stretched away to the east as far as she could see: the Haagsche Bos, a game-park for the Counts of Holland, where people of all classes went to ride and stroll when the weather was better.