Bard I (19 page)

With fine delicacy, he held back from saying that Kyle would not seem very glorious either.

‘By the Cross!’ Kyle said at last. ‘You haven’t lost your skill with words.’ He grinned then. ‘Why not? I’ll give the promise you asked for, on this condition. When the time comes, I must have both horses, the dun and the sorrel. and Prince Justin’s sword to restore to him.

Horses are one thing the king cannot spare, nor are they mine to give away.’

‘All right,’ Felimid agreed. ‘When the time comes! How will you explain having them. hut not me, whom you were sent for?”

‘I believe I’ll just say you are dead,’ Kyle answered.

‘Before God. a man too good for an occasional lie is too good for this world. You know. I used to think I could best you if it came to fighting. Even if you were somewhat lucky just now. I don’t think so any longer! It was the same with Justin. wasn’t it? I tell you. one day you will hold hack from killing a time too many. and some enemy will show you your head.’

‘It’s true. I’m weak that way,’ Felimid said. ‘But this past couple of days I’ve seen enough death. It’s humbly I beg your pardon for not murdering you. Indulge me.’

‘Granted Now let’s ride down this thief! We sit here nattering like women at their looms when we might be catching him!’

‘Not so hasty! I have a plan. It begins by not allowing him to see us.’

Kyle groaned. ‘The sad thing about your plans is that they are always more ornate than they must be. Felimid. he can’t have gone far! He rides this minute with your sword in his hand. . . just beyond that rise, you said! Why not catch him and take it?’

Felimid gave him back his sword with a nourish. ‘Suppose you follow me beyond that rise and see.’

The two murdered men still lay in the trodden grass where Felimid had seen them fall. The white beast lay beside them, and at last Felimid saw it close to; it was an ermine. But it was nine feet from nose to tail’s end.

Kyle whistled. ‘I’ve heard of these beasts! It must have come down from the Caledonian moors in the winter. So this IS what mangled that unfortunate rogue and his horse.’

‘After he stabbed his friend. an hour or two before. You must have come upon him, too. if you were tracking me closely.’

‘I did. I wondered if maybe you–’

‘No, it was not I. I’ve slain nobody this nine-night, at all, and the way events are shaping, I dare hope I won’t have to. But the fellow who has my sword now is doomed. Ogma’s curse will see to that.’

‘Hm m.·Kyle affected nonchalance to hide that he felt chilled. ‘You are confident. Suppose he flourishes, cur e or none? He and hi!. fellows came upon the ermine. dead, pierced by your sword. and quarreled over him. . .’

‘He murdered them suddenly, taking them by surprise. Not so much by surprise that he didn’t get a tab in the leg. mind.’

‘And rode off. taking Kincaid with him. This was when I intervened.’

‘You did. And I’ll say that I hadn’t expected you half so soon. Now here’s how I see things, Kyle. If we slay him before he reaches his home. we will have hi!. whole clan riding us down. If we take the sword and let him live, he’s bound to tell his kind some story blaming us for the murder of his companions. Two strangers to take the blame; why. it’d be a gift to him! And again we’ll have the whole clan riding us down. But if we leave things as they are . . . with him knowing nothing about us . . .’

‘He’s certain to hide Kincaid somewhere. before he goes among his people!’ Kyle put in, catching the bard’s drift.

‘Meanwhile. since he doesn’t know we’re even on the ridge of the earth, he’ll be telling his people some other story to account for his companions’ being slain. a story he cannot change once he’s uttered it,’ Felimid continued, loving the recitation and firmly taking possession of it anew. ‘Having done that, he may do what else he pleases, for me-until Ogma’s curse finds him. And I’ll be far away with Ogma’s sword belted around me. Tirra-lirra! Simple; simplicity itself.’

‘Simple,’ Kyle repeated.‘To be sure. And if his wound is deeper than you or he thinks. and be dies before he can do all this? Or if he heard the sounds of our combat and watches us from cover even now? What then?’

‘I’ll think of some other plan! Kyle, have you ever known me to lack one? Now let’s be skinning this great ermine for the treasure of her pelt. You had better have something to take to King Agloval if you cannot take me. You might even tell him it was I who died under her teeth and claws, and show this to confirm it, ha’?’ He slapped Prince Justin’s sword-belt. ‘Justin will be overjoyed, the scug.’

Buckled with gold and white-mantled in ermine,

Decked like a king with a bride to attend,

I doss on cold hillsides where night-prowling vermin

Are avid for that which I’m fain to defend;

My life I must gamble, the truth to determine,

And only the dark silent gods know the end.

Felimid mac Fal,
The Seeking of Kincaid

T
REASURE
THE
ERMINE
’
S
PELT
WAS
, despite the time of year and a dead man’s desperate piercing. It had remained fully white though the trees were budding.

The skin had not been badly rent. When it had attacked, bloodthirsty as its tiny cousin the weasel, the robber had not had time to strike more than once, and although he had spitted the creature through, it hadn’t availed him. The ermine had survived to rip him vindictively to shreds, serve his horse the same, and then run three miles with Kincaid impaling her body before she would condescend to die.

Looking at the serpentine body, Felimid pictured its deadly, slippery-gaited rush, the eager fangs imbrued in gore, the terror-stricken screams of the horse as that furred white demon clung to its back, ripping. He was just as glad not to have met the ermine while she had lived.

He bundled the pelt behind his saddle, reflecting that he became more tempting to robbers each day. The witch’s crow perched on his shoulder as they rode, too glutted now to fly. Kyle was taken aback to learn who and what Brandubh was.

‘I knew that old woman had the look of a witch,’ he muttered. ‘We should have taken time to hang her.’

Brandubh looked at him malevolently. ‘For that, may nine misfortunes come upon you,· he croaked. The horse-lord cursed, and clutched at Brandubh, who flapped heavily away from his reaching hands.

‘Easy!’ Felimid said, laughing. ‘So u saw the old woman as u rode after me, did u? Did her grandson still lie unburied?’

‘If that was the slain man she mourned over-yes,’ Kyle answered, a bit shortly. ‘She directed us on your trail. . .

‘Treacherous old sow,’ said the bard, but mildly, for he was not surprised. ‘Us. u say? You set out with backing, then. How did u come to be following me alone?’

Kyle shrugged. ‘Ill luck. When we came to the ford of the Kennet. we found it impassable, swollen by rain. It was too turbulent to walk through and too shallow to swim, so we rode upstream.

‘We found a place where the stream ran narrow between high banks, but the flood had deeply undercut both. I decided to try the leap. We made it, Whitebrow and I, although a long wide strip of earth split away from the bank under his hooves as we landed, and he scrambled to secure footing by the width of a pastern. When I looked back, I saw another segment breaking away from the far bank. After that, the gap was too wide for any horse and rider to jump. I told my men to go home. For myself, I didn’t choose to quit following you – I’d have brought you back if I could, Felimid. But I cannot say my heart’s broken that I failed.’

Felimid smiled, and rested a hand on his shoulder.

‘Most steadfast king’s man!’ he said. gently mocking.

‘Come. Let’s hunt down this bloody backstabber and see how he answers for his crimes.’

The slayer’s path led northward, over a track a millennium old. Many sheep had used it of late, as had some cattle and horses. but the prints of the slayer’s horse were clearer than any. They had been made in earth softened by heavy rain, nor had rain fallen since to blur them.

Spatterings of blood from his leg marked the slayer’s trail at first. Then he ceased to bleed. Since his horse’s tracks showed nothing hesitant or aimless in its gait, this couldn’t mean he had died in the saddle. Instead. he’d stopped the blood from flowing and remained alive, conscious and fixed in his purpose.

Felimid watched keenly for signs that the slayer had dismounted. It was what he’d have done in the man’s place. The simplest way to hide a long, narrow thing like a sword was surely to carve out a strip of turf in one piece, and then replace it with the sword underneath. It would be nigh impossible for anybody to find by chance.

‘He means to join his clan at their fortress,’ Kyle opined.

‘Then maybe he’s so sore wounded he has no other choice. Even so-by the horse-goddes, Kyle! You’d want a particular sort of pure cynical gall to ride home to your own people with the blood of kinsmen on your hands, wouldn’t you? I look forward to meeting him.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ Kyle said amiably. ‘You would look forward to meeting Satan, unless you feared he might bore you. The fellow has not hidden your sword yet.’

He hadn’t, and that was vexing. They had passed several spots which would have done. Did the slayer think to smuggle Kincaid into his people’s very fortress, and hide him there? It would be a mad risk to take. Unless he knew Felimid and Kyle were close behind him. . .

They rode munching biscuits and cheese from Kyle’s saddle-bag, and chewing raw thin slices of ermine meat.

It was almost inedibly rank.

‘Oho,’ Felimid said gladly, pointing to the ground.

‘He’s turned from his path at last.’

The slayer’s tracks descended into a wooded vale. Felimid and Kyle glanced at each other. Without comment, they drew their swords before following.

The Downsmen did not care much for the vales. They preferred the rolling open hills where the horses of Epona ran free, but their dislike of the low-lying wooded places was for the most part superstition. Things of terror and faery creatures were rare in the vales; they were not like the vast Forest of Andred to the south-east.

Felimid and Kyle found signs of the slayer in a glade flowering with daffodils. He’d trodden down plants, and a fresh scar showed on the trunk of a linden tree, where he’d cut away a strip of bark.

‘He used the soft inner bark to dress his wound,’ Kyle guessed.

‘H’m, belike.’ Felimid looked about. ‘Then the outer bark should be here still, cast aside, but it isn’t. Suppose he made a makeshift scabbard with it, for Kincaid?’

Kyle shrugged.

‘Na, this may matter,’ Felimid persisted. ‘See his tracks. He favored his bad leg somewhat as he came, but here, as he goes away, he’s walking entirely stiff-legged. I fancy he has splinted Kincaid to his leg, under his trews, to hide him. He means to take the sword home!’

‘He’s a madman, then. He’ll be discovered the moment someone sees to his wound.’

‘Unless he stands high among his people, and can command some privacy, and has some hiding-place for Kincaid in his mind.’

‘No degree of standing will save him if he’s caught,’ Kyle said grimly. ‘I’m thinking of the penalties among Downsmen for hiding common loot. They are . . . severe. For kin-murder. they are something more than severe.

‘Look you, Felimid, it may be best if we do not show as friends to these people. How would this serve? You be the fugitive still, and I the hunter. We’d find it hard to explain any other state of affairs. at that.

‘You go before. and I will follow at twelve hours’ remove. I’ll demand you for my king’s justice, but the Downsmen will not surrender a guest or a bard; instead, they will hold me for ransom. In the meantime, show the ermine skin and give a hint or two that you know more than you are saying. If you cannot put fear of discovery into this murderer and make him wish most passionately to be rid of you, your arts are failing! And to rid himself of you, it’s my help he will reckon the safest to seek, in exchange for setting me free! So between us we will have him.’

‘Why. Kyle.’ said Felimid in wonder,‘this is a scheme worthy of me.’

‘I know it is,’ Kyle agreed snidely, ‘but it may work.’ They parted there. Kyle remained in the glade while Felimid rode on, whistling. The shadowy downs stretched far away. He followed a droving track of men who had used flint, antler-horn and bronze, and seen sacrifices burned alive in wicker baskets. Britain was very old.

In time he came to a hilltop fortification of theirs, now used by Downsmen. Two high earthen ramparts and two ditches with angled stakes in them. girdled it about. Within these defences rose a timber palisade. There was no way in or out but a short causey piercing the defences. The place lacked a proper gate; however, two great logs hung poised to be toppled across the gateway like booms at the briefest notice.

‘Give you good day!’ shouted the bard.

A quartet of hard, suspicious men met him on the causey. In looks and dress they were very like those others he had seen. They cast hungry glances at his two horses. Felimid half turned in the saddle, to let them see the harp-bag slung on his shoulder, better protection than a dozen swords.

‘Who are you?’ a black-haired fellow in a calfskin jacket demanded.

‘My name is Felimid mac Fal. In me you behold a runner from the Roman king of the Atrebates, and a bard of Erin besides.’

To the Downsmen, all who lived within town walls or spoke Latin were Romans, and to the Downsman the word was an insult, a curse. Saying that he was an outlaw by Roman rule won the bard approval. It was even true.

‘Never have we failed in hospitality to a bard.· boasted a man with pitted skin. ‘What did you do that you were forced to run?’

‘The king’s heir insulted me and would have had me beaten-to death. I’m thinking. He tried to murder me when I resisted. I broke his arm. knocked him senseless with the flat of his sword which I have here, and escaped on his horse. I was pursued; one man pursued me too eagerly. riding ahead of his comrades. and that’!; how I came by the remount.’