In the morning she tidied herself as neatly as she could, braided her hair freshly back, and perfumed herself with a bit of lavender to hide the smell of forest. The road was quieter today, and she found herself a place to walk about a stone’s throw behind a trio of wagons bearing threshed grain bound for the king’s granaries. When the wagoners halted to take their midday break on a long spur of grass alongside the bank at the confluence of the Wheel River and the chalky colored White, she sat down away from them, far enough away that they would not walk over to question her but close enough that she was not alone on the wide road.
The last rind of cheese made a tough meal, and she was out of bread, but she hoped to make the King’s Gate by nightfall. The sky remained clear and the air cool but not chilly, so hearing a roll as of distant thunder made her frown. Worse yet came the sudden appearance of outriders wearing the dark sash of the Forlangers. The wagoners quickly leaped up and raced to get their oxen unhobbled and their wagons moving, but it was too late. A company of Forlangers marched swiftly into view.
The outriders caught up with the wagoners before they could get out of sight down the road. A dozen soldiers searched the wagon beds, but most of the infantrymen swarmed the bank to take a drink of water and sit down to rest their feet and eat a bite from their stores. They were mostly young men, respectful in their way and quite uninterested in a careworn woman old enough to be their mother, but because there was only so much nice grassy space, a half-dozen seated themselves near to her and opened their kit to get out dried fish and round flatbread suitable for the march.
“A good morning to you, Mother,” they said in the way of lads, politely offering her a quarter of bread. “Where are you off to?”
“The King’s City to make my fortune as a herbwoman making love potions for the heartsick,” she answered. “And where are you off to?”
They liked her cheeky reply.
One said, “Have you advice for me, Mother? For there’s a girl who has said no to me three times. Is there any hope?”
She considered the youth’s merry smile and dashing eyes. “Is she the only girl, or just the only one wise enough to refuse you when she sees you are quick to find solace from her hard heart elsewhere?”
His comrades laughed uproariously at that, and soon they were all telling her their troubles and asking her advice in the way of chance-met travelers who will confide to strangers what they would never tell their own kin, for it was sure she would never have opportunity to repeat the tales to anyone they knew. Despite their northern accents, she could understand them well enough. In truth, she wondered at them, for they were decent lads for all that they were Forlangers. Maybe it was their lord who made them wicked, not any of their doing.
A new party rode up at a canter, from the direction of West Hall.
Her heart froze, and her mouth turned as dry as the stubble of a mowed field in summer’s heat. The lord she had seen in the clearing of Dead Man’s Oak arrived with all his anger riding as a mantle draping him. He was accompanied by ten mounted soldiers. The infantry leaped to their feet, hastening to pack away their flasks and bread.
“Why do you loiter here?” he demanded. “We have reports of a remnant of General Olivar’s company that escaped us and is even now making its way cross country to reach the court. Get up! Get up!”
He reined up by the flustered lads dusting off their backsides and shouldering their packs. His eye lit on her, sitting at peace among them.
“Who is this?” he asked them in a tone that snapped.
“My lord,” said the merry one hastily. “Just an herbwife who chanced to be resting her feet here when we halted.”
“Get on the march,” commanded the lord.
As they hastened away, that stare came to rest on her. He had the eyes of a fish, moist and deadened, and thin lips that might, she hoped, never waken desire in a lover so that he would never know what it is to share true affection.
“What are you about on the road, herbwife?” he demanded.
Kindness would make no shift with a man like him. He could only see what he expected.
“I am but a poor widow,” she said, pitching her voice to whine like her youngest would do in a tone both grating and harsh, “for my husband is dead of drink and my daughter married. The wicked girl promised I could live with her, though she didn’t mean a word of it even though she took my marriage bed, so what am I to do when her ungrateful brute of a husband said he wanted nothing to do with me and him a drinker, too, I’ll have you know. But mayhap you have a coin to spare for a sad widow.”
“Which I daresay you will spend on ale the moment you reach an alehouse, you old shrew,” he replied with a sneer. But he tossed her a copper penny and rode away. That quickly they were all gone, riding at speed away toward the city while she sat shaking.
Finally, when she could breathe calmly again, she picked up the copper for all that it had the taste of his evil hand on it. Old shrew! Not that old, surely, but then she looked at her work-chapped hands and she supposed her sun-weathered face appeared little different. There was certainly gray in her hair, for her comb told her that, although still plenty of the auburn that Olef had said was the fire washed through her that made his heart warm. Not just his heart.
She pressed a hand to her breast, feeling the tin swan tucked within her bodice.
A league more brought her to a small river whose name she did not know. She had only traveled to the King’s City twice in the whole of her life, and while there were landmarks she recognized from her other trips, she did not know what they were called.
The road wound through coppiced trees. Ahead of her, she heard the harried voices and the grind of wheels just in time to step off the road. A shout chased along the wind. A half-dozen men trotted into view, pushing carts laden with sheepskins. They cast frightened looks back over their shoulders.
“Here, Mistress,” called the eldest, seeing her. “Trouble at the bridge. Best you hurry back the way you came.”
“What manner of trouble?” she asked, but then she heard thumping and screaming, and she knew.
“A fight on the bridge,” said the oldest man, slowing to a walk as the rest kept moving. “Don’t go down there.”
“But I must get to the King’s City.”
He gestured in the direction of the carters as the last vanished around a curve in the road.
“Did you see the big ash tree with the blaze on its north-facing trunk? There’s a trail there that carries on upstream to Three Willows village. They keep a small bridge, though they charge a penny for a crossing, so we don’t like to go that way. But better a penny than dead.”
He hurried on after the others, but Anna crept forward, careful to stay concealed in the undergrowth. She had to see.
The bridge in quieter times had a watchman and a gate flanked by two posts, each with a carved hawk on top whose talons held lanterns at night.
The watchman was dead, and dead and wounded men sprawled on the bridge’s span, caught while crossing. A body bobbed in the sluggish water, dark hair trailing along the current. Several saddled but riderless horses had broken away and now sidestepped skittishly through uncut grass, not sure whether to bolt or to await their lost riders.
The skirmish had swirled onto the other bank, a few last desperate men trying to break away from the Forlangers, but they were outnumbered. Anna stared in horror at the melee.