“No,” Navarre said darkly. “This is mine to fill. Each generation is called upon to find its special mission.”
Phillipe let his arms drop, relieved, and cautiously intrigued. Navarre was actually confiding in him, and if it wasn’t because he wanted him to steal, then perhaps Navarre really respected him after all. “And what . . . is your mission?” he asked expectantly. He saw himself riding off with Navarre on a knightly quest for the treasures of a glorious lost kingdom . . .
Navarre looked up at him. “To kill a man.”
Phillipe’s face went expressionless. Disappointed, he said, “Well. I pity the poor wretch,” thinking that at least it was a feat Navarre would have no trouble whatsoever accomplishing. It would be interesting to watch. “Does this walking corpse have a name?”
Navarre climbed slowly to his feet. “His Grace, the Holy Bishop of Aquila.”
Phillipe blinked. “I . . . see,” he said weakly. From personal experience, he knew that Navarre’s reasons for wanting the Bishop dead must be excellent ones. But he was equally sure that he did not even want to know what they were. For a moment he had forgotten that Navarre was mad. The last gossamer wisps of daydream cleared from his vision as he clapped his hands together. “Well! Then you have . . . much to do and I’ve already been enough of a burden to you. I hope our paths cross again someday.” He took a step backward, with a wave of farewell.
Navarre hesitated as he watched Phillipe begin to back away. He willed the boy to meet his eyes. “Come with me to Aquila.”
Phillipe shook his head. “Not for the life of my mother. Even if I knew who she was.” He took another step, glancing toward the trees.
Navarre bit down on his impatience. This moment was going exactly as badly as he had imagined it would. “I need your help to get into the city. You’re the only one who’s ever escaped from there.”
“Escaped?” Phillipe laughed once, sharply. “I fell down a hole and followed my nose!”
“Then follow it back again!” Navarre snapped. He started forward, cursing the twisted fate that forced him to depend on this miserable human flea for his salvation.
“You don’t want me with you on a mission of honor, sir,” Phillipe pleaded. “I’m just a cutpurse, a professional thief!”
Navarre grabbed him by the front of his tunic, nearly lifting him off his feet. The boy cringed away from his gaze, from the animal fury Navarre felt rising in himself. He took a deep breath, forcing his mind to stay rational. Slowly and painfully, he tried to explain: “For two years I’ve waited to hear the warning bells of Aquila. Two years without a roof over my head, avoiding the Bishop’s patrols, biding my time, waiting for a sign from God that the moment of my destiny had come.” He looked down into Phillipe’s wide, glassy stare, into the bright, resourceful mind he knew was hiding from him behind those frightened eyes. He smiled, a quiet, merciless smile. “And here you are, boy.” He let Phillipe go.
“Me?” Phillipe pulled himself together swiftly, pulling his tunic smooth. He looked Navarre stubbornly in the eye. “Sir, the truth is, I talk to the Lord all the time, and . . . no offense . . . but He never mentioned you.” He lifted his chin.
Navarre jerked his sword out of the ground, swinging it back and forth easily with one hand. He looked at Phillipe again. “Perhaps—you forgot to ask.”
Phillipe swallowed visibly, watching the barbed, razor-sharp blade slice through the air. His dark eyes turned grave. “Sir,” he said, “I’m common as dirt. With common fears and common hopes for myself. There are . . .” He fumbled, for once at a loss for words. “There are strange forces at work in your life, magical ones which surround you. They are far beyond my ability to understand, but . . .” His voice faded. “They frighten me.”
Navarre said nothing.
Phillipe grimaced. “You’ve given me my life—but the truth is, I can never repay you. I have no honor, never will have.” He shrugged.
Navarre stared at him, his face unyielding.
Phillipe went on steadily, “I don’t think you’d kill me simply for being what I am.” He took a deep breath, and shook his head. “But better that than to return to Aquila.” His fists clenched.
Navarre was suddenly aware of how small and defenseless the boy looked, and was; of how he must appear to the boy—a bully twice his own weight, armed with a sword, dragging him into a private vendetta that was probably suicidal.
Phillipe turned his back and walked slowly toward the woods. Navarre watched him go, watching destiny slip from his hands, and his last hope disappear. Phillipe began to walk faster. Suddenly Navarre raised his arm and hurled the broadsword like a javelin.
The sword smashed into a tree inches from Phillipe’s head. Phillipe spun around, looking back with his heart in his throat. He saw the look on Navarre’s face—frozen, deadly; the face of a man utterly obsessed. And he knew that he had been wrong. Phillipe glanced again at the sword quivering in the tree. He smiled ingratiatingly as he leaned down, picking up a dead branch, never taking his eyes off of Navarre. “I think I’ll gather some wood for the fire . . .”
The night was quiet around the deserted campsight; the embers of the untended campfire pulsed redly, like dying suns. Goliath snorted and stamped, cropping grass, tethered at the clearing’s edge with Navarre’s sheathed sword slung at his saddle.
A twig snapped in the dark woods beyond the fire. Goliath looked up, pricking his ears. Another twig snapped. The young woman who had called the wolf to her the night before stepped cautiously out of the darkness. She wore a man’s tunic and pants, and a short dagger at her belt. Her fair hair, uncovered, was cut short like a man’s, or a mourner’s. She entered the boulder-studded clearing, glancing left and right, nervous but expectant. The clearing was empty except for the stallion. She sighed, resigned to another night of solitude. Goliath nickered softly in recognition. She dropped another branch on the fire and crossed to him; offered her open palm for him to snuffle and lip.
Her eyes moved to the sword hanging from the saddle. She froze, as something wedged beneath its hilt caught her eye. She moved along the stallion’s shoulder to pluck a hawk feather from beneath the sword. Holding it up into the moonlight, she marveled at the subtle patterns of light and darkness along its length. Her fingers traced its fragile profile delicately; she stood spellbound, as if she were touching a part of some creature to which she felt an uncanny kinship. She smiled, a smile for no one but herself. Her mind filled with dim echoes of soaring flight as she let the feather drift to the ground.
Reaching out, she uncinched the stallion’s saddle, pulled it down from his back with the ease of long familiarity, and set it under a tree. She untied the rope of Goliath’s halter. Goliath gave a brief snort of protest as she led him away from his meal.
“Oh, shush,” she murmured. She tossed the rope across his withers. Reaching up to catch handfuls of his heavy mane, she swung easily onto his back. She smiled, stroking his neck. “Now, just make sure you remember everything we’ve learned,” she whispered. She tightened her legs, and he moved forward, trotting slowly around the campfire. And then he began to dance. Responding to the subtle shifts of her weight, the pressure of her gripping legs, her almost inaudible commands, the war-horse moved through the complex and beautiful dressage patterns she had taught him through endless nights like this one.
As they circled the clearing like one creature, in perfect communion, she could almost believe that she was back in her home in Anjou, a girl again. If she closed her eyes, she could be that other self, riding endlessly along the bright, sunlit valley of the Loire through the colors of the day . . .
“Psst.”
Her eyes opened. She halted Goliath instinctively, her heart pounding, wondering if she were going mad at last . . . not willing to believe that she had actually heard another human voice whispering in the night. She peered into the darkness around her, seeing nothing.
“Psst! My lady! Up here!”
She looked up, blinked in astonishme
nt. Hanging from a stout limb just above her head was the sweet-faced boy she had seen last night, trussed up like a prize catch of game. His hands were bound behind him, and the single long rope that held him suspended circled his throat; he could not even struggle. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable. But he smiled at her, trying hard to seem nonchalant. “Remember me?”
“What are you doing up there?” she said incredulously. She realized it was probably not what she should have said; but she had almost forgotten how to speak to another human being.
“What am I . . . ah, and well you might ask that, yes indeed . . .” The boy looked away from her, plainly thinking fast. “The Bishop’s guards! A dozen of them! We had a terrible fight!”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Why didn’t they kill you?”
“Why didn’t they . . . ah, yes, I asked them that myself!” He nodded, and winced.
“And?” she prompted.
“And?” he said blankly.
“What did they say?”
“Why, that . . .” He glanced toward heaven. “Uh, they preferred to leave that honor to the Bishop!”
She looked down, to hide her smile. She recognized Navarre’s handiwork: He must have tied the boy up, leaving him helpless and out of harm’s reach. But she had no way of knowing what his motives were. And what was the boy doing here at all? She had thought he was only some peasant’s son. But he spoke too well—and was too good a liar—to be a simple peasant boy. Had he been following Navarre? She looked back at him, uncertain.
“Please, my lady?” the boy said pathetically. “A giant owl examined me quite carefully not one minute ago.”
She studied him thoughtfully, considering the possible alternatives. No . . . she could not spend all night with that poor wretch dangling from a tree over her head. He looked harmless enough. Suddenly the yearning for human company, the sound of a voice that was not her own, became unbearable. She drew her dagger. Doubt and then gratitude filled the boy’s eyes as she reached up and freed his hands. Sliding from Goliath’s back, she severed the rope that bound him to the tree. The boy wriggled loose and dropped to the ground beside her, shaking out his numbed hands.
A wolf howled, somewhere in the darkness. She looked away toward the sound, her heart squeezed with sudden grief. The wolf howled again, and she turned back to the boy reassuringly. “Listen. There’s nothing to . . .” She broke off.
The clearing was empty. The boy had disappeared.
She grimaced with dismay, clenching her fists. She had forgotten even more than she realized about how human beings behaved . . . Navarre would be furious. Suddenly she ached to hear his voice, even raised in anger, even shouting at her—a longing as deep and as hopeless as her longing for the sun. She shook her head, turning back in resignation to face the forest; listening, waiting.
C H A P T E R
Eight
Phillipe stumbled wearily through the brightening dawn. He had walked all night, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and the haunted clearing. His face stung with scratches, his clothes were full of leaves and dirt from falls in the darkness; but it was a small price to pay to be free of Navarre. He began to climb toward the sunlit crest of another long slope; stopped, sniffing the air with sudden interest. He smiled. Somewhere over the hill, someone was cooking breakfast. He licked his lips, and went on climbing.
Meanwhile, miles behind him, Navarre entered the campsite with the sunrise, his own face lined with fatigue. He strode directly to the tree where he had left Phillipe. One look at the empty limb, the empty ropes lying on the ground below it, told him everything. His mouth thinned. She had set the boy free. Of course she would. She hadn’t realized . . . he should have left her a note, should have warned her somehow. He struck the tree trunk with his fist, furious at his own stupidity and helplessness. He turned away from the sight of his failure, back toward the dying fire, trying to tell himself that the boy had been hopeless anyway. That he had not really lost anything—that he had never even had it to begin with . . .
The stallion snorted, and he glanced up; he stopped, staring. The sight before him was so incongruous that he would have smiled at it on the way to the gallows. Goliath stood beneath the tree, just as Navarre had left him last night. Except that during the night someone had braided the stallion’s heavy mane and curled it into ringlets. The sunflower he had picked at the farm and left for her was woven into the horse’s forelock. He had never seen a horse look embarrassed—until now. He crossed the clearing to the stallion’s side, still grinning, and shook his head. “Poor bastard,” he murmured, his throat tight, “you’re defenseless against her too, aren’t you?”
Phillipe crouched at the top of the hill, peering downslope. In the valley below he could vaguely make out figures moving, half hidden by the thick smoke of their fire. Their garbled speech reached him faintly. There seemed to be a lot of them. He half rose, hesitated, weighing caution against hunger.
A heavy hand closed on his shoulder, jerking him around.
Phillipe’s mouth fell open, but he had nothing to say to the burly guard whose hands gripped him like a vise. The guard grinned broadly. “Join us!” he said. He pushed Phillipe over the brink of the hill.
Phillipe tumbled crazily down and down, head over heels through the rocks and brush, until he hit the bottom. Lying sprawled on his back, he struggled to raise his head as another set of uniformed legs loomed over him. He blinked his eyes clear and looked up at his captor.
“Well, well,” Fornac said. “You’re a long way from the sewers, little rat. This time the drinks are on me.”
Phillipe rolled his eyes, let his head fall back with a small groan.
The other guards had come to stand around him in a group. Fornac grabbed him by his tunic and hauled him up to a sitting position. “Where’s Navarre?”
“Navarre, Navarre . . .” Phillipe shook his mind loose frantically. Fornac lifted a mailed fist, held it clenched in front of his face. “Ah! Big man, black horse? He went south, along the road to Aquila.” Phillipe waved a hand in what he hoped was the right direction.
One of the other guards smiled knowingly. “Then we ride north, right, sir?”
Phillipe sat up straighter. “It’s not polite to assume someone’s a liar when you’ve only just met him,” he said, indignant.
Fornac studied him, frowned. “And yet you knew we would . . .” he said slowly. “We ride south—toward Aquila!”
Phillipe cursed in silent frustration as his plan bit his own hand like a snake. Fornac’s men dragged him to his feet and propelled him back toward the campsite. He knelt numbly while two guards shackled his hands together behind him. They boosted him up onto a tethered horse and tied his feet together beneath its belly. He sat watching the guardsmen break camp with frightening speed, eager for the hunt—eager for it to end with Navarre’s death. Phillipe looked up into the sky, where heavy gray clouds were spreading across the sun. “I told the truth, Lord,” he said morosely. “How can I learn any moral lessons if You keep confusing me like this?”
Fornac trotted up alongside him and took hold of his horse’s reins. The guard troop rode out, heading south toward the Aquila road.
Navarre rode grimly down the Aquila road beneath a sky gray with lowering clouds. With or without the boy, he was going to the city. The Bishop of Aquila would die . . . or he would die, trying to reach the Bishop. It no longer mattered to him which; it only mattered that he was acting, now. He was through waiting for a sign which would never come . . . And always, in the back of his mind, he knew that no matter how that final encounter ended, he had already lost.
A wind chill with the promise of winter moaned through the trees, swirling up clouds of dry leaves and dust. Navarre raised his arm, shielding his eyes. The hawk perched on his other arm, just below his elbow; she huddled against his side for protection and warmth.
A dead branch crashed down into the road beside him. The stallion shied; the hawk took to the air with a start
led cry. Navarre steadied his horse with a soft word, looking ahead again. He saw nothing but open fields, some domed granaries and a distant flock of sheep. He urged the black forward into a canter, and rode on unknowingly into ambush.
Fornac and his men lay silently in the underbrush along the roadside, waiting and watching as Navarre rode into view. Phillipe lay on his stomach, surrounded by guards, a gag in his mouth and his hands manacled behind him. He lifted his head, his eyes filled with sick terror as he watched Navarre riding to his death. Navarre might be a madman; but watching that proud figure on his black stallion, Phillipe only knew that the man who had saved his own worthless life twice did not deserve to die like this. And deep in his mind was the aching knowledge that somehow this was all his fault.
Fornac nodded, and Phillipe heard the soft clicks of crossbows being loaded all around him. Phillipe chewed on his gag, grimacing and twisting his face, forcing it into the center of his mouth. Down the road he saw the stallion’s ears prick forward, as if he sensed something ahead. Navarre slowed.
The gag slipped into Phillipe’s mouth. He glanced from side to side, blinking hard as he looked at the armed men all around him. They would kill him instantly if he made the slightest sound to warn Navarre. But if he didn’t, they would kill Navarre instead . . . Phillipe shut his eyes, still not quite believing what he was about to do, and took a deep breath.
Suddenly, far above, a hawk screamed. The stallion reared up in the road as Phillipe opened his mouth to shout. The guard next to him looked around—and jammed a hand into his mouth.
Phillipe bit down hard. The guard bellowed.
“Fire!” Fornac shouted furiously.
A hail of arrows rained down on Navarre. Phillipe saw one strike him in the leg, saw blood splatter over his saddle. The hawk screeched in fury, diving down, as Navarre drew his sword and wheeled his horse around.
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