Carfilhiot's horse, with arrows in its neck and haunches, reared, screamed and fell. No one had aimed directly at Carfilhiot: an act of forbearance, alarming rather than reassuring.
Carfilhiot ran crouching to a riderless horse, mounted, kicked home his spurs and bending low to the mane, pounded away, followed by the survivors of his troop.
At a safe distance Carfilhiot called a halt and turned to assess the situation. To his dismay a mounted troop of a dozen men burst from the shadows of Dravenshaw. They rode bay horses and wore Kaber orange.
Carfilhiot hissed in frustration. At least six archers would be leaving the ambush to join the enemy troop: he was outnumbered.
"Away!" cried Carfilhiot and put his horse once more to flight: up past the ruined fane, with the Kaber warriors barely a hundred yards behind. Carfilhiot's horses were stronger than the Kaber bays, but Carfilhiot had ridden harder and his heavy horses had not been bred for stamina.
Carfilhiot turned off the road into Dewny Swale, only to find another company of mounted men charging upon him from up-slope with leveled lances. They were ten or a dozen, in the blue and dark blue of Nulness Castle. Carfilhiot yelled orders and veered away to the south. Five of Carfilhiot's men took lances in the chest, neck or head and lay in the road. Three tried to defend themselves with sword and axe; they were quickly cut down. Four managed to win to the brow of the swale along with Carfilhiot, and there paused to rest their winded horses.
But only for a moment. The Nulness company, with relatively fresh horses, already had almost gained the high ground. The Kaber troop would be circling west along the old road to intercept him before he could gain Vale Evander.
A copse of dark fir trees rose ahead, where perhaps he could take temporary cover. He spurred the flagging horse into motion. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed bright red. He screamed: "Down!
Away!" Over and down into a gulch he plunged, while archers in the crimson of Castle Turgis jumped up from the gorse and shot two volleys. Two of Carfilhiot's four were struck; once again chainmail was penetrated. The horse of the third was struck in the belly; it reared over backward and fell on its rider who was crushed but managed to stagger, wild and disoriented, to his feet.
Six arrows killed him. The single remaining warrior rode pell-mell down into the swale, where the Kaber warriors cut off first his legs, then his arms, then rolled him into the ditch to ponder the sad estate to which his life had come. Carfilhiot rode alone through the forest of firs, to come out on a wasteland of stone. A
sheepherder's trail led through the rocks. Ahead towered the crags known as the Eleven Sisters.
Carfilhiot looked over his shoulder, then spurred his horse to its ultimate effort, through the Eleven Sisters and down the slope beyond into a dim gully choked with alders, where he drew his horse under a ledge and out of sight from above. His pursuers searched the rocks, calling and hallooing in frustration that Carfilhiot had escaped their trap. Time and time again they looked into the gully, but Carfilhiot, only fifteen feet below, was not seen. Around and around in Carfilhiot's head went an obsessive question: how had the trap been established without his knowledge?
The map had shown only Sir Cadwal riding abroad; yet surely Sir Cleone of Nulness Castle, Sir Dexter of Turgis had gone out with their troops! The simple strategy of the signal system never occurred to him.
Carfilhiot waited an hour until his horse ceased to tremble and heave; then cautiously he remounted and rode down the gully, keeping to such shelter as was offered by alders and willows, and presently he emerged into Vale Evander, a mile above Ys.
The time still was early afternoon. Carfilhiot rode on into Ys. On terraces to either side of the river the factors lived quietly in their white palaces, shaded under pencil cypress, yew, olive, flattopped pines. Carfilhiot rode up the beach of white sand to Melancthe's palace. A yard-boy came to meet him. Carfilhiot slid off the horse with a groan of relief. He climbed three marble steps, crossed the terrace and entered a dim foyer, where a chamberlain silently helped him from his helmet, his jupon and his chain cuirass. A maid-servant appeared: a strange silver-skinned creature, perhaps half-falloy.* She brought Carfilhiot a white linen shirt and a cup of warm white wine. "Sir, Lady Melancthe will see you in due course. Meanwhile, please command me for your needs."
*Falloy: A slender halfling akin to fairies, but larger, less antic and lacking deft control of magic; creatures ever more rare in the Elder Isles.
"Thank you: I need nothing." Carfilhiot went out on the terrace and lowered himself into a cushioned chair and sat looking out over the sea. The air was mild, the sky cloudless. Swells slid up the sand to become a low surf, which created a somnolent rhythmic sound. Carfilhiot's eyes became heavy; he dozed.
He awoke to find that the sun had moved down the sky. Melancthe, wearing a sleeveless gown of soft white faniche,* stood leaning against the balustrade, oblivious to his presence.
*A fairy fabric woven from dandelion silk.
Carfilhiot sat up in his chair, vexed for reasons indefinable.
Melancthe turned to look at him, then a moment later gave her attention back to the sea. . Carfilhiot watched her under halfclosed eyelids. Her self- possession—so it occurred to him—if sufficiently protracted, might well tend to scrape upon one's patience... Melancthe glanced at him over her shoulder, the corners of her mouth drooping, apparently with nothing to say: neither welcome nor wonder at his presence unattended, nor curiosity as to the course of his life.
Carfilhiot chose to break the silence. "Life here at Ys seems placid enough."
"Sufficiently so."
"1 have had a dangerous day. I evaded death by almost no margin whatever."
"You must have been frightened."
Carfilhiot considered. "'Fright'? That is not quite the word. I was alarmed, certainly. I grieve to lose my troops."
"I have heard rumors of your warriors."
Carfilhiot smiled. "What would you have? The land is in turmoil.
Everyone resists authority. Would you not prefer a country at peace?"
"As an abstract proposition, yes."
"I need your help."
Melancthe laughed in surprise. "It will not be forthcoming. I helped you once, to my regret."
"Truly? My gratitude should have soothed all your qualms. After all, you and I are one."
Melancthe turned and looked off over the wide blue sea. "I am I and you are you."
"So you will not help me."
"I will give you advice, if you agree to act by it."
"At least I will listen."
"Change utterly."
Carfilhiot made a polite gesture. "That is like saying: 'Turn yourself inside-out.'"
"I know." The two words rang with a fateful sound.
Carfilhiot grimaced. "Do you truly hate me so?"
Melancthe inspected him from head to toe. "I often wonder at my feelings. You fascinate the attention; you cannot be ignored.
Perhaps it is a kind of narcissism. If I were male, I might be like you."
"True. We are one."
Melancthe shook her head. "I am not tainted. You breathed the green fume."
"But you tasted it."
"I spat it out."
"Still, you know its flavor."
"And so I see deep into your soul."
"Evidently without admiration."
Melancthe again turned to look across the sea. Carfilhiot came to join her beside the balustrade. "Does it mean nothing that I am in danger? Half of my elite company is gone. I no longer trust my magic."
"You know no magic."
Carfilhiot ignored her. "My enemies have joined and plan terrible acts upon me. Today they might have killed me, but tried rather to take me alive."
"Consult your darling Tamurello; perhaps he will fear for his loved one."
Carfilhiot laughed sadly. "I am not even sure of Tamurello. In any event he is very temperate in his generosity, even somewhat grudging."