Yesterday's Kings (21 page)

“None,” Laurens replied, “save to tend me.”

“And for that we’re to be taken for questioning?”

“It’s the way of the world, lad,” Laurens said. “Amadis needs an excuse and Per Fendur a victim. Neither can admit they failed, so they need scapegoats—which are you and I.”

“So what shall become of us?”

Laurens chuckled cynically. “You’ve admitted the Durrym’s friendship—so most likely the Per will torture you until you give him whatever answers he seeks. I’ve acknowledged our friendship, so I imagine my fate shall not be so different.” He clutched his side as he spat into the straw. “And then … we die.”

“And Lord Bartram has no say?”

“Lord Bartram’s a just and decent man,” Laurens returned. “But his beloved daughter is taken by this Lofantyl, and he’s crazed with grief. I think he’ll give Fendur his way.” He rubbed his side again. “And Vanysse will support Amadis, who’ll coddle her and sympathize as we are turned on the wheel.”

“So we shall be tortured?” Cullyn stroked Fey’s steaming nostrils. “Even though we are innocent?”

“Are we taken back,” Laurens said. “And then likely executed.”

“How can we avoid that?” Cullyn asked. He stared around the stable as Fey fretted beside him. Laurens’s bay stood nervous in the adjoining stall. There was a single window that let in pale light, and the one narrow door, outside of which stood guards. He could not imagine escape. “What can we do?”

Laurens groaned as he hauled himself upright. “Drak might aid us, for he’s a good lad. Otherwise …” He steadied himself, leaning on the rails. “You keep the tack in here?”

Cullyn nodded, gesturing at the saddles hung along the wall.

“Well, that’s a start.” Laurens went to the door and set an eye to the crack. “I suppose my blade’s in the cottage?”

Cullyn nodded.

“And you’ve no weapons here?”

“Only this.” Cullyn drew the knife Lofantyl had given him.

“A Durrym blade?” Laurens chuckled. “That alone would condemn you. Your bow?”

“In the cottage.”

“Then we must make do as best we can. Shall you saddle those horses?”

“What do you intend?” Cullyn asked.

“To avoid the rack. In my condition I’d not last a day under Per Fendur’s attention, and I’m too old to suffer torture.”

“So?”

“Saddle the horses and get ready to depart.”

“But where shall we go?” Cullyn asked.

“Away from here,” Laurens replied. “Or would you give yourself up to Per Fendur’s attentions?”

Cullyn saddled the horses.

“Excellent,” Laurens declared when they were accoutred. “Now wait on my word—but when I give it, mount and ride! No hesitation, eh? Just ride as if all the hounds of hell were barking at your heels.”

Cullyn held the two horses steady as Laurens went to the door and shouted for Drak.

Outside, the day was fading, afternoon giving way to
dusk. There was a steady dripping as the snow melted, and the light that entered the stable was mellow. Winter birds sang their chorus and Cullyn’s pigs shuffled through the snow, their hunting echoed by the clucking of the chickens.

“What?” Drak asked.

“I’d speak with you,” Laurens answered.

“I’m forbidden to speak with you.” Drak sounded embarrassed.

“Then the gods damn you!” Laurens hammered a fist against the door. “Shall you not exchange a word with an old friend?”

“What word?” Drak asked.

“Face to face,” Laurens demanded, and gestured that Cullyn bring the horses up.

The door opened and Laurens snatched Drak inside.

“My word,” he said as he swung the younger soldier against a stall, “forgive me.” He slammed a fist into Drak’s face. And then, as Drak slumped against broken fencing, he cried to Cullyn, “Mount up and ride!”

Cullyn swung astride Fey. Laurens climbed slower onto the bay’s saddle. And then he shouted and charged out of the stable, and they hurtled across the yard into the forest beyond.

It was all confusion then, and Cullyn wondered at what he’d done, for men came running to block them and Laurens rode them down and sent them spinning, and Fey snorted and bucked and snapped his teeth. Cullyn thought—in the brief moments of clarity as he fought free of clutching hands and ducked away from swords—that this must be what combat was like.

He glanced back to see Amadis and Per Fendur emerge from his cottage and then he was off, following Laurens.

They rode hard, putting in miles as the sun settled.
Horses came behind them, the tramp of hooves and the shouting of the riders warning of determined pursuit. The ground was thick with the snow’s melting, slowing them as much as their pursuers, and melting icicles dripped from the overhanging branches, so that they were soaked and chilled before they halted.

“A while farther,” Laurens said, “and they’ll give up. I hope.”

“And then?” Cullyn asked, thinking that he’d lost his home now, and all he had was Fey and what little he’d stowed in the saddlebags.

“We’re alive, no?” Laurens said.

“And outlawed.”

“But not racked.”

Cullyn looked at the soldier. Laurens was likely old enough to be his father, and his face was still gray with pain—their reckless ride had done little for his wound. Cullyn could see the blood that oozed afresh from his side, and the way he clenched his teeth.

“You’ll not last long,” he said bluntly.

“Drak said the same,” Laurens replied, “but he was also wrong. So trust me, eh? You know this wood. Find us trails that bring us northward.”

Cullyn nodded, and rode ahead of Laurens as the day dimmed and a pale moon rose to illuminate the forest. He took them north along deer trails that began to freeze again, even as melting ice dripped over them and the horses’ hooves came sludgy from the ground. Every so often he looked back to find Laurens clutching at the saddle horn as if that were all that held him upright. Behind, he heard shouts, and as the night settled in saw torches burning, coming after them through the trees. He reined in where a glade gave them space to talk.

“We must find somewhere to rest.”

“Do you know anywhere?” Laurens swayed in the
saddle, and under the moon’s wan light his face was hollowed. Cullyn saw that his eyes were dulled with pain, and that blood still oozed from the wound in his side.

“Not readily. I’d thought we’d have lost them by now.”

Laurens spat and smiled at the same time. “We’ve a priest on our heels, lad, and he’s got Church magic at his command. Like a hunting dog that’s got its nose. Don’t you understand?”

Cullyn shook his head. “I’ve had little to do with priests until now. There was one came when my parents died … a kindly man.”

“That would have been Fra Robyrt.” Laurens smiled grayly. “He was a kindly man, but not …” He paused, sucking in breath as he rubbed at his side. “Not gifted with the talent that raises the priesthood up. He cared for people, not power.”

Cullyn frowned his incomprehension. Laurens pressed his side, husking out cynical laughter. “There are two kinds of Churchmen, lad. One cares for his flock, the other for his ambition. The ambitious ones own the magic—which Per Fendur says is to find a way into the fey lands, to defeat the Barrier. Priests like Fra Robyrt seek to serve their gods and tend their flock. Priests like that bastard Fendur seek only to advance themselves. And as they find more magic with which they might overcome the Durrym’s, so they find ways to cross the Alagordar and take war to the fey folk.”

“Why?” Cullyn asked innocently.

“Because they can.” Laurens spat noisily. “Because they wish to extend their power. Because they’d bring all the world under the control of the Church, and they’d sit happy and fat atop it all. They’d command kings and dominate the world.”

“I’d thought,” Cullyn said, confused, “that priests were supposed to help us.”

“Some do,” Laurens replied. “Fra Robyrt was one. But Per Fendur …” He shook his head. “He’s of the other persuasion. He seeks only command and conquest. He’d invade the fey lands for want of power. And hunt us down like dogs.”

“So what do we do?” Cullyn asked. Laurens could never last out a gallop, and he felt no wish to be set on Per Fendur’s rack.

“So we go where they’ll not find us.”

“Where?” Cullyn asked.

And Laurens said, “Across the Alagordar.”

“You’re crazed! How shall we find our way back?”

“It turns you,” Laurens said, “and the Durrym magic shall likely confuse Fendur’s.”

“Save we become trapped there.”

“We’re trapped here,” Laurens grunted. “Can you not find us some hiding place, they’ll take us—and Fendur shall bring us back to the keep and question us. So—have you a better suggestion?”

Cullyn shook his head.

“Then let us find the river and cross it.”

Cullyn nodded and heeled Fey across the glade, down between looming oaks to the willows that flanked the river.

Moonlight shone in silver filigree over the water, its ripples glistening. The tumbling of the Alagordar was a subtle, sensate temptation that frightened him. But behind came the torches, and the threat of the rack and execution, and Laurens shouted for him to continue. So he heeled Fey into the water and heard Laurens splash down behind him, and went into Coim’na Drhu.

On the farther bank there was a subtler night: no snow, but the same moon, the ground firmer, the air
warmer, so that they might come swiftly into the trees beyond.

Where Laurens fell from his saddle.

Cullyn swung down from Fey and ran to his wounded companion.

Laurens clutched his side, watching blood spurt over his fingers.

“I used,” he said slowly, “to take worse wounds than this. But …”

Across the river torches gathered and Cullyn heard shouting.

Laurens groaned. “Leave me and go on.”

“No! Besides, where should I go?”

“Home.”

“To Per Fendur’s attentions?”

“Not those. But …”

“Get up! Damn you—get up.”

“You’re friends with the Durrym—go there.”

“I’ll not leave you!”

The torches that blazed across the river came closer. Cullyn hauled Laurens upright and set him astride the bay. “I’ll not leave you,” he said, as he heard the splashing of hoofs, saw the torchlight come closer.

“But you might kill me,” Laurens said.

“This was your idea.”

Laurens sighed out a rueful chuckle. “Perhaps not my best, but all we had, eh? So let’s head north and see if we can lose them.”

Cullyn was not sure Coim’na Drhu had a north. He wondered if all the compass points were not confused here, and whichever direction they took should lead them back to Kandar, with Per Fendur and Amadis hot on their heels. But with little other choice, he obeyed Laurens and rode what he supposed was northward. Surely the moon sat in the right quarter and the river ran
to his left, but this was all fey land now and so he wondered where they might end up.

He followed some sort of trail, unsure what had made it, and found himself in a grove of dense birches that shone silver under the moon’s light. Great stones protruded from the grass that filled the space between the trees, like batholith monuments. The trail ended there, at a stone circle, and there was a sense of power, as if trees and stones and moonlight combined to imbue the circle with magic. He felt the hair on his neck stand up, and was abruptly cold and hot at the same time. He wondered if the combinations of light and shadow he saw amongst the stones were the products of moon and rocks, or capering spirits. Fey snorted, stamping restless hoofs, and Cullyn looked to Laurens.

The older man slumped in his saddle, one leg stained with the opening of his wound. The bay horse fretted, smelling the blood, and Cullyn walked Fey to stand beside.

“Can you go on?” he asked.

Laurens groaned and looked back to where the torches moved bright through the trees. “I’d best. They’ll be on us soon.”

“Where do we go? This trail ends here.”

“Hold northward. Keep the river on our left until we find another ford.”

“Which they’ll find.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not; this is a tricksy land. Who knows where we’ll come out?”

“All well,” Cullyn said, “back into Kandar.”

“But ahead of our hunters,” Laurens returned. “Now go!”

He pointed to where two vast stones stood upright and apart, allowing sufficient gap that the horses might pass between them. Moonlit grass and shining trees stood
beyond, but when Cullyn trotted Fey through the opening he found himself riding a gentle sward that was flanked leftward with alders and willows, and the ground was moist, almost swampy. Laurens followed, still swaying in his saddle, but with a grin on his grizzled face as he looked back.

Cullyn followed his eyes and saw small, ancient stones looming amongst marshy trees, but somehow overlaid with monoliths that shimmered as the torches approached. He watched them slow and skirt around, and wondered at the marvels of Coim’na Drhu.

Then Laurens said, “The priest will likely find a way ere long, so shall we go?”

And they set off again.

They halted as the sky woke up. Birds began to sing, and dawn’s pallid entrance gave way to sunlight. They stood in a grove of wide-branched alders whose branches split and curled like broken limbs across the ground. The Alagordar mouthed its passage to their left, and to the right—eastward into the heart of Coim’na Drhu—the forest deepened into oaks and birch and hazel.

“We need to keep going,” Laurens said. “Fendur will find a way around the stones … Likely already has.”

“And you’ll bleed to death if we go on.” Cullyn took the older man’s weight as he pitched from the saddle. “And then I’d be lost in this fey land.”

Laurens chuckled as he closed his eyes. “You think I know where we are?”

Cullyn dragged him to a stand of clean grass and left him there as he tended the two horses. Both were sweated by the long run, so he rubbed them down and walked them a while before he let them drink. Then he hobbled them and left them to crop the grass and marsh plants as he tended Laurens.

Without his herbs and poultices there was little he
could do other than staunch the bleeding wound, and wonder how Laurens had stayed astride his horse. The man grew feverish: sweat beaded him, and even when Cullyn cut strips from his shirt to bandage him afresh, blood oozed through the cloth.