The attack had delayed them, so darkness caught them in open farmland. They pulled the cart off the road and pitched camp, with the men rolling their blankets up against a hedgerow. The women slept under the cart in case of rain-and the older women pointedly made sure Ciare slept in the center.
They woke at first light, and were just setting a pot to boil over the campfire when they heard a drum roll and a trumpet blow, then heard the yelling and clashing break out nearby. Everyone turned to stare-except Dirk, Gar, and Androv.
"Quickly, into the carts!" the chief player called, and shooed them all up to their perches. They complained that they hadn't had breakfast, to which he replied, "Be glad you have your lives!" Gar smothered the fire, then ran to help Dirk harness the horses to the shafts.
The cart rumbled back onto the road. Dirk shook the reins, calling to them, and the horses kicked into a trot. "No faster, I pray," Androv shouted to him, "or they'll spill all of us!"
Dirk nodded, face rigid, and held the horses at the trot.
Shouting and clashing broke out on the other side of the road, too, and they saw troops in strange livery running toward them-or rather, toward the battle line beyond; they just happened to be in the way.
"Whose colors are those?" Dirk called. "Earl Trangray!" Coll called back.
"Impatient, isn't he?" Gar asked. "He just couldn't wait for the rest of the dukes to arrive!"
"Maybe he's only feeling out the situation, to see how strong the king is," Dirk yelled back.
"The more fool he, them"
Coll was amazed how sure he sounded, and even more amazed at the firmness of Gar's nod of agreement.
Then an arrow flew from the left edge of the road and sank into the side of Dirk's horse. The beast screamed, rearing; then its knees folded, and it fell, dead. The other plowed to a halt and the cart bucked; the players screamed as it almost overturned. Coll threw himself across to the far side, and it settled back just in time for a spear to come hurtling from the right side of the road and sink deeply into the chest of Gar's horse. The poor beast dropped without a sound.
Dirk cursed as he leaped down, drawing his sword to chop through the harness. Gar did the same, while Dirk raged, "I'll kill them! I'll draw and quarter them! Poor beast! What did he ever do to them?"
"Got in their way," Gar called, "and so did we! Haull Put your back into it! Before they reach the road!"
Each man grabbed a trace and threw himself against the weight of the wagon. Coll leaped down to join them, and so did Master Androv and the two older men, though more slowly. They all grabbed hold of the tongue and heaved. Slowly, the cart ground into motion, then began to roll. The dead horses passed between the wheels, and the players were on their way to safety.
Coll was amazed at how smoothly and easily the cart went, seeming to grow lighter with every step. Soon they were all trotting, beginning to breathe hard.
"We have it going now!" Gar called. "Everyone over thirty, drop out and jog along!"
The older men did, thankfully, and Gar, Dirk, and Coll pulled the cart by themselves. They were a hundred yards down the road before the troops broke onto it, halberd clashing against pike with roaring and shouting, knights riding through it all laying about them with their swords.
Then a dozen soldiers leaped onto the road before the players, leveling spears, and a knight rode up behind them, crying, "Halt!" Then he saw Gar and howled, "It's the deserterl You have heard of him, everyone has heard of him! And the players are harboring him! Slay them all!"
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"Are you out of your mind, man?" Gar stormed. "These are civilians, and there's a battle coming right toward us! Let them pass!"
"Them, perhaps, but not you!" The knight spurred his horse and charged down at Gar. Coll, in a panic, caught up his spear. Gar leaped aside, and the knight thundered on alongside the cart, trying to turn his horse. Coll leaned out, bracing his spear. It caught the knight right under the chin of his helm, and he reeled in the saddle. Gar leaped to hug the man around the middle and haul him down from his saddle. The knight hit the ground with more clang than thud.
Androv turned ashen. "You're a dead man, Col!"
"I've been dead for five months now," Coll retorted. "I still manage to get a lot done." Inside, though, his stomach sank. It was indeed death for a serf to strike a knight.
The soldiers knew that, too; they shouted in anger and charged.
Dirk leaped into their path, catching one man's spear on his dagger and another on his sword. The parries threw the spears up, and their balance off; with quick kicks, he sent them reeling into the men behind them. Gar stepped in to take two more, but a third thrust a spear right at his face; he managed to dodge, but the soldier slammed into him, and down he went. The soldier lifted his spear high and thrust down with all his might, but Gar rolled aside, then up to his feet, and swung at the man while he was still trying to wrestle his spear out of the ground. The soldier had sense enough to let go, duck, and come in to slam a punch into Gar's jaw. Gar reeled back, and another soldier stuck out a spear to trip him. Gar fell, and the soldier kicked him twice, hard.
Coll shouted, leaping down, and charged.
He caught the soldier in the shoulder just as he managed to yank his spear free. Gar came to his feet in time to catch the other soldier, hefting him high to hurl him into the faces of the two remaining soldiers who came running, spears leveled.
"Remaining" because, with Gar and Coll having tied up four soldiers, Dirk had managed to knock out the rest. Several lay clutching their heads and moaning; others just lay, period. Gar limped up to him, breathing hard. "Well done."
"Ill done," Dirk snapped. "One of them will never move again!"
"Better him than us," Gar wheezed, "and they weren't in a mood to be particular about what they did to us, or why."
A little life came back into Dirk's face, and Gar turned to clap Coll on the shoulder. "Thank you, Coll-twice. This knight would have spitted me on his lance if it hadn't been for you, and his man would have done the same." He turned to the knight, knelt, and lifted his visor. Bleary eyes opened and looked up at him, then snapped wide in horror.
"Tell the king you were felled by Sir Gar Pike," Gar told him, "whose squire saved him from your cowardly onslaught. No, no excuses-if you knew enough to call me a deserter, you knew who I was. Now, thanks to my man, I can slog onward, trying to return to my king."
"I-I had not known," the knight stammered.
"You knew very well, and your eagerness to kill me must make us wonder for whom you truly fight. Still, I'll say nothing about this unfortunate `mistake' if you don't. I've too many other things to worry me, such as defeating the alliance of lords. I leave you your life-but I will take your horse, since you slew mine."
Outrage flared in the knight's eyes, but he was in no position to argue. "It is the least I can do to atone for my error," he said stiffly.
"I thank you," Gar said gravely. "We shall return him to you when we have found our king again. Until then, farewell. Coll, prop him up against a tree."
Dirk had to help him, but they managed to wrestle the knight over to a tree where he could lean back. By the time they were done, Gar had lashed the horse to the tongue of the cart, using his saddle cinch and one of the reins. The cart ground into motion, leaving behind a knight who was struggling to his feet by leaning heavily on a tree.
With the horse to help and Dirk, Gar, and Coll to help the horse, they finally managed to haul the cart up into the shelter of a rocky outcrop. Gar began to curry the poor beast and assure it how noble it was, while Elspeth took a leather bucket to a nearby spring to draw water for it.
Dirk wiped his brow. "You know, it occurs to me that we could have saved a lot of effort by leaving the cart."
"True," Androv wheezed, "but the properties and stage are our livelihood, Sir Dirk. Without it, we might be able to earn a living by pantomimes on fair days-or we might not."
Dirk nodded. "Okay, I guess we do have to take it along."
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"Besides, we can always hide under it if the battle catches up with us again."
It did exactly that only an hour later-or its aftermath did.
Suddenly there were soldiers falling all about them as they leaped down from the hilltop above. Some still held spears, but most were fleeing in outright panic. They struck at the players, bawling their fright, then ran on down the slope.
"Back! As far under the brow of the hill as you can!" Gar shouted. Elspeth took the horse's reins and led the charger back into cover, then cowered beside it while Gar beat fleeing soldiers away and Dirk and Coll threw their weight against the cart, trundling it back until it jarred against rock. They turned it sideways, so that falling soldiers wouldn't snap the tongue, then took up positions around it, ready to defend. They only had to push away the occasional soldier, though.
"Why are they in such a panic?" Coll called to Gar. "Because their side lost," Gar answered. "Now they're running for their lives."
"Then the king has won," Coll cried, "for those are Duke Trangray's colors!"
"He should have waited for the rest of the dukes, after all," Dirk said, grinning.
"The losers don't bother me," Gar told them. "They'll only attack us if we get in their way. It's the winners I'm worried about."
"Yeah." Dirk turned grim, sword and dagger out and at rest, but ready to snap up to guard. "Victors look for lootand since there's no town nearby, we're the closest thing."
They kept on fending off fleeing soldiers till the color of the livery suddenly changed. King's men leaped off the brow of the hill, chasing the duke's soldiers, and more of them came running around the side of the outcrop. They saw the players and skidded to a halt, grinning. "Lood Are you fool enough to try to keep us from it?"
"I am," Gar said grimly. "We're knights, and this is our squire."
"They got women in there?" one ranker asked, pushing toward the cart-then stopping as Dirk's rapier circled in front of his stomach. "Hey, now! Get aside and let us at 'em, or we'll bury you under men!"
"Some of you will be killed," Gar warned him. "Want to be the first?"
The soldier glared at him, but didn't answer. Gar waited. But while he did, more and more soldiers assembled behind the first one. "What's to do, Dool?"
"The big one says they're knights, but they don't look like it-and they got women in there and they won't let us at 'em!"
"Women?"
"Hit 'em!"
"Bury 'em!" The king's men roared and rushed.
Coll caught a spear on his shaft, thrust it high, and clipped the soldier with the butt. The man fell, but two more pressed in in his place. Coll swung, slashing and striking, feeling blades cut his arms and legs, determined to keep them from Ciare. Beside him, Dirk and Gar thrust and cut and parried, and king's men fell before them. Then a pike butt cracked into Coll's jaw and he fell back against the cart. Dimly, he heard men roaring, heard Gar bellow with anger, and heard a series of loud thuds. Then he could see again, but the world seemed to tilt around him. It steadied, showing a dozen men lying on the ground before Dirk and Gar, who were both breathing heavily, both striped with blood from cuts on forehead, cheek, and arm-but the king's men held their distance, uncertain.
Then a knight rode around the side of the outcrop and cried, "What moves?"
"They say they're knights," a soldier wheezed.
The visored helm turned toward Gar. "Whose knights?"
"The king's," Gar panted. "I'm Sir Gar Pike, and this is Sir Dirk Dulaine."
Everyone froze.
Then the knight threw his visor up. "Where in hell have you two been?"
"Not in hell, but here and there about the countryside," Gar said, still panting. "We were cut off from the king's troops, retreated running and fighting, and found ourselves way behind enemy lines. We hid in the greenwood, and have been trying to work our way back to His Majesty ever since."
"Nay!" A soldier shoved his way to the front and pointed a shaking finger at Gar. "He's the one who unhorsed Sir Bricbald and left him for dead! Left the rest of us, too!"
"Ah, yes," Gar drawled. "I seem to recognize this soldier's readiness to fight three men when he had a dozen on his side!"
The soldier reddened. "A deserter Sir Bricbald named him, and a deserter he is!"
Coll lunged at the man with his spear, but Gar caught his shoulder and held him back.
"Him, too!" The soldier leaped away, pointing now at Coll. "All three of them! Deserters, all! And these players have harbored them!"
"I find it hard to believe that a knight who was so close an adviser to the king would desert," the knight said slowly, "but if Sir Bricbald laid the charge, we must consider it with some weight."
"Weight!" Gar said in disgust. "He only repeated a charge he had heard a soldier make-a soldier who had fled the battle himself!"
"He did not!" the accusing soldier said hotly.
Gar turned to him, recognition coming into his eyes. "Perhaps I do know you. . ."
"Enough!" the knight cried. "Sir Gar and Sir Dirk, if you are truly guiltless, as I suspect, I will ask your pardonbut until then, we must take you before the king, and let him decide."
"Excellent!" Gar lowered sword and dagger and straightened. "That's where I've been trying to go, anyway!"
Well, Coll knew that wasn't what Gar had really been trying to do, and so did Dirk-but who else? Certainly not the players. Oh, several dozen prisoners, sixty forest outlaws, and a whole grab bag of young aristocrats, soldiers, and merchants who had come to see the plays-but he doubted anyone was about to ask them.
"But we cannot leave these good players, who have been so hospitable to us, without defense," Gar told the knight. "They must come along, and under my care, too."
"If you say it, they shall," the knight agreed, "and you and Sir Dirk shall of course keep your swords in your hands. You shall not need them, though." That last was said in a tone of iron, as he swept his soldiers with a threatening glance. A murmur of assent passed through their ranks, and spears lowered.
So they went, with a very relieved Master Androv driving, and Coll aboard the cart comforting a sobbing Ciare. Dicea glanced at them, and longing was naked in her face; then she turned away, somehow looking gaunt and hollow-eyed. Coll's heart went out to his sister. Was it only because he and Ciare had what Dicea wanted? Or was there something more? He decided to ask Mama as soon as there was a moment's rest.
Gar and Dirk strode in front of the cart, so Coll didn't hear Dirk saying, very softly, "I could see the doubt rising in him the moment you started talking, and the decision you wanted coming right behind it. You weren't working on him with words alone, were you?"
"Come now, Dirk!" Gar smiled. "Would I do a thing like that? Surely sweet reason is enough to convince any man!"
"What's sweet about it?" Dirk grumbled. "No, don't say it-you could only answer with a psi."
They came to a town miraculously untouched by the war, perhaps because it stood at the farthest border of Insol's estates-or perhaps because it had high, strong walls, with stout oaken gates. Those gates stood open at the . moment, and the knight drew the procession to a halt. "Your player folk will be safe here, and may even earn some gold."
Gar nodded. "We must leave them, then."
Coll looked up in alarm, then leaped down from the cart, but Gar was already reaching up to shake Master Androv's hand. "I thank you for your hospitality, sir. May you fare well. If we can, we'll summon you to play for the king when we've won."
"Optimist," Dirk muttered.
Gar turned to Coll. "Make your good-byes, for we must go, and quickly."
"Good-bye again?" Ciare blazed. "Why, you lack-love, you summer suitor! Have you no faithfulness at all?"
"My love, I have no choice!" Coll protested. "Absolutely none," the knight agreed, his tone once more iron. "He goes to the king for judgment."
"Judgment! Aye, and even if His Majesty judges you guiltless, will I see you again? Not likely! You have had what you seek, an
d go to seek more!"
"I will come back. . ."
"Aye, when you've emptied your heart to some other lass! Then you'll come to me to fill it again! But do not, sir, for I'll be gone! A deserter they have named you, and a deserter you are-but you haven't deserted the king, you've deserted me!"And she burst into tears as she turned away. Coll stared after her, dumbstruck, but his mother reached down to pat his shoulder. "It's her grief that's talking, son, not her reason-grief at losing you, grief that she must join your sister now in the agony of waiting and hoping her man will return alive and well."
"My sister!" Coll stared up at her. "What man does she await?" Then he cursed himself for saying it aloud, and glanced at Dirk and Gar.
"No, not them," Mama said. "While you were gone, she fell in love with young Enrico, the player who does the simpletons so well."
Coll stared, then felt joy begin in his heart, joy for his sister at the same time that he felt an echo of his own sense of loss, aching in sympathy with hers. "They took him for a soldier!"
"They did, so if your friends can really end this war as swiftly as they think, tell them to do it! Before Enrico gets killed." She transferred her hand to his head. "Go with my blessing, son. We'll do our best to look after your Ciare for you."
"And I'll look after Enrico, if I can find him! Thank you, Mother-and God be with you!"
Earl Insol's great hall wasn't much less imposing than the king's, and the king was just as impressive as he had been, and no more. Coll decided the youngster hadn't learned much from this campaign. He was astonished to realize that he felt older than the king, and was actually looking at His Majesty as something of a silly man!
"Sir Gar." The king's tone was carefully neutral. "It is long since I have seen you."
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