“All right,” said Jane reluctantly. “I know you don’t want to starve, either. But now that I think about it, what about getting through the night? If you don’t get MC 6 to follow you tonight, we’ll freeze out on the road without some kind of bedrolls.”
“We must find blankets in the village,” said Ishihara. “However, without money to buy them, we can only ask for Emrys to help again. I do not know how much more he will be willing and able to help.”
“Maybe he can afford old ones, “ said Jane. “Their condition won’t matter, as long as they don’t have bugs or anything. Please ask him.”
Ishihara turned to Emrys again. “Can we buy old, inexpensive blankets in the village? We can return them, too, with the mule.”
“Of course,” said Emrys. “I know which booth to visit. I can help with that. You will need a small pot in which to heat water, too.”
“We will go to the village,” said Ishihara. “Then, if our search for blankets succeeds, we will hurry on our way up the road.”
Steve enjoyed riding out with Artorius’s cavalry, in a column of four abreast. He rode on the far right of his rank, with Hunter on his immediate left and Cynric on Hunter’s other side. Another member of their squad rode on the far left, with the remainder in the ranks behind them.
All of Lucius’s troop of green recruits rode in the rear. No dust roiled up, however, because of the dampness in the earth. Overhead, gray clouds drifted across the sky.
Around him, Steve could see the excitement in the young faces of the other riders. The thought of going to war against the hated Saxons dominated their attention. None of them spoke now.
Up ahead, as the column drew away from Cadbury, the squads in the van cantered ahead of the rest. When the vanguard had opened some distance, the entire column was ordered to canter. Steve understood and kicked his mount; Artorius, already a veteran leader, wanted his men to vent their tension.
When the column slowed to a walk again, Steve could see the difference. The riders around him relaxed, breathless, and began talking and laughing among themselves. Under the hooves of the horses ahead, the soft road quickly turned to muddy slop, but no one cared. The road wound east and sometimes northeast around rolling hills covered with lush green grass; clumps of trees lined the hollows among the hills.
“I hear word from up ahead,” said Hunter. “A rumor of our destination is slowly passing back through the column, from one man to another.”
“Well, what is it? Where are we going?”
“To the River Dubglas in Linnuis,” said Hunter. He lowered his voice and leaned toward Steve, switching to English.” According to the library data I took before we left, that is the Douglas River in modern Lincolnshire.”
“River Dubglas, you say?” Cynric, riding on the far side of Hunter from Steve, nodded. “That sounds right.”
“So I heard,” said Hunter.
“We fought them by the banks of that river late last season,” said Cynric. “If we hope to drive them back this summer, we’ll have to attack their territory. Last year’s campaign penned them on the far side of the river, but I suppose they look to cross it again, with their reinforcements from across the Channel.” His face tightened as he considered this.
“How long will we take to reach River Dubglas?” Hunter asked.
“If we ride without a break to the same site as last year’s battle, three days. Our scouts will ride back with word as we draw closer, though, to tell Artorius exactly where on the river to go. We might spend some time moving up and down the bank. Artorius will make his final plans according to how many of our veterans join us quickly.”
“You feel he may order us to wait and gather his troops before moving into battle?” Hunter asked.
“Anything is possible. We will find out his plans when we are close enough for our scouts to bring fresh information.”
Steve understood the real questions in Hunter’s mind, behind his spoken words. Hunter wanted to take Steve away from the column before any battle began. Ideally, they would find MC 6 and simply return together to their own time before the fighting started. Now Hunter could estimate that they had a minimum of three days before Artorius could reach the Saxons.
14
Wayne and Jane rode the mule. He held the reins while Jane sat behind him with her arms around his waist. Even at a walk, the mule’s long legs moved faster than a human’s legs would walk.
Ishihara had to stride quickly to keep up. He moved at a pace that no human could maintain for long, but of course had no trouble with it himself. Because the road had been churned to a deep muddy soup by the horses ahead, Wayne rode through the long grass by the side of the road.
Inlate morning, they caught up to the camp followers hiking after the riders. Ishihara led Wayne on a long detour around the camp followers, far enough to avoid conversation. Then they moved back to the side of the road again.
At midday, Wayne stopped for a break. He and Jane ate part of their bread and mutton in silence. Then they mounted again and continued on their journey.
Late in the afternoon, Ishihara suddenly trotted about twenty meters ahead of the mule, then stopped. As Wayne caught up to him, Ishihara raised a hand for him to halt. Wayne saw that Ishihara was listening to something.
“They have stopped to make camp,” Ishihara said finally. “The noises are faint, but we will come within sight of the camp soon. We must decide how to proceed now, before anyone in the camp sees us.”
“Well…I don’t know exactly what to do,” said Wayne. “What do you suggest?”
Ishihara looked up the road, which still wound through rolling hills ahead. “That long line of trees suggests a river or at least a stream that provides water for Artorius’s camp. We will need water, too, so we might as well go close enough to see what the camp looks like.”
“Yeah. Maybe we can see MC 6 from a distance.” Wayne kicked the mule forward.
As Wayne passed, Ishihara looked behind him, at Jane. “You are still well?”
“Yeah,” Jane muttered.
The troops halted to make camp by a small stream. Hunter saw new scouting patrols ride out, crossing the stream. He understood that by stopping with plenty of daylight left, the main column allowed the baggage train time to catch up before darkness fell.
The squads split up and fanned out from the road. The riders tended their horses first, unsaddling them and hobbling them to graze. Then the men were ordered to gather firewood to make separate campfires for the night.
“There’s dead wood among those live trees, all over the place,” said Steve, glancing at the trees lining the stream. “We don’t need everybody to gather it.”