Arrow's Fall (30 page)

 
“Well?” Elspeth asked aggressively, “Why
don’t
they interfere? If I’m making an ass of myself, why won’t Gwena
say
anything?”

Dirk sighed. “Imp, I don’t know. Have you ever asked her?”

Elspeth snorted, sounding rather like her own Companion when impatient. “Of course—after I’d made a total fool of myself I asked her right off why she didn’t just forbid me to have anything to do with that puppy.”

“And what did she tell you?”

“That I knew very well Companions didn’t do things that way.”

“And they don’t . . . until we, their Chosen, come to thaem.” Dirk harbored no small amount of chagrin for not having asked Ahrodie’s advice when he’d quarreled with Kris.

“But why? It isn’t
fair!
”

At Elspeth’s age, Dirk knew from his own experience, “fair” achieved monumental importance.

“Isn’t it? Would it be fair to us, in the long run, if they stepped in like nursemaids and prevented us from falling on our noses every time we tried to learn to walk?”

:Good answer, Chosen,:
Ahrodie told him,
:Even if a bit simplistic.:

:Unless you’ve got a better one—:

:Mh, no!:
she said hastily.
:You go right on as you were!:

“You mean, we have to learn from experience by
ourselves?
” Elspeth asked, as Dirk fought down a grin at Ahrodie’s hurried reply.

Elspeth brooded over that while Gwena and Ahrodie themselves by matching paces with such absolute precision that they sounded like one Companion rather two.

“Don’t they
ever
interfere?” she asked, finally.

“Not in living memory. In some of the old chronicles, though...”

“Well?” she prompted, when his silence had gone on too long.

“
Some
Companions, very rarely, have intervened. But only when the situation was hopeless, and only when there was no other way out of it except by their aid. They were always Grove-born, though, and the only one of those we have now is Rolan. And they have
never
done so except by freely volunteering, which is why Heralds never ask them to.”

“Why only then? Why shouldn’t we ask?”

“Imp—” He was doing his best to try and express what until now he had only sensed. “What’s the one governing taw of this Kingdom?”

She looked at him askance. “Are you changing the subject?”

“No. No, I’m not, trust me.”

“There
is
no ‘one true way.’ “

“Take it a step further. Why are the clergy
forbidden
by law to pray for Valdemar’s victory in war?”

“I ... don’t know.”

“Think about it. Go away, if you like, and come back when you’re ready.”

She chose not to leave his side, and simply rode next to him with her expression blank and her attention turned so inward that she never noticed Skif coming up from behind them.

Skif pulled up on Dirk’s other side, and gave the young Heir a long and curious look.

“Isn’t this a bit deep for her?” he asked, finally. “I mean, I’ve been trying to follow this, and I’m lost.”

“I don’t think so,” Dirk replied slowly. “I really don’t. If she weren’t ready, she wouldn’t be asking.”

“Lord and Lady,” Skif exclaimed, shaking his head in honest bewilderment, “I give up. You
are
two of a kind.”

At length the party reached the Border; Selenay ordered that they make camp there on the Valdemar side since the outpost was far too small to accommodate all of them. The last of the baggage train actually reached it very near dark, and so the Queen was hardly surprised that neither of the two envoys was waiting for them when they arrived. But when the next day passed, she felt a building uneasiness. When two more went by without any sign whatsoever, the uneasiness became alarm.

“Kyril—” Selenay did not remove her gaze from the road as she spoke to the Seneschal’s Herald. “—I have the feeling something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Am I being alarmist?”

“No, Majesty.” Kyril’s usually controlled voice held an unmistakable tenor of strain.

Selenay looked at him sharply. Kyril’s brow was lined with worry. “I’ve tried Farspeech; I can’t reach them— and Kris, at least, has enough of that Gift to be able to receive what I send. He’s done so in the past. I don’t know what’s gone awry, but Majesty, I—I am afraid for them.”

She did not hesitate. “Order the camp moved back from the Border, and now. There’s a good place about half a mile back down the road; it’s a flatfish hill, barren except for grass. Should there be need, it won’t be hard to defend.”

Kyril nodded. He did not seem surprised by her paranoia.

“When you’ve gotten the rest on the move,” she continued, “order the local reserves of the Guard to meet us there. I’m going to have the Border Guards stand alert and keep a watch down the Hardorn side of the trade road.”

Her Companion, Caryo, came trotting up at her mental summons, and she pulled herself up on the Companion’s bare back, without bothering to call for saddle or bridle. As she rode away, Kyril was going in search of the Herald in charge of the camp to begin seeing to the first of her orders.

The new camp was uncomfortable, but as Selenay had planned, was far more easily defensible than the old. When the Guardsmen arrived, Selenay ordered them to bivouac between their camp and the Border. She had sentries posted as well—and ominously, she noticed that the Companions began taking up stations about the perimeter, providing their own kind of sentry-duty.

Elspeth attached herself to Dirk and seldom left his side. Neither of them voiced their fears until late in the fifth day, a day spent in an atmosphere of tension and anxiety.

“Dirk,” Elspeth finally said, after Dirk watched her try to read the same page in her book ten times, and apparently never once see a word of it, “do you suppose something’s happened to them?”

Dirk hadn’t even been making a pretense of doing anything but watching the road. “Something must have,” he answered flatly, “If it had been simple delay, they would have gotten word to us. It’s not like Kris—”

He broke off at the sight of her frightened eyes.

“Look imp, I’m sure they’ll be all right. Kris and I have gotten out of a lot of tight situations before this, and Talia’s no faint-hearted Court flower. I’m sure they’re making their way back to us right now.”

“I hope you’re right . . .” Elspeth said faintly, but she didn’t sound to Dirk as if she really believed his words.

For that matter, he wasn’t sure he believed them either.

The sixth day dawned, with Selenay—in fact, all of them—waiting for the axe to fall.

Late in the afternoon, when one of the lookouts—a Herald with Farsight as well as Mindspeech—reported that a Companion was approaching at speed, the entire encampment was roused within moments, and lined the roadside. Selenay was one of the first; eyes straining to catch the first glimpse.

She, Kyril, and several others of her immediate entourage stood in a tense knot at the edge of the encampment. She noticed vaguely that Dirk, Teren, Skif, Elspeth, and Jeri had formed their own little huddle just within earshot. None of them moved or spoke. The sun beat down on them all without pity, but no one made a move to look for shade.

As Dirk waited with mouth going dry with unspoken fear, a second lookout sprinted up and whispered in the Queen’s ear. Selenay grew pale as ice; Elspeth clutched Dirk’s arm and the rest stirred uneasily.

Then a dust-cloud and hoofbeats signaled the arrival of the Companion, and hard on the sound itself Rolan pounded into their midst.

Rolan—alone. Without saddle or bridle; gaunt, covered with dust and sweat, and completely exhausted, a state few had ever seen a Companion in before.

He staggered the last few feet up the hill to the Queen, paring a bundle from his neck with his teeth and dropping it at her feet. Then he sagged with exhaustion, standing motionless except for his heaving flanks and his quivering muscles, head nearly touching the ground, eyes dosed, suffering written in every line of him.

Keren was the first to break from her shock. She ran to him, throwing her cloak over him for lack of any other blanket and began to lead him to a place where he could be tended properly, step by trembling step.

Selenay picked up the filthy, stained package with hands that shook so hard she nearly dropped it, and undid the knots holding it together.

Into the grass at her feet fell two arrows; one headless, one broken.

A ripple of shocked dismay passed over the crowd. The Queen felt as frozen as a snow-statue.

As Kyril bent to pick them up, Elspeth whimpered once beside her, and swayed with shock. Jeri caught and supported her just as Dirk’s agonized cry of negation broke the silence.

Selenay started, and turned to see Dirk struggling to break away from Skif and Teren.

“Damn you, let me go” he cried in agony, as Skif held him away from Ahrodie. “I’ve got to go to her—I’ve got to help her!”

“Dirk, man, you don’t even know if—” Teren choked out the words “—if she’s still alive.”

“She’s
got
to be. I’d know if she weren’t. She’s
got
to be!” He fought them still, as Cyril’s low tones carried to where they stood.

“The headless arrow is Herald Kris,” he said, his expressionless face belying the anguish in his voice. “The broken is Herald Talia.”

“You see? I was right! Let me
go!
”

Skif caught his chin in one hand and forced his head around so that Dirk was forced to look him in the eyes, with a strength that matched Dirk’s own, even augmented by the letter’s frenzy. There were tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he half sobbed his words. “
Think
, man! That’s the broken arrow she sent. She was as good as dead when she sent it, and dammit, she knew it. There’s no hope of saving her, but she gave us the warning to save ourselves. Do you want to kill yourself, too, and make us mourn three of you?”

His words penetrated Dirk’s madness, and the wild look left his eyes, replaced by anguish and torture.

“Oh,
gods!
” The fight left him, and he sagged to his knees, buried his face in his hands, and began weeping hoarsely.

At this moment Selenay wished with all her aching heart that she could do the same. But this message could have only one meaning; a friend to her and her people had suddenly turned his coat, and her land was in danger. Her Kingdom and the lives of her folk were at stake and she had her duty just as surely as any other Herald. There was no leisure time to spend on personal feelings. Later, when all was safe, she would mourn. Now she
must
act.

She emptied herself of emotion, knowing she’d pay for this self-denial later. There was the Guard to be alerted, the Lord Marshal to be brought; her mind filled with plans, making it easier to ignore (for the moment) the sorrow she longed to give vent to.

She gave orders crisply, sending one Herald after another flying for his Companion, carrying messages to warn, to summon, to prepare. She turned on her heel with Kyril at her side and strode hastily to her tent. Those with experience in armed conflict followed; as did those who might still be needed to bear messages. Those who were not of either group headed for the baggage train to break out the weaponry, or down the hill to organize the tiny force of the Guard to protect the Queen.

Left in their wake were Skif, Teren, and Dirk.

Skif reached out his hand to his friend, then pulled it bade. Dirk was curled in on himself, still kneeling in the dust of the road. Only the shaking of his shoulders showed that he still wept.

Skif and Teren stood awkwardly at his side for long moments, both unsure of what, if anything, they could do for him. Finally Teren said in an undertone, “He won’t try anything stupid now. Why don’t we give him a little
 
privacy? Ahrodie’s the only one likely to be able to comfort him at all.”

Skif nodded, biting his lip to keep from sobbing himself; and they withdrew after the others, as Ahrodie moved up beside Dirk and stood with her head bowed next to his, almost, but not quite, touching his shoulder.

Lost in his own travail, Dirk heard nothing of another approaching, until a hand lightly touched his shoulder.

He raised his head slowly, peering through blurred, burning eyes, to see that the one touching him was Elspeth. Grief matching his stared out of her eyes, and her features were as tear-streaked as his own. It was growing dark; the last rays of sunset streaked the sky like bloodstains and stars were showing overhead. He realized dimly that he must have been crouching there for hours. And as he stared at her, he began to have the beginnings of an idea.

“Elspeth,” he croaked. “Do you know some place no one is likely to be right now? Some place quiet?”

“My tent, and the area around it,” she said. He thought he had surprised her out of her own tears by the question. “I’m at the back of the camp, not close to mother’s tent. Everybody is with her right now.”