running ahead of all others, seeing a capful of gold, a grateful king's tears of thanks and satisfaction. Even an estate, perhaps, in the Clearings in Map-Tennessee. Tribal serf-girls, Finches or Mockers, to come sullen to his bed… then, after a while, calling out, baring their filed teeth in sudden pleasure.
Bajazet stopped and turned to look back. His hand was on his rapier's hilt – a gesture only. Any strong man, well fed, could come to him now and knock him down. Then take him to such a grateful king… and the avoiding eyes of cavalry officers as he was hung by his heels to be carefully skinned, then rolled in a patch of salt brought from the shores of the Gulf Entire.
Bajazet stood watching the way he'd come… and saw only morning's sunny woods, the light of a warming day flashing diamonds off raindrops still hanging in the branches.
He turned to walk again – and saw beneath a bare bramble, the eye, small and brown, that examined him.
He was almost certain what it was as he leaped for it – a convulsion of speed and strength that surprised him while still in the air, cloak flapping. A small thing – a young rabbit, frozen still by the ancient command of the best thing to do when come upon. And stillness
Bajazet got his left hand on it – hooked its downy brown fur. Grabbed it as it tried to squirm away, late, an age too late.
The brambles scratched and tore his face and forearms as he fell into them, the little animal kicking in his grip. He rolled free, holding the rabbit up. It struggled, peed in terror as he fumbled for his dagger.
The slender steel was out, and Bajazet knelt trembling in haste, and cut the little creature's throat. Its soft muzzle opened as he killed it… then skinned it with blade and teeth, licking blood, spitting out soft tufts of fur.
Groaning with impatience, Bajazet snapped flint and steel into a handful of his tinder, added shreds of underbark, and knelt puffing for a hasty fire. Its minor flames then only used to dip bloody pieces in – meager meat, frail bones, a small damp gout of bowel. All dipped into the fire as for a short blessing, then devoured as Bajazet, trembling, wept like a child for the little creature, its smallness, innocence, and sudden dreadful death. He ate, tears tracking down his dirty face, then chewed bloody scraps of fur, chewed and splintered the last tiny bones.
Finished, nothing left but indications on bloody ground, he lay curled on his side in the sun for a sudden snoring nap.
… And woke, perhaps only a glass-hour later, to a different world. A world of no half-heard familiar voices, no aching belly, no stumbling or dizziness. In this richer world, that seemed now as complete, as promising as once it had been, he got to his feet with no grunt or groan of effort.
He stamped his small fire out, gathered his goods, turned uphill and strode away. In this warmer, brighter world, it seemed possible he might live longer… might travel and travel – surely shoot an unlucky deer, a wild pig or two – and after several Warm-time weeks, even reach the Ocean Atlantic, beyond the grasp of the most revengeful king. Gareth Cooper could not, after all, chase forever.
So, the little rabbit's life, its reluctant gift, seemed to have renewed his.
He climbed the hill's sloping shoulder fairly fast, his sodden cloak slowly drying on his back. Climbed until he reached a bare rock knoll, scrambled up it… then stood to look behind him down a landscape of valley unfolding from valley, woods along the watercourses just beginning to green into spring. Bajazet felt the oddest longing for the River, many miles west and out of sight, though he supposed its silver might still be seen from these hill's highest crests… Since he'd come to it as a baby, pursued even then – carried from Caravanserai by a Kipchak bowman and his wife, to save him horse-trampling under Lord Ek-Tam's execution carpet – ever since he'd come to it, the Mississippi had flowed through his life, had always been near enough to ride to in half a day, as if always waiting to offer its current's infinite strength for him to lean on.
Standing, watching west, he saw something very small and bright in forest at the foot of a hill, a winking sparkle – certainly off Light Cavalry's sand-polished mail.
Likely only a troop, no more; the king would want swiftness in the chase, not some trundling array. The horsemen would be in skirmish order, as hounds and woodsmen ranged wet woods to recover his trace.
… The glitter faded into green. At that distance, Bajazet had seen no pennants, no banners, though King Gareth's red ensign would be there. They'd have stranger hounds with them, now, and foresters promised much if they tracked him – perhaps promised death if they didn't.
Bajazet climbed off the knoll, and – trotting, then walking, then trotting again – traveled as if the eastward slopes were level ground, and fear was feast enough, with every strength to give him.
That night, drowsing by a small, guarded fire, he heard distant trumpets – or the distant echo of them – sounding
Through the next day to evening, the air grew colder with Lord Winter's northern wind – certainly one of his last.
The wind gusted… gusted… then gathered strength along hill ridges to come at Bajazet whining like a wolf to tear his warmth away, so he staggered, his frosted breath streaming, cloak flapping as he bent to find shelter in blowing evergreens. There would be no fire; no small fire could live in that wind, and any larger might be seen by the hunters, roll smoke into the air to be noticed for miles.
No fire. By full dark, wrapped in his cloak and curled close as he could crowd under a hemlock's draping branches, hands tucked under his buckskin jerkin and shirt-hem to warm at his belly, Bajazet felt his feet numbing in his boots.
The wind's noise was a deep-throated humming roar as gusts came through the trees. It grew colder… a cold seeming deeper still when cloud-mottled moonlight filtered through the evergreen's foliage.
Bajazet huddled, hugged himself, and shivered. It was odd how difficult it was to keep his teeth from chattering like a chilled child's. He thought if he could sleep he might be warmer – and tried, but the wind kept waking him… shouting in his ear, stinging, burning the skin of his face beneath the cloak's hood. The night grew still colder, perhaps as cold as Lord Peter Wilson had claimed the great void to be, that held the planets and the stars.
It began to be frightening. Too late now to build a fire – to be marked or not; no fire but a burning forest could live in that wind.
Glass-hours later – the wind still howling in moonlight – he could no longer feel his feet, his face. Then, Bajazet didn't wish to sleep, was afraid he would die if he did. Didn't wish it. Didn't wish it… but the cold drove him down.
… He woke to a still and frozen world – but was not frozen. Something weighed on him, was tucked under and around him in heavy harsh weave. He started, sat half up amid the hemlock's hanging branches, and found a thick blanket – thick as a thumb, and goat's wool by its oily odor – draped over him. The heavy fabric was frozen stiff as planking, and Bajazet lay for a moment trying to make sense of it, of its being there at all – then wrestled it off, footed it away to roll from under the hemlock and stand trembling… the rapier drawn before he'd thought of it, its lean steel swaying in gray dawn's light, seeking an enemy.
'Who…?' Bajazet expected amused foresters – hard men to have chased fast enough through the days, then through a freezing night to catch him. Foresters, and an eager trooper or two. There'd be no killing them all.
Bajazet waited, his morning shadow his only company, and tried to stretch a little on guard, ease stiff muscles for the fight. The left-hand dagger… remember the dagger. The Master always reminding – the rapier for flourishing parry and thrust, but the dagger for close and finish. The Master before – the honored Butter – had preached the knife.
Bajazet took deep breaths, eased his shoulders, lowered his points a little off guard to relax his arms and wrists. There was no sound but sunrise breeze through evergreens and a single birch standing alone up the hill. No laughter… no moccasin-boots and cavalry boots kicking to him through winter-crumpled leaves and pine needles.
He realized, after a while – when little hedge-birds, gray and brown, flitted casually by… then back again – he realized he was alone.
