Yes, sir, he said. They were passing into the green shade, and Uwen took a faster pace. The men, Hawith and Jeony, had vanished ahead of them through intermittent shafts of light that hazed the way ahead.
Their own horsesʼ hoofbeats sounded lonely on the earth. Sounds began to come strangely, and the sunlight seemed brighter, the edges of things unnaturally sharp and clear. Gery caught-step under him and threw her head, and that sharp-edged clarity was all around them, making things dangerous.
Uwen! he said, caught in strangling fear.
He reined back in fright, heard a hiss before or after his hand had moved. Something hit his side in a whistling flight of missiles and Gery jolted forward, crashed through brush and under a branch.
He spun over the cantle sideways and crashed down into brush on his back as he held tight to Geryʼs reins. Men were shouting, rushing downhill, motley clothed and motley armed. Stones whisked through the leaves, cracked against trees. Arrows hissed and one thumped and sang near him.
He got up again found the stirrup and hauled himself, winded as he was, to Geryʼs back. He reached the road, ducked low and hung on as Gery ran.
He heard nothing of the hoofbeats. He was in that bright light, that grayness, he and Gery both, though brush stung his face and raked over his shoulders. He had lost Uwen. He had lost the other men. Gery broke out of the woods and he saw not the road home, but the village where Cefwyn and the others were.
He had gone the wrong way. But there was no choice, now. He rode up at all Geryʼs speed, and Idrysʼ men swept him up with them, in what he only then realized was safety.
They Shot the men. He could scarcely speak. He was trembling. So was Gery. But no one had followed him. There were no arrows here. Uwen might have gotten away, he said, teeth chattering as with chill. I donʼt know, sirs. Iʼm sorry.
Damn them, Cefwyn said.
Overland, Idrys said. We go overland. Iknow the map, mʼlord. We can make it through. Damn the village and their witch! Theyʼll wait for night.
Cefwyn was not pleased. Cefwyn was taut-lipped and furious.
Call the searchers back! he said, and a man lifted a horn to his lips and sounded a quick series of notes that echoed off the hills.
He hoped Uwen was alive. He had heard the sound of arrows: he would never forget it in all his life. He shivered still, held Gery as quiet as she would stand and felt her shiver, too. Breezes brushed against his face, and he felt it chill, but that was only fear, not not the stifling foreboding he had felt in the woods.
The men Idrys had sent out came back over the hills, down the lane beside the orchard, six men filling out their number again, on tired horses.
Overland, Cefwyn said. As best we can. Idrys! Take the lead.
It had not been the outcome Cefwyn had wished. They had not gained anything. The old woman, tottering on her feet, still disheveled, came out from among the others and down the street, calling out,
The King, he come again, he come again, Marhanen lord, ye mark me well!The King, he come again!
One should silence that crone, Idrys said. Tristen caught his breath up to plead otherwise, that the woman was old and she was afraid and she sent only a little presence into the air.
But Cefwyn said, Let be, and that stopped it. Idrys took the lead in leaving the road, back down the lane that led downhill past the village and toward a meadow pasturage.
The banner-bearers followed. Cefwyn led the rest of them, down this lane that sheep recently had used.
He thought he should have tried to help Uwen, but he had thought he was doing what Uwen said.
He had made a mistake, a foolish, foolish mistake, when, after getting back in Geryʼs saddle, he had turned back instead toward Cefwyn, blinded by fear, mistaking his direction. Fool, Mauryl would say.
Deservedly.
CHAPTER 13
One of the men said he knew the way, and that he had ridden patrol here, so, he said, he could lead them around the woods and they would come to the road again before it entered the trees.
Weʼll have our reinforcements, Cefwyn said to Idrys, by morning. No use our riding south to the road and back again. Weʼll have these horses staggering under us, riding there. Make camp!
We are not armored against arrows or shepherd Slings, mʼlord Prince. I want you safe away. Weʼll fire the haystacks.That will keep these people busy: you ride out of here, mʼlord Prince! If Lewenʼs-son fell, weʼve no one in Henasʼamef to ask our whereabouts until tomorrow late. We do not know their numbers but I can busy them and ride clear.
Then we both can!
No, my lord Prince! Do not be risking the Kingʼs heir after some ragtag troop of women in a sheep pasture! There are battles worth a prince and there are those not, and this is not, mʼlord. I pray you use the sense your uncle had not, and live long enough to reign!
There was silence for a time. Uwen might have made it through, Tristen thought. There might be help coming. But it would still be late. And Idrys and the prince stared at each other, glowering.
Finally Cefwyn said, Iʼll not draw off men you may need. Weʼll go by the eastern valley. I can find that in the dark. You overtake us on the road. That is an order, sir. No lingering. I need you. Iʼll take Tristen, and two men beside.
The wizardling is not a man, not in wit, not in experience heʼs a risk, mʼlord. A maid ten years old would do more than fly back down the road for rescue! A blushing maid might have stayed with her escort!
Sir, Tristen said, stung.
Tristen, Cefwyn said. Nydas. Lefhwyn. That is my word, Idrys.
And Brogi, Idrys said. At least three men, mʼlord Prince. And six more, for safety.
Tristen bit his lip, unable to protest. Cefwyn said, shortly, Later, master crow, and put his horse to a quicker pace as Idrys and others dropped back to ride back to the village.
But six more than two men followed them; Tristen followed, not wanting to leave Idrysʼ assessment of him unchallenged, but not having any argument against it, either. He had not done well, losing his way in the woods. He had fallen into that gray place, and he had thought he was facing the right direction, and he had ridden out in the wrong one. He did not know now whether he had turned face about in that Place, or had simply lost his sense of which side of the road Gery had gone to, and gotten turned wrong in the terror of the moment. He felt the fool as Idrys had clearly said he was. But he had resources he had not used. He might call to Emuin, if things were going wrong.
But Emuin was very far away, and could send them no soldiers, nor any other help that he knew. Emuin had said the gray place was a dangerous place to linger. He wondered if Cefwyn knew of it, or if Cefwyn could go there, or if any of the other men could; he wondered whether he should tell Cefwyn that possibility or whether Cefwyn was privy to Emuinʼs doings with him, or should be.
Meanwhile their case was not desperate: ground flew under them, green grass and gray stone and black earth, over meadowland interspersed with rocky knolls perhaps too small to have names. The map still echoed Words to him, Words running in red and black and brown, with fine lines that blurred and ran and tried to find accordance with the land.