by Andre Norton
No, he had to wait until he was fit, until he could learn just what had happened —and, most of all, who was the enemy.
Suddenly his turmoil of thought was broken. That was crying he heard! A child —certainly no animal. Survivors from the valley?
Rhys edged up from his place by the spring, but he did not move forward yet. That well-laid ambush remained in his mind — could the enemy have the brazen cruelty to use a frightened child to draw out of hiding any who had fled? He snarled and worked his way behind the rock encasement of the spring. Setting his wounded arm in the front of his jerkin for support, he used his other hand to lift the sword.
He waited, sure that sound was now advancing toward him, down the rough track which the loggers had made.
5
The ruts on the road were so deep and filled with storm water that Sarita tried to keep to the verge for more level footing. She was also fighting Valoris, who was screaming now in full rage and twisting perilously in the sling, kicking until she nearly
dropped him.
"Want Hally— hungry— " he got out between screams, and hit her with his fists. Flinching, Sarita staggered back and, unable to keep her balance, landed in the thick mud of the road with force enough to bring a grunt out of her.
The sling had slipped and the child, after another yell, was on his hands and knees scuttling away from her into the middle of the one-time road, mud splashing up about him, plastering his small body.
Sarita's aching arms had flopped to either side of her body and for a long moment she made no attempt to move. It was as if this last mishap had drained the remnants of strength which had kept her going for so long. Though she was not aware of it, tears of
frustration runneled through the mud splatters on her own face. Her loosened hair clung damply about her.
Valoris' defiant escape had not taken him far. He was squatting in a nearby mud pool, his attention apparently distracted for the moment as he scooped up the wet clay and threw it about. Now as she slid over to his side, she was aware of something else, an odor. The child had soiled himself and could not be left so. If she could only find water other than these mud puddles . . .
The mess of leaves and egg had certainly not filled his stomach successfully, and now he was trying a new experiment. Opening his mouth, the boy was about to push a fistful of the mud into it. Sarita did not even try to get to her feet. Reaching over, she slapped down his hand before it quite reached Valoris' lips.
He flailed back at her and screamed again, but she caught both his hands and held them.
At that moment she wanted to fling back her unkempt head and wail as loudly as Valoris. She had none of the talents of a nursemaid and certainly she could not conjure fresh clothes or the right kind of food out of thin air.
Valoris was fighting her hold, his face turning red with anger, his eyes squeezed shut. Now he tried to kick at her with first one foot and then the other.
"Where are you from?" Those words, which cut through the child's screams, came as a shock.
Though she did not loosen her hold on Valoris, Sarita jerked halfway around. There was indeed someone standing there, a bared sword in one hand, the other tucked into the front of his jerkin.
Under mud she recognized the dark green livery of the rangers. When she looked closely into the drawn face, a grayish cast under its weathered brown, she knew the man also. This was the youngest of the rangers—what was his name? —Roose —no Rhys, Rhys Forgar-son. She had heard two of the bower maids discuss him and whether he might be a fit partner for the midsummer feast.
She must have said his name aloud, for he nodded, then grimaced as if that gesture had been answered by pain.
"You are — "
"Sarita Magasdaughter, apprentice to Dame Argalas."
"Then —then you are from the keep! What has happened?"
He wavered down the short alone into the road from the verge. Valoris had ceased his crying to watch this newcomer with round eyes.
"They—outlaws —they brought the countess with steel to her throat and the sergeants opened the gate. Halda — Halda was death-struck by one she said was a traitoress —one of the maids. She brought the young lord into the workroom and before she died showed me a secret way out. They—they were killing—"
First her hands and then her whole body began to shake as memory closed down. Not that she had seen much slaughter from her secret stair, but she had heard, and she knew enough from the old tales to imagine far too keenly what had been the fate of Var's liegemen and women.
"So — " The word came out of him like a hiss. "And this," he nodded toward the child, "is Lord Valoris?"
She nodded. But she had questions of her own. "What happened—how did they take the countess —these outlaws?"
"Ambush. But these are no wolfheads. They are menie trained. And if they do not find him," again he nodded to the child, "within their slaughter net—they will be seeking. They must have made very sure of the whole valley by now. And the pass will be guarded." He appeared to be thinking aloud.
"I have no food for him," Sarita broke in starkly. "We have only eaten seally and each an egg—raw from the nest."
He looked now as if he were not attending to her, rather staring down the overgrown road.
"We must have water—food!" she said more loudly. Perhaps he was cross-witted. There was the sign of a great bruise on his forehead disappearing to hide under his dark hair.
"You say," he turned on Sarita sharply as if he had not heard a word she had said, "that Halda was dead by a traitor's hand —who?"
"The maid Janine," Sarita answered impatiently. She did not know what service this battle survivor could give them, but he was a ranger and so well aware of what could be found in the woods. As liegeman to the earl, Valoris must be his concern now.
"How many more?" he said slowly. "And who? All the rangers who I trained with were slain. I do not think we had a double tongue among us. Therefore — " He made an impatient gesture in her direction. "Can you bring the young lordling? One-armed as I am I cannot carry him. There is a spring back there."
The thought of clean water brought her to her feet and she tugged Valoris out of his puddle, not attempting to use the sling as she followed at the pace her guide set back into the bushes and then across a stretch of burnt land to where rocks stood high and blessed waving of greenery beckoned them on with promise.
She held out palms full of water for Valoris to drink. Rhys had disappeared, but came back with what looked like a bundle of thick reeds. Throwing these down beside her, he said, "Strip one of these with your belt knife—give it to him to suck and chew. It is nourishment of a sort, little as it is."
She followed orders after she had washed the child's hands and face. Then as he did suck avidly on the round stem, she took off his filthy clothing. It was warm enough in the patch of the sun to leave him so while she followed the pool down further and there washed the small garments as best she could, returning with the front of her smock dress wet well down the front. Their guide had disappeared for a second time, and she wondered where with a growing uneasiness. She knew he was no outlaw, but what could he do in their aid?
Rhys had headed back to the trees where he had sheltered for the night. The same misgiving thought was in his mind now. Even if he had use of both his arms, what could he do to find shelter for those two? Yet that was the earl's son, and the girl had wits and courage or she would not have gotten him out of what must have been a slaughterhouse. Though it could well be true, were the child or his body not to be found, there might be searchers out. He sat down on the end of a log. The dull, ever-present pain in his head made it hard to think. And, though he had poulticed his arm that morning, the wound might be slow in healing. As long as it was, he could not draw a bow.
But, there was one thing which they might be able to chance. All that stood against it was his guess that this attack had been the result of long and careful planning. However, if the attackers had sent in spies th
rough the woodlands, all traces of their passing could not have been concealed by men trained to see when even a leaf lay wrong side up on the ground.
Of old the rangers had their own line camps, well concealed and sometimes secret from all save those constructing them. There was a temporary camp not too far from here. Now he might be the only one who knew of it, crude as it was. It would provide shelter, at least.
This Sarita —she was no common keep maid. He had seen her several times trailing that hatchet-faced mistress of hers when they had come to the chief armorer's hall to talk about horse trappings.
And he had heard the countess speak highly of her needlecraft when wearing a new green cloak—the same she had— Rhys shut off that thought quickly.
He came back to the spring in time to see in the far pool a flash of a thin white body. From the splashing and the fact that Valoris no longer lay in the sun, he guessed that the girl had taken them both bathing. The thought of water awoke an itch between his own shoulders, but he had no time for such here and now.
For the moment he sat down to wait. One of the thin stems lay nibbled only on one end and he picked it up to chew, hunching forward to look into the pond. If his hurts had not slowed him down enough to lose his old skill —
With his teeth he pulled back his right sleeve as far as it would go to expose his bare arm. Slowly he inserted hand and wrist into the water, lying belly down and unmoving. There! His hand flipped out of the water and a fish flapped desperately on the land until his fist thudded home on its head.
"How—how did you do that?" The girl's voice was low, as if she feared her question must be a disturbance. He glanced up at her.
" Tis an old trick. Most land-born lads know it. But be quiet—"
Valoris had crept forward to investigate the fish and Sarita pulled the child back, offering him some green laves.
"Cress," she said in a half-whisper, and Rhys nodded and turned back to his trout tickling. He lost his second prey, but landed the third.
"A fire?" Sarita questioned. She shivered in the clothes which were clean enough now, but damp and clinging. Rhys nodded. Instinctively he tried to move his wounded arm and then bit back an exclamation. She must have been watching him very closely, for now she came quickly to his side.
"You're hurt; it must be tended." He grimaced. The left sleeve was now sticking tightly over the rude dressing he had put on it. But she was right, he knew enough not to let such a wound go untended for too long. But by the Great Power, he was fortunate that the shaft had merely struck the flesh and not bone.
"Let me see." She was reaching for her belt and now produced a pair of scissors, thin-bladed but, by the look of them, well sharpened. He allowed her to cut away the remnants of his sleeve and
bare the soggy poultice that lay plastered against his flesh. She moved the moss gently aside. At least the skin around the entrance and exit wounds was not red and swollen, though the slightest touch sent a thrill of pain through him.
"What is this?" She was leaning forward to examine the mass of the poultice.
"Something we carry for wounds. But I did not remember it until this morning. It is said to have the property to draw infection from open cuts, and the arrow went straight through."
Sarita turned up her full skirt and cut deftly at the hem, shaking out an even strip.
"There is more in my pouch."
She found it, unlatched the flap, and drew out an open pack at the very top. She raised it to her nose. "Vervaine, and something else — "
"You have herb lore?" That might answer a number of needs.
She shook her head. "Only what I have picked up. We use herbs, barks, and some kinds of roots to dye our own colors. Dame Argalas makes us learn the worth of such early in our training. But I know only a little of the healing herbs and those for the table."
She rested the strip of cloth and the poultice on her own knee.
"Is there any smell?" He must know if there was anything to be feared now.
Obediently she bent her head and sniffed at his arm. "Nothing save the odor of the poultice."
He gave a sigh of relief, a relief which lasted through the torment of her handling and binding, though he tried to control all signs of pain.
"Oh!" As she tied the last knot she looked beyond him and then scrambled, still on her knees, to seize Valoris. In his hands he held one of the fish by the tail and was energetically slapping it against the ground. As the girl jerked it out of his hold, his face puckered, ready for an indignant cry. She spoke hastily:
"Breadie —wait—there is breadie —" He eyed her askance as if he had heard an out-and-out lie. But she held him tightly and tossed the fish to lie beside its fellow.
"Fire — " She was looking at his catch, Rhys thought very wryly, as if she expected him to declare they must choke it down raw-scales, fins, and all.
"We can chance a fire farther in," he told her. "In spite of the rain there is some wood dry enough to use —but it must be a small one."
He felt frustrated as he had to give her orders, doing what he could with his one hand. But at last back at the edge of the burnt land they did have a small fire made among the new grown brush, which would diffuse the thready trails of smoke rising from it.
Under his instructions Sarita set herself to the squeamish business of preparing the fish to be staked on twigs and set at scorching distance from the flames.
The smell of the cooking food was like a sharp awakening for her stomach, and she watched the two dangling fish avidly. But it was necessary also to keep track of Valoris, who was only too charmed by the fire and would perhaps fearlessly reach into it were he free.
6
The fish, shared out and eaten with fingers, was not enough to allay hunger, Sarita discovered. But at least half of hers had gone to Valoris and he was asleep, curled up beside her, his head pillowed on a pile of grass she had pulled. She regarded her hands, dirty, cut by grass edges—surely she would not be permitted by any guildswoman to touch even the meanest of coarse work to be stitched now. Not that there seemed to be any chance at present that she would be offered such refined labors.
"Where now?" Her voice sounded sharp in her own ears, though certainly their plight was none of his making. He was as much a victim of the fate which had struck so swiftly as she was herself.
'There is a ranger shelter not too far away." He was licking his fingers as if to absorb even the smell of the fish they had eaten. "It is rough, but it will be shelter and there are perhaps some emergency supplies there."
"And if they have already found it?" she asked, stubbornly refusing to believe that there could be any end to this dismal roving.
"If they hold the keep, they may send out parties, yes. Especially if they seek the lordling." He glanced at the sleeping child. "But ranger camps have ever been far separated and hidden. Otherwise the wolfheads would have been raiding them for years."
"Wolfheads," Sarita repeated. "Outlaws. But these—aren't they outlaws?"
Rhys shook his head. "No." He repeated to her the stark order he had overheard being given to the ambushers—to leave plundering the dead for the wolfheads.
'Then —who?" There was always gossip to be picked up from the servants at the keep. She had heard scraps during the months she had been working at Var. The earl was a man of power and authority and he had those who envied him, perhaps even held some grudge for a past action. But for any one of the paramount lords to so attack another was an action unheard of these hundred years or more.
"We shall discover who," Rhys replied grimly. "They have us trapped here. If the wolfheads owe them some sort of service, then even the high passages will be patrolled. And the lower one must certainly already be held by them, or they would not have moved on the keep. There might be a way to win through to the west, but not with him." He nodded at the child. "I am liegeman to the earl," he continued. "While I live, his son must be shielded."
For a moment Sarita felt a tinge of resentment. Did he th
ink that she had not already given strength and wit to bring Valoris this far?
"It is a thing," he continued, "that I cannot do without a woman. Since his nurse gave him into your hands, then you stand proxy for her."
Her first thought was to protest that she knew little of child tending, then she realized that this young ranger might know even less. Even though the duty had been forced upon her, she must accept it with the best heart she could.
"When do we move to this refuge?" she asked more quietly. The thought of some reasonable shelter, even if it might be a rude one, was good to consider.
"Let me scout first." The land about them, the ragged half-burnt pasture, might seem utterly deserted, but he would not forget caution, eager as he was to get the girl and child under a roof.
It had been a fair enough day after the night's storm, but that same unease which had gripped him when they had ridden blindly to disaster and death was working in him. He did not feel that they were under any surveillance as yet, the unease was not strong enough to suggest that, but he never wanted again to blunder into such a trap as had caught most of the Var defense force.
In the end he urged her to wake the child and guided them over to another of those stacks of charred logs, closer to the way they must take to their goal. Since until his arm was healed his bow was useless, he left that and his quiver of arrows with her, though Sarita protested she knew nothing of the use of such arms. But when he drew his short-bladed hunter sword and stuck it point-down in the ground before her, she did reach out to curl her hand around its hilt. Sword play she did not know either, but the hide-covered metal in her grasp gave her a small hope of some defense.
She watched him walk out of sight—to her surprise he seemed to be able to melt into the bushes and was gone like a trail of smoke. Each trade had its own arts. Once more she regar'ded her hands. Luckily Valoris, after a sleepy protest at being moved, had nodded off again.