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She reined the horse around and slapped its rump with the trailing end of her reins. It bolted forward, light surged, and her sight was still hazed with dancing spots and black dots and bright sparks when her shoulder brushed rough stone and they broke out of the ragged circle of stones with a flash of afternoon sun in her eyes.
Disoriented, she shaded her eyes with a hand until she could make out the road below. It was not yet twilight; an unseasonable chill stung the air. The Bretwald lay beyond the road, alive with birds come to feed at the verge. Crows flocked in the treetops. A vulture spiraled down and landed on a heap of rags that littered the roadside.
Of the fell creatures that had stalked her, there was no sign.
What had the old sorcerer said? “The measure of days and years moves differently here than there.”
Had she arrived earlier than she had left? Was that even possible, to wait here beside the road when she was herself riding on that same road, not yet having reached this point? She shook herself and urged the horse forward, looking around cautiously. But nothing stirred. The crows flapped away with raucous cries. The vulture at last bestirred itself and flew, but only to a nearby branch, where it watched as she picked her way up to the roadside and dismounted to examine the litter: a jumble of bones scoured clean; damp tabards wilted on the turf or strewn with pebbles as though a wind had blown over them; and weapons left lying every which way. With her boot she turned over a shield: A white deer’s head stared blankly at her.
She jumped back, found shelter in the bulk of her horse, who blew noisily into her ear, unimpressed by these remains.
The men-at-arms she had seen had borne shields marked with a white deer’s head. And she had heard screaming. How long could it have been? It would take months for a body to rot to clean bone.
The light changed as a scrap of cloud scudded over the sun, and she shivered in the sudden cold. She mounted and rode on, northward, as she had before. As dusk lowered, she studied the heavens with apprehension throbbing in her chest. Stars came out one by one. Above her shone summer’s evening sky. Had she lost an entire year?
Ahead, a torch flared, and then a second, and she urged her mount forward, smelling a village ahead. A low, square church steeple loomed, cutting off stars. They had not yet closed the palisade gates of the little town, which protected them against wild animals as well as the occasional depredations of what bandits still lurked in the Bretwald. The gatekeeper sent her on to the church, where the deacon kept mats for travelers and a simmering pot of leek stew for the hungry.
Liath was starving. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely gulp down stew and cider as the deacon watched with mild concern.
“What day is it?” Liath asked when at last her hands came back under her control, and the sting of hunger softened.
“Today we celebrated the nativity of St. Theodoret, and tomorrow we will sing the mass celebrating the martyrdom of St. Walaricus.”
Today was the nineteenth of Quadrii, then; the day she had fled the creatures had been the eighteenth. For an instant she breathed more easily. Then she remembered the bones, and the party she had almost met on the road.
“What year?”
“An odd question,” said the deacon, but she was a young woman and not inclined to question a King’s Eagle. “It is the year 729 since the Proclamation of the Divine Logos by the blessed Daisan.”
One day later. Only one day. The bones she had seen by the roadside had nothing to do with her, then. They must have lain there for months, picked clean by the crows and the vultures and the small vermin that feed on carrion.
Only later, rolled up in her blanket on a mat laid down in the dark entry hall of the church, did it occur to her that the clothing left behind with the bones on the roadside was damp but not rotted or torn. Had it lain there for months or years, it, too, would have begun to rot away.
3
THE hunting party burst out of the forest and then scattered aimlessly into small groups, having lost the scent. The king rode among a riot of his good companions, all laughing at a comment made by Count Lavastine. Alain had fallen back to the fringe, and now he reined in his horse to watch a trio of young men fishing in the river an arrow’s shot upstream. Hip-deep in water, they flung nets wide over the glittering surface.
“Alain.” Count Lavastine halted beside him. The black hounds snuffled in the grass that edged the cliff, which fell away about a man’s height before hillside met river. A rock, dislodged by Fear, skittered down the slope, stirring up a shower of dust, and the other hounds all barked in a delighted frenzy as they scrambled back.
“Peace!” said Lavastine sternly, and at once they quieted, obedient to his wishes. He turned his gaze to Alain. “You must come ride closer to the king, Son.”
“Their task seems easier than mine.” Alain indicated the fishermen below. Stripped down to their breechclouts, the fishermen enjoyed the purl of the water around their bodies and the hot sun on their glistening backs without any thought except for the labor at hand. He heard their laughter ringing up from the distant shore.
“A drought, a late freeze, a rainy Aogoste. Any of these could ruin their crops.”
“But at least the rivers always breed fish. I’m never quite sure what the noble parties are hunting.”
“You do not like the form of this hunt. But it is one you must learn, and you must learn to judge which party will succeed and which will fail. In this way we make our alliances. The prince favors you.”
“The princess does not.”
“Only because you are favored by the prince.”
“Because I am a bastard, as he is.”
“Were,” said Lavastine with a sudden bite to his tone, like a hound’s sharp nip, more warning than attack. “You are legitimately claimed and honored now.”
“Yes, Father,” said Alain obediently. “But when she sees me and then sees Lord Geoffrey, it reminds Princess Sapientia that the king may choose another claimant over her when it comes time to anoint his heir.” The hounds sat, panting, in the sun: Rage, Sorrow, Ardent, Bliss, and Fear. Terror flopped down. Only Steadfast still sniffed along the verge of the bluff, intent on a scent that did not interest the others. A stone’s toss back from the bluff, King Henry and his companions conferred, pointing toward the dense spur of woodland that thrust here into a scattering of orchard and fields of ripening oats cut into a neat patchwork by hedgerows.
