many unwelcome sights witnessed during her long trek across the Mongols’ empire.
She nudged her pony to a canter and rode up the trail she had trampled in the grass earlier, retracing her path until she drew near the crest. But before exposing her head, she dismounted and led the pony across the slope until she reached the snag—a moribund ash.
She threw the pony’s reins over a low side branch, which she then used to get a leg up and ascend to a higher bough. The ash was not as big as it looked from a distance, and its branches were dry, burnt, and brittle. They would not have supported any of the men in the party; they barely supported Cnan. With some care, however, she was able to climb about twice a man’s height to where the trunk forked into two roughly equal parts, a secure cradle from which she could look out over the other side of the rise and see what was coming.
Her fear, strangely, had been that she would see nothing at all, since this would mean that Percival and the others were dead. Further evidence that being around Percival had destroyed her wits, since their deaths would have been the best possible result if her only purpose were to save herself.
But a rooster tail of dust, catching the low light of the morning sun, was growing visible in the west—much more dust than could have been made by four men. A sizable host was on its way, pursuing one or more fugitives.
Since the ground’s gentle swell was blocking the near view, she climbed higher and, after some anxious waiting, noticed four glinting Vs, like the formations of wild geese, cutting across a wide stretch of river she had forded at dawn.
She was looking at the wakes made by four horses as they waded across the shallows.
Turning her head around, grabbing the trunk as a branch crunched under her, then rebalancing her weight, she picked out R?dwulf, perched behind the hedge with his bow slung across his shoulder, gazing at her. She tucked her thumb into her palm and held up four fingers. R?dwulf nodded and dropped out of view. She felt that she should inform them too about the size of the pursuing host, but then reflected that Finn would soon know this by listening to the ground.
The points of the Vs plunged into the near bank of the ford. Cnan began softly singing a little song, a tune of the Binders that moved to the steady and compulsive beat of a dance. It sounded best with a
Finishing for a second time, she stuck out her index finger.
Her ring finger was up when the first Vs appeared at the far side of the ford. Their vertices struck the bank at about the time she raised her pinky; when she had progressed to her other thumb, the host had become so congested that it was no longer possible to make out individual wakes. And yet she did not think it was any larger than the group she had seen at yesterday’s twilight.
They had not, in other words, been joined by more
It was all as she had described to Feronantus. No need to fly back to camp with a correction.
The wait that followed was long and gave her time to consider how she might best carry out her duty. It was an ugly word,
She was still up in the tree, still repeating her song, when Percival led his group of four up the hill, their mounts foaming and sweating, half dead. She made sure that the men saw her, which was not difficult since they were using the snag as a landmark. Once she had their attention, she waved them vigorously toward the mouse hole through the hedge wall. Istvan, riding a couple of lengths out ahead of the others, took her meaning immediately and veered toward the opening. Raphael and Eleazar, who came along next, hesitated.
“Clog it up, why don’t you!” Cnan shouted down to them. “Like drunks rolling out of a burning tavern.”
They responded by showing her their teeth and followed Istvan. As they went, Raphael and Eleazar jostled each other playfully, acting the role of the panicky drunks, just to amuse her. In their relief at still being alive, they acted like little boys. She was pleased that they appreciated her wit.
Percival pulled up suddenly and stopped near the tree. “Go on,” Cnan called to him, “do as the others.” Looking away, she resumed singing, beating time with her fist.
“My lady,” Percival began. He had called her that yesterday, and she had guessed it was some kind of elaborate sarcasm. But this didn’t seem like the time for unpleasant jibes. Maybe it was just the way he’d been raised. Cnan wished she could meet Percival’s mother. “I cannot recommend that you remain in that position,” he said, “considering that hostile archers, in large numbers, are about to surround you.”
She did not respond. She was nearing the end of the chorus and did not want to lose her place.
“And if you do remain,” he continued, “you might leave off singing. Your tune is beautiful, but it will soon draw many arrows.”
She stuck out her thumb and said, “It’s part of a plan—Feronantus’s plan, if that impresses you—which you are currently fouling up. Go and fight for a place in that hedge hole.” With a quick scowl in Percival’s direction, Cnan took up singing again and stuck out her index finger.
“Ah, you are to be the lapwing,” Percival guessed. He turned and looked toward Raphael and Eleazar, who were about halfway to the gap. “You will run toward yonder gap and find it blocked by those selfish clods. You will then divert round the other way in—the low rubble wall at the end of the field. Which happens to be much better suited for Mongols anyway.”
Next came her long finger. She badly wanted to climb down out of the tree, but it was important that the Mongols catch sight of her first.
Percival looked up at her and said, “The performance will lack verisimilitude if I fail to give way to a lady in distress. For it is my duty as a knight to see you safe to your destination—as difficult as you sometimes make that.”
Cnan thrust the current finger at him and interrupted the song long enough to shout, “You’re fucking it up! Go!” Then she noticed movement along the rise—the tips of Mongol lances bobbing up and down.
“I shall follow you in,” Percival said thoughtfully. “The ruse shall work just as well.”
“Suit yourself,” Cnan snarled. She could clearly see the broad faces of Mongols beneath their helmets, and one of them pointed directly at her, calling excitedly to his brothers.
Cnan began to descend the tree. This went slower than she’d hoped, since a branch broke under her foot and forced her to dangle for a few beats of the song while she flailed for a handhold.
Percival, adroitly maneuvering his mount underneath her, took her ankle and guided her down over her patiently waiting pony, then saw to it that her ass slammed directly into the saddle. Even as she reached for the reins, he smacked the pony on the buttocks. It bolted. Percival cut behind, getting between Cnan and the Mongols.
Cnan, finally securing a grip on the reins, rushed along the same path that Istvan, Raphael, and Eleazar had followed. Trying to ignore whatever Percival might be doing behind her, she rode hard in the direction of the mouse hole, a ride long enough, she hoped, to let the Mongols get some sense of what she was trying for.
Raphael and Eleazar were overplaying their roles, berating and shoving each other in front of the narrow opening.
She could hear the Mongols shouting as they turned to follow her. Cnan veered the pony into a sharp turn. The pony veered onto a course roughly parallel to the hedge and maybe ten paces distant. She would have to cover about one bowshot, then execute a full reversal and jump the low barrier of rubble in order to gain entry to the field. Concerned about the pony’s ability to make such a tight turn at full gallop, she guided it away from the hedge wall.
The disaster came so quickly that she was tumbling ass-over-ears through the rye before she was fully aware that something had gone wrong. She used the last of her momentum to roll back on her feet. A loud snapping noise was fresh in her ears. She looked back. The pony lay in a motionless heap. Perhaps it had stepped into an animal’s burrow, broken a leg, tossed her…landed on its neck.
Dazed, she stood tall in the weeds and stalks—not the best strategy when archers were taking aim.
Two noises sounded at once: the hiss of an arrow by her left ear and thunder rising through the soles of her feet. She turned to see more arrows arc across the sky—and Percival riding for her at a high gallop.
