He’d reached four when two of the plainsmen rolled their barrel into a shop doorway and flushed out a pair of children, a boy and a girl, approximately six and ten respectively. They had the native common sense to run in different directions; but the archer swivelled round on his bench, followed the girl and shot her through the kidneys at about twenty yards, then drew and nocked an arrow in a single flowing movement and hit the boy square in the middle of his neck at close on forty yards, just as he was about to reach the safety of the alleyway Gorgas had been planning to use himself. By the time he’d looked back at the wagon, the archer had nocked another arrow and was looking round for something to loose it at. One of his companions muttered, ‘Shot!’ under his breath; the rest seemed to take it all in their stride and carried on with their work.
Running for it wasn’t such an inviting prospect any more. Gorgas swore under his breath. Time was getting on and he had things to do and a long way to go. He also had a rough idea of what was in the barrels; if he was right, there would soon be yet another unwelcome complication.
The men nearest to him deposited a barrel no more than ten yards from where he was hiding, which made deciding what he was going to do that bit easier. The prospect was still galling in the extreme; he disliked doing the sort of thing he was now resolved to do even more than the type of people who tended to do it. Nevertheless; in extreme situations there comes a point when heroism is the safest and most logical course of action. As quietly as he could he wriggled up onto his haunches, pulled an arrow from his quiver (only three left; damn), held his bow out at a slant because of the confined space, with his head canted over to compensate; nocked, drew, held and loosed.
Even in bad light it was a routine enough shot, and Gorgas was a perfectly competent archer. Even so, it was a great relief to him when the arrow went home, making that tchock! noise unique to a bodkin-head arrow in manflesh, and the plainsman toppled sideways off the box and onto the ground.
Gorgas nocked another arrow as he stood up, fumbling a little and staggering as his cramped legs protested at the short notice. Only one of the other men had seen what was going on; and in the time between his seeing the shot and calling out to his mates, Gorgas was on his feet and moving well, to the point where he was nearer to the wagon than any of the plainsmen.
He heard several shouts and a grinding noise (sword leaving scabbard) as he vaulted up onto the bench, dropped his bow and grabbed the long-handled whip from its rest. The wagon team were mules, of course; better than one-in-three odds that they weren’t going to budge, and that would be embarrassing. His luck was in, however, which made a pleasant change; even so, there was a man in the act of hauling himself up onto the tailgate by the time the mules moved off at a sharp trot. Without moving from his seat, Gorgas pivoted and lashed out behind him with the whip. He missed, but a couple of barrels chose that moment to fall over and roll against the tailgate, dislodging the one-man boarding party. Another plainsman grabbed one of the canopy stays and ran alongside holding it. Gorgas waited until he’d managed to hop up onto the running-board, his head nicely level with Gorgas’ toecap, before booting him off. By the sound and feel of it, he went under the nearside wheels, which served him right for trying too hard.
He expected further efforts, but they didn’t happen, and before he knew it he was round the corner of the street and going well. From the lack of pursuit he gathered that the remaining carters had written the wagon off to experience and were getting on with their work; a hypothesis that was largely confirmed by a whoosh-boom behind him, a disturbance in the air and a red glow visible out of the corner of his eye. The effect was repeated a number of times before he was out of earshot.
He’s got the recipe right, then, Gorgas said to himself. Not bad going for someone who’d been brought up to regard the wheel as the high-water mark of his people’s technological achievement.
As he drove (north-west and downhill, as far as the streets would let him), he heard and saw a lot more of the same, and blessed his luck for putting him in the way of a clan wagon. One of the first things he’d done was stick the deceased archer’s cap on his head, and the parties of carters and soldiers he passed as he drove took no notice of him. They were all, needless to say, plainsmen; panic, fire and enemy soldiers had cleared this district of everyone who was capable of moving. The logic of it was probably what made him complacent, so that he stopped bothering to keep an eye out; with the result that he didn’t see a man slip out of an alleyway as he drove past and run up on the outside. The first he knew was when someone vaulted up onto the box, pushed him off the bench and grabbed the reins.
He landed painfully, jarring his shoulder and snapping his two remaining arrows. If he’d had time he’d have been in pain; as it was, he only managed to hop on to the tailgate and drop down out of sight because his attacker reined up and brought the wagon to a stop.
This is all Bardas’ fault, he couldn’t help thinking; I try to look after him, and this is what happens. But he knew the accusation was unjust. Properly speaking, it was all of his own making, and one thing he’d always taken pride in was accepting the responsibility for his actions.
Even so; all this scrapping with strangers and running about… And me a respected member of the international banking community.
The cart-thief, whoever he was, had jumped down and gone back to the alleyway he’d first appeared from. Gorgas grinned; a fine athlete, his assailant, but an idiot. He crept forward, sat himself down on the bench and took up the reins.
Just a minute-
There had been something familiar about the way the man had got down off the wagon. It had reminded him of another wagon, a creaky old haywain with a warped front axle; Clefas, Zonaras, Sis and himself underneath pitching up the stooks, Father and Bardas up on the wagon catching them and packing them down, cramming in more than the wain was ever built to carry to save having to make another trip-
‘Bardas?’ he called out. ‘Is that you?’
The man had been on the point of hurling himself at the wagon, all set for an energetic free-for-all on the moving box. He stopped as if he’d run into a wall.
‘Gorgas?’
He grinned, so widely that the glow of the fire on the opposite side of the street shone on his bared teeth. ‘Now that’s lucky,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Gorgas? ’
‘Well, don’t just stand there, get on the damn wagon.’
Bardas Loredan seemed to collapse, like a punctured grain sack as its contents flow out onto the ground. Everything else he’d managed to cope with, even the bizarre shock of tripping over his ex-pupil sworn-enemy in a pitch-dark alley. But this wasn’t something he could take in his stride; not on top of everything else. The headache was a fairly obvious clue, of course; similarly the suspicious ease with which he’d managed to get this far.
He was beginning to wish he hadn’t. Likewise, the fish who suddenly comes across a fat lugworm floating motionless in the water changes its mind about the quality of its luck once it feels the hook draw through its lip.
‘Bardas,’ said the man on the wagon, ‘we haven’t got time. Get your bum on this seat and let’s be going, while there’s still a chance of getting through.’
Bardas had almost made up his mind as to the right thing to do when he suddenly remembered the girl, lying bleeding in the alleyway behind him. He closed his eyes and mouthed a curse. Gorgas’ letter had mentioned a ship; the ship could carry the girl out, if she lived and Gorgas really could get through and he did have a ship waiting, and about a dozen other provisos. Once again, he had no choice in the matter. Once, just once, it’d be nice to be able to decide for himself. One day, maybe.