Austra nodded. “I saw them inspecting the caravan.”
“So why the sudden vigilance?”
“The caravan is going into Hornladh, and we were leaving it. Maybe the Empire cares who comes into its territory, and Tero Galle doesn’t.”
“Maybe,” Anne sighed. “I should know these things, shouldn’t I? Why didn’t I pay more attention to my tutors?”
“You’re afraid it’s the horsemen?”
“Yes—or they may have offered a reward for us, like they did in z’Espino.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if they’re legitimate guards or not,” Austra reasoned. “We can’t take the risk.”
“But we have to cross the bridge,” Anne said. “And I was hoping, once in the Empire, we might find some help. Or at least ask if anyone has seen Cazio and z’Acatto.”
“And get something to eat,” Austra added. “The fish was tiresome, but it was better than nothing.”
Anne’s stomach was rumbling, too. For the moment it was just unpleasant, but in a day or two, it would be a real problem. They didn’t have even a copper miser left, and she had already sold her hair. That only left a few things to sell, none of which she cared to think about.
“Maybe when it gets dark,” Austra proposed dubiously.
Something moved behind them. A little rock went bouncing down the slope and past their hiding place. Gasping softly, Anne swung around to see what it was and discovered two young men with dark hair and olive complexions staring down at them. They wore leather jerkins and ticking pantaloons tucked into high boots. Both had short swords, and one of them had a bow.
“Ishatite! Ishatite, ne ech te nekeme!” the man with the bow shouted.
“I don’t understand you!” Anne snapped back in frustration.
The shouter cocked his head. “King’s tongue, yes?” he said, coming down the slope, arrow pointed squarely at her. “Then you are the ones they look for, I bet me.”
“There’s one behind us now,” Austra whispered. Anne’s heart sank, but as the two moved closer her fear began to turn to anger.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
“Want you,” the man said. “Outlanders come by yesterday, say, ‘Find two girls, one with red hair, one with gold. Bring them or kill them, make no difference, but bring them and get much coin.’ Here I see me girl with gold hair. I think under that rag, I see hair is red.” He gestured with the weapon. “Take off.”
Anne reached up and removed the scarf. The man’s grin broadened. “Try to hide, eh? Doing not so good.”
“You’re a fool,” Anne said. “They won’t pay you. They’ll kill you.”
“You say,” the man replied. “I think not to trust you.” He stepped forward.
“Don’t touch me,” Anne snarled.
“Eshrije,” the other man said.
“Yes, right,” the bowman replied. “They say red-hair is witch. Better just to kill.”
As he pulled back on the bow, Anne lifted her chin in defiance, reaching for her power, ready to see what it could really do. “You will die for this,” she said.
A brief fear seemed to pass across his face, and he hesitated. Then he gasped in pain and surprise, stumbling, and she saw an arrow standing from his shoulder. He dropped his bow, groaning loudly, and the other man started shouting.
“Stand away, Comarre, and the rest of you, too,” a new voice said. Anne saw the owner, farther up the hill—a man in late middle age, with a seamed, sun-browned face and black hair gone half-silver. “These ladies don’t seem to like you.”
“Damn you, Artore,” the man with the arrow in his shoulder gritted. “This no business of yours. I saw first.”
“My boys and I are making it our business,” the older man replied.
Their attackers backed away. “Yes, fine,” Comarre said. “But another day, Artore.”
At that, an arrow hit him in the throat, and he dropped like a sack of grain. The other two had time to cry out, and then Anne found herself staring at three corpses.
“No other day, Comarre,” Artore said, shaking his head.
Anne looked up at him.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, ladies,” he said. “Are you well?” He stepped closer.
Anne grabbed Austra and hugged her tightly. “What do you want?” she asked. “Why did you kill them?”
“They’ve had it coming for a long time,” the man said. “But just now I figure that if I let them go, they’ll go tell that pack of Hansan knights, then they come looking for me, burn down my house—no good.”
“You mean you aren’t taking us to them?”
“Me? I hate knights and I hate Hansans. Why would I do anything for them? Come, it’s dark soon, and I think you’re hungry, no?”
Anne numbly followed the man named Artore along a rutted road delimited by juniper and waxweed, into the hilly country that stretched beyond sight of the river. There they were quickly joined by four boys, all armed with bows. The setting sun lay behind them, and their shadows ran ahead in the subdued dusk. Swallows cut at the air with crescent wings, and Anne wondered once again exactly what had happened in the horz, why the knights hadn’t seen them.
They strolled past empty fields and thatch-roofed houses built of brick. Artore and his boys chatted amongst themselves and exchanged greetings with their neighbors as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
“This is Jarne,” Artore informed her, patting a spindly, tall young man on the shoulder. “He’s the eldest, twenty-five. Then there’s Cotomar, the one with the chicken nest in his hair. Lochete, he’s the one with the big ears, and Senche is the youngest.”
“I didn’t thank you,” Anne said guardedly.
“Why should you? Figured we were going to take you to town, just like Comarre planned. Eh?”
“Are the knights still in town?” Anne asked.
“Some of them. Some of them are out in the countryside, and three of them went east with a couple of fellows they had all tied up.”
“Cazio!” Austra gasped.
“Friends of yours, I take it.”
“Yes,” Anne said. “We were following them, hoping for a chance at rescue.”
Artore laughed at that. “I wonder how you thought you were going to manage that.”
“We have to try,” Anne said. “They saved our lives, and as you said, they are our friends.”
“But against men like that? You’re braver than you are smart. Why do they want you?”
“They want to kill me, that is all I know,” Anne said. “They’ve chased us all the way from Vitellio.”
“Where are you trying to get to?”
Anne hesitated. “Eslen,” she finally said.
He nodded. “That’s what I figured. That’s still a long way, though, and it’s not the direction they’re taking your friends. So which way will you go?”
Anne had been thinking about that a lot, since Cazio and z’Acatto had been captured. It was her duty to go back to Eslen, she knew that. But she also had a duty to her friends. As long as their captors had been headed north, she hadn’t been forced to choose. Now she was, and she knew without a doubt which choice her mother—and the Faiths—would call the right one.
The thing was, whichever way she chose, she didn’t have much chance of surviving, not with Austra as a companion.
“I don’t know,” she murmured.
“Anne!” Austra cried. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll think of something,” she promised. “I’ll think of something.”
Artore’s house was much like the others they had passed, but larger and more rambling. Chickens pecked in the yard and beyond, in a fence, she saw several horses. The sky was nearly dark now, and the light from inside was cheerful.
A woman of about Artore’s age met them at the door. Her blondish hair was caught up in a bun, and she wore an apron. Wonderful smells spilled through the doorway.