by Sean Russell
“Stay as still as you can,” Jamm said. “Movement can be seenat some distance.”
“But is anyone looking for us?”
Jamm raised a hand to the rim of the stone and pointed. Somedistance off, on a road that cut north to south across the patchwork of fieldsand woods, a column of riders in purple-and-black livery, rode slowly south.The longer Samul looked the more signs of war he saw-troop moving, trains ofwagons lumbering north, but there were men-at-arms and huntsmen out on thefields and woods too.
“They’re searching for us?” Samul asked.
“Perhaps,” whispered Jamm, then pointed again.
A figure dodged out of little stand of scrub and went haringalong the edge of a field, slipping into the bush to avoid a group of riders.
“And who might that be?” Samul wondered aloud.
Jamm shrugged. “Highwayman, thief, deserter …”
Samul watched a little while, then slipped back down intothe cave, no longer feeling so secure.
For a few hours he slept but woke to a hand over his mouth,Jamm looking down at him, a finger to his lips. There was some sound comingfrom above, and then a stone bounced off the lip of their hiding spot and wenttumbling on. Laughter from above was a relief to them all, for these werechildren. A rain of rocks and sticks fell for the next hour, then Jamm wassuddenly alert, slipping his sword from its scabbard. Samul was afraid thechildren might be climbing down. What would they do about that? But a momentlater he heard the thud of a horse’s hoof, the creak of leather. Riders stoppedbelow the cliff; and the children ended their rain of rocks.
“Boy!” a man called from below. “Seen any strangers hereaboutthe last day or so?”
“Not today, sir,” a child’s voice came from above. “But wesaw three men on horses yesterday morning, just after dawn. They were slantingcross-country and not taking the roads. My father said it was a strange way totravel.”
“Where were they going?” the man called.
“Southeast, sir. Toward Crofton, or so we thought.”
“Thank you, lad,” the man-at-arms called back. “Is there away down from up there?”
“There is, sir,” the boy answered, though reluctantly.
“Then I’ll leave a coin for you. By this tree.”
The horses moved off. Samul could hear the boys clamberingdown the same little gully they had ascended. Did these children really notknow the cave was there? He hoped they didn’t; especially now that they knewthe soldiers were looking for strangers. But the children went quickly by,hardly more than a dozen feet away, apparently unaware. The coin was found, togreat delight, and the boys set off, hotly debating the uses for such a greatsum of money and marveling at their good fortune.
The moon was waning and did not rise till late, so they wereforced to make the climb from their eyry in the sparse light of the stars.Samul’s respect for Jamm went up then. He had thought Jamm a timid little man,but there was little question whose nerve was tested to tackle that climb inthe dark. When his feet finally reached the ground, Samul regarded the thiefwith newfound respect.
“I didn’t much like that,” Samul admitted to Lord Carl. “Thoughit didn’t seem to bother our guide.”
“He was never trained in arms, as we were, but he does notlack courage when it’s needed.”
“Where do we go, now?” Carl asked Jamm.
“I was going to ask you that same question,” the thief whispered,always wary. “Where am I to take you? The army was gathered east of the Isle,a few days ago. Is that our destination?”
“I have been thinking about this,” Prince Michael said. “Notso far from here I have a cousin who married a nobleman. He is older and won’tbe involved in the fighting, but he profited much from his marriage into ourfamily. He could contact my father’s allies-the ones I think will be loyal tothe House of Innes. I need such an intermediary, and A’tanelle would beperfect.”
“Are you prepared to trust him with your life?” Samul asked.
“I am.”
“Where must we go?”
“South a league, more or less, and a little inland. Hisestates are near the town of Weybridge.”
“My father,” Lord Carl began hesitantly, “did not hold A’tanellein the highest regard, for what it’s worth.”
Samul glanced over at Prince Michael, whose face shone nagar-palein the starlight.
“A’tanelle is an opportunist, I admit, and a bit morecunning than I would like, but he is my kinsman by marriage and has enoughauthority to sway the undecided to our cause.” The prince threw up his hands. “Andif not A’tanelle, then who?”
“I can’t answer that,” Carl said. “I’m only telling you my father’sopinion.”
“I don’t think you need worry, Lord Carl,” Prince Michaelsaid, though he looked concerned himself. “A’tanelle rose in the world becauseof his connection with the House of Innes. His future depends on us. Despitehis shortcomings, he is intelligent enough to know that. And you mustn’t forgethis wife: she is beyond reproach, for beauty, sentiment, or reason.”
Carl made a little bow.
“Weybridge,” Jamm said. “We’ll not reach it this night.” Thethief led them off at a good pace, not abandoning his practice of staying toshadow, crossing open land only when he had to. Without a torch to light theirway, the going was difficult and slow, punctuated by many stubbed toes andtumbles on the uneven ground.
Parties were still out searching the countryside, even bynight, and they found two encampments of huntsmen and men-at-arms, giving both awide berth. Several times Jamm stopped them to listen and watch thecountryside carefully from the relative safety of a shadow.
The fifth time he did this Samul could stand it no more andwhispered close to the little man’s ear. “What is it, Jamm?”
The thief shook his head. They were skirting a small wood ofoak and beech, and Jamm pointed down the border. “Wait for me at the end of thewood,” he whispered. “Go quietly.”
Samul hesitated, but Carl, who had utter faith in Jamm, marshaledthem on. At the end of the wood they crouched among the bordering trees. Thenight air vibrated with the sounds of insects, and the leaves whisperedsleepily in the low breeze. Off in the distance, a dog’s bark pummeled thenight.
“What is Jamm up to?” Samul asked. Despite Carl’s obviousloyalty, Samul had never trusted Jamm. Once a thief always a thief, hebelieved. People didn’t change their natures any more than a fox could become asheep.
He half expected Jamm to abandon them there and run off. Nodoubt he’d turn them in for the reward if he wouldn’t face a noose himself.Samul found himself shifting from foot to foot, eager to be off.
They waited an inordinate length of time. Samul fixed hiseye on a point on the western horizon and counted the stars that slipped behindthe distant hills. When Jamm did appear he contrived to do it with suchstealth that he made them all jump, appearing in their midst.
“I could hear you breathing from twenty feet,” he told themsoftly. “Quick now!” And he was off again-along the edge of the wood, then onhis belly through a field of oats. They “surfaced” in the shadow of a spreadingcherry tree, then slipped through an orchard, the barking dog closer now.
Hedgerows were Jamm’s highways. Farmers habitually cartedthe rocks they removed from the soil and piled them along the borders of theirfields. If the fields were used for pasture, the rocks might be made intodrystone walls to contain livestock, but more often they were merely piled, andwhatever grew over or near them was left untouched. Wild apple trees,chokecherries, vines and bushes of all kinds, many armed with lethal thorns.These hedgerows grew thick and tall, providing a network of shadow roads acrossmuch of the night landscape.
Of course those same shadows could hide their enemies; butJamm was so wary and had such matchless night vision that he held the advantagethere. He led them on through the night, stopping often to listen. Samul couldnot help but notice Jamm was paying more attention to what might lie behindthem than he had been formerly. Carl had notice
d this too, Samul was sure, andthe young noblemen had taken up traveling at the rear of their column andcasting his eyes back often.
Jamm led them up a small hill crowned with a wood. Therethey hunkered down in the edge of the trees, and Jamm watched the shadowedcountryside with the intensity of a hungry hawk.
“What is going on, Jamm?” Carl asked.
“We’re being stalked. I’m sure of it.”
“By whom?”
Jamm shook his head. “Someone more wary than I, and moreskilled in woodcraft, too. But I’ve heard him now, several times, and I’vecaught glimpses of him-just a shadow slipping into cover-more than once.” Jammfell silent, his manner grim, unsettled.
“Is this some huntsman of the Wills?” Samul asked.
“I don’t know what his game is,” Jamm said. “I suspect he’sknown where we’ve lain up at night, yet we’ve not been disturbed. Explain that.”
“Perhaps he is some old friend of yours, Jamm,” Carl suggested.
“If he was a friend, he’d have shown himself before now. No,this one’s up to something …” It was clear the little thief didn’t know what.
They hid in the wood that day, staying deep in the shadows.Jamm slept a little while Carl stood watch, but then he was up, prowling thewood’s edge. Twice Carl caught glimpses of him, bent over, a hand to hiscracked ribs. He was hiding it, but he was still not healed, and Carl wonderedhow long he would be able to keep this up.
“Is your thief patrolling our borders,” Samul asked Carl, “oris he trying to catch sight of this imagined huntsman who’s stalking us?”
“I think he’s doing both, though I doubt that Jamm is wrong.If he thinks someone follows us, then someone follows us.”
“But it doesn’t stand the test of reason. If someone werefollowing us, he would have turned us in by now, especially if he knew wherewe hid by day. It’s Jamm’s imagination and fear, though perhaps these are notbad things. They might be the reasons that he’s lived so long.”
The day crept by, a low overcast washing across the sky bymidday. Light rain spattered down through the leaves, and a wind, cool andghostly, rustled through the wood. Samul found it difficult to sleep. Rain, inrivulets, streaked his face, and just as exhaustion closed his eyes, the windwould moan through the trees, waking him with a start.
Crows found an owl roosting in a pine, and soon a dark armyhad gathered, crying and cawing from every perch. Finally, Samul sat up,cursing.
“I’m hungry, thirsty, and foul-tempered,” he announced, “andnow these bloody crows have come to ruin my sleep, as though the wind and rainwere not accomplished enough at that particular task.”
“Everything you say is true,” Prince Michael answered, notrising from his prone position, “but you are alive, and there is much to besaid for that.”
Samul could not deny this, and hardly more than a day agothat had been in doubt. “I’m tired of sneaking through hedgerows and sleepingin ditches,” Samul said. “I would rather a horse and a battle. I wish Torenhad allowed me that. Such a death I could accept.”
“Better than the life of a spy?” the Prince chided, but thenhe nodded. “You speak like a true man-at-arms, Lord Samul. But we’ve made thisbed of discomfort and dishonor for ourselves, so we must try to sleep in it,crows and all.”
Samul smiled unhappily. “Perhaps I’ve made such a bed formyself, Prince Michael, but neither you nor Lord Carl can make such a claim, I’mafraid. You’ve merely been the victims of misfortune.”
“But we are all equally desperate-dispossessed, almostfriendless, our worth measured by our ability to convince my father’s oldallies to rebel against this sorcerer and Menwyn Wills-which might make ourworth very small.”
Samul considered this. The Prince seemed to be brightenough, and in an unusually candid state of mind. “Tell me honestly, PrinceMichael. Are there men among your father’s officers and allies who remain loyalto you?”
The Prince almost squirmed where he lay. Samul saw that CarlA’denne was awake and listening carefully.
“To be honest, Lord Samul, my father did not create alliancesout of loyalty. I’m not sure he believed in it. He preferred to employthreats-force when needed. You can ask Lord Carl. His father wanted no part ofthis war, but my father coerced the A’denne into our alliance even so, drivingthem into their desperate bargain with the Renne. I’m not sure that I am anymore respected than my father, but I’m sure our allies and my father’s officerswill not be happy serving either Hafydd or Menwyn Wills. I’m placing my hope inthat.”
“Do you mourn your father?” Carl asked suddenly.
Prince Michael looked over at Carl, his look not so much offendedas surprised by the question-as though he’d not considered it. “The Prince,”Michael said, “had little respect for me, and for my part, I felt the sametoward him.” He hesitated, the look on his face unreadable. “And yet, he was myfather. He bore me on his back as a child; my wild charger as I slew imaginedenemies with a wooden sword. The truth is, I mourn the man he never was morethan the man he became.” ~
Samul would have to recast his opinion of this Prince-whowas neither coddled nor foolish, as he had at first assumed. His visit to theStillwater had matured him greatly, and a good thing too.
“I … I find myself mourning my father,” Carl said,suddenly interested in the handle of his dagger. “And must remind myself thatthe Renne believed him still to be alive when we set out. I pray that heremains so and that we will see each other again.”
“I met Lord A’denne on several occasions,” Prince Michaelsaid. “He was a man worthy of esteem. I hope that you will see each otheragain, so he can tell you how proud he is of all you’ve accomplished.”
“I’ve accomplished little,” Carl said. He looked up at thesky, which seemed to be growing dark at last. “Dusk is finally coming.”
As if they’d heard, the crows took flight; a wingedcacophony swarming south.
“The owl will be on the hunt soon,” Carl said. “Smart crowsto fly now.”
“Smart perhaps, but ill-mannered,” Prince Michael saidquietly. “We should follow their example and be off soon.”
Jamm returned half an hour later, shaking his head. “It willbe too dark to travel this night without torches or lantern, and we can riskneither.”
“You mean we have to spend another night here?” Samul said,unable to hide his frustration.
“There are many worse places than this, your grace,” Jamm answered.“My only complaint of this wood is that someone has been here, too recently,cutting trees. I hope they don’t come back until we are many days gone.”
They made a small meal of the last of their food-bread goingstale and cheese turning moldy. It didn’t help the mood much. Samul found therhythm of his sleep had been ruined and lay awake after darkness, listening tothe forest endlessly dripping with rain. A fitful wind kept the trees fromsleep, and far off, lightning tore at the sky.
Samul had nodded into a strange dream of food and a warm fire,when a hand on his shoulder brought him back to damp reality. It wascellar-dark, and the rain was falling in earnest.
“We’re found!” Carl whispered. “They’re coming up the hill.”
Someone came crashing back into camp then. “At least a dozenmen coming up the hill with torches!” Jamm said, his voice rising in fear. “We’llhave to go down the north side, as fast as we can. There is no cover there,just open pasture cropped by sheep.” He didn’t wait for the others to collectthemselves but set out. Samul came stumbling behind, dizzy from just waking.
Beneath the trees there was no light, and they went forwardlike blind men, groping and flailing with their hands. Samul smashed his shinson a large boulder, fell, and left too much skin behind. The close wood claimeda great deal of blood and skin that night, but finally they reached the farside. Jamm stopped there a moment even though they could see torches hadreached the edge of the wood behind them. The landscape was utterly impenetrable,areas of black contrasting with areas of near black.
&n
bsp; “Jamm, we have no time!” the prince complained. “They’re inthe wood.”
“They might not be the only danger,” the thief said.
The sounds of their hunters crashing through the underwoodcould be heard.
“All right,” Jamm said. “Keep low to the ground. There arehedgerows straight on. They funnel into a lane way with a gate at this end. It’seasy to get off your course in the dark. When you reach the hedgerow follow itdown hill, and we’ll find each other at the gate.”
Beneath their feet the short grass was slick with rain.Samul’s feet went out from under him first, then Prince Michael’s, or so hethought-it was difficult to tell in the dark.
They slid and tumbled down the hill, getting farther andfarther apart. The ground finally began to level so that Samul could runwithout fear of slipping, though the odd boulder or patch of thistle would triphim as he went. He glanced back once to see the torches coming out of thetrees.
Somewhere ahead and to Samul’s right, Jamm cursed. Thehedgerow loomed out of the dark, and he plunged into a thick cedar.Disentangling himself, he turned right and hurried on as best he could, someoneonly a few feet ahead.
“The gate,” Carl called.
“Where?” Jamm’s voice came out of the darkness.
“You’re through it, I think,” Carl answered. “It’s open.”
“It was closed at dusk …”
A torch appeared twenty feet behind them, coming out of somehole in the thick hedge. Then two more ahead of them, casting light on thenarrow lane way. There were men before them and behind. Samul heard a swordbeing drawn, then another. The third was his.
“We go down the lane,” Samul ordered, taking charge. “Cutdown the men with the torches first.”
The hedgerows to either side would be impenetrable, he knew.These men weren’t fools. There were only two ways out, and they wereoutnumbered from both before and behind. Samul raised his sword and shouted,running at the dark forms of men who appeared in the dull torchlight. Raincontinued to fall, making the footing treacherous. Even the pommel of his swordwas slick.
They had only a moment to fight their way through the men inthe lane before the others would be upon them from behind, and they’d betrapped and hopelessly outnumbered.