Ladyhawke

by Joan D. Vinge

  The patrons went on talking in desultory tones, not even glancing up as Phillipe moved past. No one showed the slightest interest in him, or even his borrowed clothes. At first he was only relieved; but as the moments passed, his ego began to prickle. Surely they couldn’t get that many strangers in this town. He might be small, but he wasn’t invisible. After all, he was Phillipe Gaston, who had escaped from the dungeons of Aquila and lived to tell about it.

  Impulsively, he pulled out his heavy money purse and dropped it on a table in front of the barmaid. “A drink of your most expensive,” he said in a loud voice. “And the same for anyone who’ll join me in a toast!” This time the patrons did glance up at him in curiosity; but only for a moment, before they all turned back to their own conversations.

  The barmaid returned, carrying a heavy earthenware mug. Phillipe looked critically at her as he took the drink from her hand. “Not much of a recommendation.” He jerked his head at the drink. She shrugged and walked away without answering. Phillipe began to wonder uncomfortably whether the whole town was under some kind of spell.

  “Let’s hear your toast,” a voice said suddenly, behind him.

  Phillipe turned. An enormous, surly-looking man wearing a heavy cloak stood up, moving toward him.

  “We drink to a special man, my friend,” Phillipe said recklessly. “Someone who’s been inside the dungeons of Aquila and lived to tell the tale.” He raised his mug and took a long drink.

  The stranger’s mouth quirked in an unpleasant smile. “Then you drink to me, little man. My name is Fornac, and I’ve seen those dungeons.”

  Phillipe looked the other man’s thick-necked, heavily muscled body up and down, nonplussed, and grinned at what he assumed was a joke. “A blacksmith, perhaps. A woodsman, or even a stonecutter. But a prisoner from Aquila?”

  “I didn’t say I was a prisoner.” Fornac reached up to his throat, unhooking his cloak. He threw it off. Beneath it he wore the blood-red uniform of the Bishop’s Guard.

  Phillipe froze, as other men began to rise from the tables, removing their cloaks. The regular patrons sat numbly, their faces taut with fear. Their strange behavior suddenly made perfect sense to him, now that it was too late. More than a dozen guardsmen had surrounded him, silently drawing their swords. A small curse escaped him as he watched Jehan rise from a dice game near the fire with the Captain of the Guard at his side.

  “If you’d stuck to the woods you might have stood a chance, Gaston,” Marquet said.

  “You’re right,” Phillipe said miserably. He stared at the half-eaten meal on a nearby table with a kind of desperate longing, before he cleared his throat. “That is . . . actually I was trying to find you, Captain.” Marquet stared blankly at him; he rushed on, stumbling over the words. “One of your men was cruelly murdered not far from here. But you’re in luck. I’m willing to exchange the name of his killer for a pardon from you.” Phillipe realized, hopelessly, that this time it even sounded unbelievable to him.

  Marquet glanced at Fornac. “Kill him,” he said.

  Fornac lunged forward with his sword out. Phillipe threw his drink into the guard’s eyes and dove under the nearest table, slipping away through the villagers’ legs like quicksilver.

  A group of guards rushed for the heavy table and turned it over, dumping food, plates, and pitchers heedlessly over the patrons and onto the ground. There was no one beneath it.

  “There he is!” Fornac shouted. Phillipe darted out from behind a man sitting at the next table—straight into the waiting arms of another guard.

  “Got him!”

  Phillipe squirmed wildly until he freed an arm. Planting a well-aimed elbow in the guard’s face, he broke away and disappeared back under the tables.

  The guards leaped after him, searching every corner, upending tables and hurling chairs aside in heedless anger, throwing the courtyard into pandemonium. Patrons screamed and ran; the guards forced them back as they tried to flee the yard. But Phillipe the Mouse seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

  A sudden silence fell, as Marquet glared with deadly intent from one frightened face to another. Then the silence was broken by a shriek from the edge of the courtyard. Phillipe crawled out from behind the voluminous woolen skirts of an immensely fat and immensely indignant middle-aged woman.

  “Purely unintentional, madam,” he gasped in apology. Looking frantically right and left, he faced the gauntlet of guards that waited between him and the gateway. This time there would be no escape. He was a dead man even if he surrendered. He pulled his dagger defiantly, unable to think of anything else to do, and leaped back into the crowd, struggling toward the entrance of the yard and freedom.

  Watching Phillipe’s progress, Marquet pushed through the patrons on a course of interception, as inevitable as night following day. A guard caught Phillipe’s arm just as Marquet arrived behind him, wrenching him around. Phillipe’s free dagger hand swung in a wide arc through the air—raking Marquet’s cheek with the tip of the blade.

  Marquet stopped dead in front of his prisoner, his face frozen in a mask of rage. Blood trickled down his jaw from the jagged scratch. His hand rose slowly, touched the blood, confirming the reality of the wound.

  Phillipe sagged in the guard’s grasp, equally aghast as he realized what he had done, and what it was going to mean for him. “I’m . . . so terribly sorry . . .” The words tumbled mindlessly out of his mouth.

  Marquet gestured to his men. Two of them jerked Phillipe back against a roof pole, pinning him there; a third raised his broadsword over their helpless prisoner. Marquet grinned, lifting his hand.

  Phillipe turned his face away, his eyes squeezed shut. “May God help me!” he cried.

  Out of nowhere, a crossbow bolt struck the guardsman in the arm; he dropped his sword with a shout of pain.

  “Marquet!”

  Marquet froze, as he recognized the voice that called his name. He turned slowly, and his men turned with him, to see the figure of Navarre standing like a deadly shadow at the courtyard entrance. His broadsword swung ready in his right hand, and a loaded crossbow rested in the crook of his left arm.

  Marquet’s eyes widened as they confirmed what his ears had told him. Phillipe slid to the ground as the guardsmen let him go, too stunned even to move. The yard around him was deathly still.

  “One of my men told me you were back,” Marquet snarled, his eyes never leaving Navarre. “I wanted to cut out his tongue for lying, because I knew you weren’t that stupid.” He glanced at Jehan. “Forgive me, Jehan. You are restored to your former rank.”

  Navarre shifted slightly, gestured to Phillipe. “You. Get out of here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Phillipe mumbled. “Thank you, sir . . .” Pulling himself together, he stumbled to his feet and ran out of the courtyard.

  C H A P T E R

  Five

  Navarre stood like an obsidian statue, blocking the courtyard entrance while the young thief ran past him into the street. Then he called out abruptly, “Marquet. Look at me.” Marquet’s eyes came back to him from watching the boy flee. They burned with deadly hatred—almost as deadly as his own hatred for Marquet. He gazed at the man who had stolen the life that was his by right, and helped to destroy everything that had ever had any meaning for him: Marquet, the sadistic, craven bully; the Bishop’s willing henchman. “I promised God my face would be the last thing you ever saw.”

  But as he lifted his crossbow a guard rose from behind an overturned table, aiming his own weapon, and fired. Navarre caught the motion from the corner of his eye, turned and fired almost simultaneously. The guard’s arrow whizzed past him, inches from his face. His own bolt did not miss. The man crashed down behind the table with a cry.

  Navarre spun back, searching for Marquet—and found himself face to face with another guard, a man he recognized. The guard raised his sword; lowered it again as their eyes met, his face filling with uncertainty and deep regret. “Captain,” he murmured to Navarre, “I . . .”


  Marquet’s heavy boot slammed savagely into the guard’s back, shoving him forward, impaling him on his former commander’s sword. Marquet leaped aside, roaring at his men to attack. To a man they obeyed.

  Navarre fought with the furious intensity of someone obsessed, as if this fight were all that he had been living for. But even with his almost inhuman reflexes, he was only one man, armed with one sword, against more than a dozen. The guards pressed him hard on every side, cutting off any retreat, driving him back through the mass of fleeing patrons toward the fire. He ran another man through—not one that he knew, this time. Sparks flew from the clash of steel on steel; his sword arm ached from the shock of a hundred blows. But his skill never faltered. He gave ground slowly, and one by one there were fewer attackers to surround him.

  But Marquet was a man equally obsessed. His nemesis had returned, and set free the prisoner whose life was worth more to the Bishop than his own. Navarre had come back, to reclaim all that was rightfully his; and Marquet’s hatred doubled with his secret fear. He elbowed his way through the panic-stricken crowd, as Navarre was forced back to the very edge of the firepit, barely clear of the flames.

  Navarre looked up to see Marquet advancing, murder in his eyes. Navarre killed another man almost instinctively, shoved him at Marquet as he pulled his sword free. Continuing the arc of his motion, he swung his sword at Marquet’s head. His sword glanced along the captain’s helmet, slicing off the golden eagle wings, the insignia of his rank. Marquet’s face contorted with fury as he realized that Navarre had done it intentionally.

  Navarre smiled grimly. Reaching behind him, he jerked a blazing branch from the firepit and drove it at Marquet’s face. Marquet leaped aside, lost his balance, and tumbled into the fire. Guards rushed to his aid, dragging him from the pit and beating out the flames on his cloak. Navarre seized his chance in the confusion and began to fight his way back toward the exit.

  Outside in the street, Phillipe pushed himself away from the wall of the nearest building and forced his leaden feet to move, stumbling with shock and exhaustion. He looked back at the tavern, still hardly able to believe what had just happened, or that there were still no guards in sight. Turning the corner blindly, he blundered into the tethered horses the guardsmen had hidden in the stableyard beside the tavern. He jerked to a stop, keeping his feet by an effort of will; he was struck with the sudden inspiration that one of these horses would probably improve his now shaky escape chances by one hundred percent.

  But he had never ridden a horse in his life. Horses terrified him. The animals, so massive beside even a large, heavy man, seemed to loom over him like mountains. Under normal circumstances he would never even have considered this insanity. But these were hardly normal circumstances. He untied the reins of the nearest horse with fumbling hands. Grabbing hold of the saddle, he tried to get his foot into the stirrup. Sensing his nervousness, the horse flattened its ears and shied away from him.

  “Nice horse,” Phillipe soothed unconvincingly, “good horse . . .”

  The horse jerked back and bolted away down the street.

  Phillipe looked tensely toward the tavern. The shouts and screams, the clash of metal, told him that the fight was still going on. Navarre was holding off the entire company of guards single-handed. For a fleeting instant it occurred to him that he should go back and help the man who had just saved his life a second time. Just as swiftly, he realized that the idea was not only suicidal but completely absurd. He pulled the reins of the next horse free and jammed his foot into the stirrup.

  He held on to the saddle, boosting himself up, without seeing the dangling cinch strap. The saddle slid off the horse’s back and crashed to the ground on top of him. Cursing with frustration and humiliation, Phillipe ran to the next horse.

  Back in the yard, Navarre slashed another man’s sword arm, watched blood spurt and the other’s sword fly free. His own body smarted with cuts, none of them serious. His reaction time was slowing; but only two guards and a few more feet separated him from the gateway. He pressed his attack with fresh determination, inching his way toward freedom. Marquet was still alive; but he had accomplished the thing he had come to do, the truly vital thing—he had saved the young thief.

  Navarre knocked a last guard aside with the flaming brand and sprinted out of the courtyard. Glancing down the street as a riderless horse cantered by, he saw, with incredulous dismay, that Phillipe Gaston was still in view. The boy stood in a milling herd of horses, trying vainly to catch one after another. He looked up as Navarre burst into view, and his own face filled with dismay. He turned and ran.

  Swearing furiously under his breath, Navarre ran to his stallion and vaulted into the saddle. The hawk, waiting on his saddlebow, spread its wings and soared up into the air. Pulling his horse’s head around, he galloped away down the street after the boy. Behind him, one of the guards blew a warning call on a horn. Navarre looked ahead, his mouth tightening, knowing what it meant. That damned idiot, he thought, watching the boy run straight into another trap.

  The town wall loomed ahead of them. The high wooden gate at the end of the street was open, but the guardsman stationed there had heard the horn blast. As Navarre watched, he began to push the gate shut.

  Navarre’s stallion bore down on Phillipe. The boy looked back as he ran, his expression a jumble of panic and terror. “No! No! No!” he cried. Behind them Navarre heard more horses galloping in pursuit. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Fornac and another guard riding hard after him.

  He looked forward again, just in time to see the heavy gate slam closed ahead. Leaning down from his saddle, he thrust out his arm and scooped Phillipe up. The thief’s small, wiry body scarcely strained his arm. He flung Phillipe across the front of his saddle like a sack of meal and dug his spurs into the stallion’s flanks. The black’s heavy muscles bunched as he gathered himself and leaped into the air. The stallion cleared the gate as if he were winged and landed at a dead run on the other side. The guard waiting at the gate lunged at them as they flew past; Navarre smashed the man in the face with his fist.

  Navarre looked back, steadying Phillipe’s groaning body with his hand. Behind him their two pursuers cleared the gate with far less grace. He caught up the sling that hung from his saddle and thrust a stone into it. Whirling it over his head, he let the stone fly. It struck the rider beside Fornac in the head, knocking him from his horse. But the awkward burden of Phillipe slowed his own stallion, and Fornac was still closing fast.

  Navarre glanced up into the sky. The hawk wheeled in the blue heavens high above him, its silhouette like a drawn crossbow. “Hoy!” he shouted.

  The hawk screeched and plummeted down through the air, its talons flashing like knives as it dove toward Fornac. The guardsman flung up his arm with a bellow. He pitched from the saddle as his horse reared, sprawling heavily on the ground. Navarre rode on without looking back, as the hawk soared triumphantly over his head.

  Standing in the muddy street before the tavern, Marquet squinted from beneath his singed brows as Navarre and the thief disappeared into the forest. His smoke-blackened face hardened into stone. He turned back to his remaining men, all of whom were nursing wounds of their own. None of them met his eyes.

  The hawk circled lazily in the warm updrafts that rose with the mountain wall. The long, sensitive primary feathers of her wingtips and the broad fan of her tail flared, twisted, narrowed, as she manipulated them with the delicate precision of fingers on a hand. Far below her, the man in black rode slowly through the blazing colors of the autumn forest along a narrow ridgeline. Perched behind him on the stallion was the smaller figure of a second rider, whose drab peasant clothing blended well with the forest floor. The hawk studied the pair of riders for a long time with expressionless golden eyes. At last she shifted her wings, increasing their drag, and began to drift down and down, until she settled at last on Navarre’s gauntleted wrist. She flared her wings once, gazing up at him. Navarre smiled faintly in acknowledgment.

/>   Phillipe peered past Navarre’s broad shoulder to look at the bird, grateful for any distraction that would take his mind off the ride. Now that his life was not in immediate danger of ending for the first time in days, he had found himself with unexpected time in which to reflect on his new situation. But unfortunately, all that he seemed to be able to think about was how much he still hated horses. He had slipped in and out of an exhausted doze all through the afternoon, waking with every sudden lurch over the uneven ground, while his empty stomach endured a previously unknown form of motion sickness. He decided that this year he would give up horses for Lent.

  He studied the preening bird, admiring the subtle shadings of brown and olive on its smooth feathered back, its soft, cinnamon-streaked breast and black-striped tail. He was impressed in spite of his circumstances by its beauty, and by its ferocious loyalty to its master. Navarre wore no jesses or straps to keep the hawk always at his command. It came and went as it pleased, always returning to his arm. “That is a truly remarkable bird, sir,” Phillipe said, attempting conversation for the first time in hours. Navarre was a man of few words, and in his grim presence, Philippe had obediently been the same. “I’d swear she flew at those men of her own free will!”

  Navarre glanced back at him. “We’ve traveled together awhile. I suppose she feels a certain . . .” he hesitated, “. . . loyalty to me.” The hawk trained a beady eye on Phillipe and hissed defiantly, flaring her speckled wings. Suddenly he felt that the bird was in no way this man’s property . . . that they traveled as equals. And that he was very definitely an unwelcome addition to their relationship, at least as far as the bird was concerned. But what about Navarre? The man who dressed like a mourner and fought like an angel of death plainly had some grudge against the Bishop’s Guard; but that didn’t change the fact that he had risked his own life twice to save the life of a total stranger they happened to be hunting. Once, it could have been a lucky coincidence; but not twice. It was almost as if the man had been following him . . .