It came as something of an anticlimax when, in midafternoon, they arrived at yet another small bridge, with yet another knight in attendance, barring their passage across and offering them the choice of paying tribute or contesting with him.
The knight, astride a bony chestnut horse that should have been retired two or three years ago, was a far cry from the warlord they had confronted the night before. His surcoat was muddy and tattered.
It may have been yellow once, but now it had faded to a dirty off-white. His armor had been patched in several places and his lance was obviously a roughly trimmed sapling, with a decided kink about a third of the way along its length. His shield was inscribed with a boar's head. It seemed appropriate for a man as rusty, tattered and generally grubby as he was.
They came to a halt, surveying the scene. Halt sighed wearily.
"I am getting so very tired of this," he muttered to Horace, and began unslinging his longbow from where he wore it across his shoulders.
"Just a moment, Halt," said Horace, shrugging his round buckler from its position on his back and onto his left arm. "Why don't we let him see the oakleaf insignia and see if that changes his mind about things?"
Halt scowled at the tatterdemalion figure in the road ahead of them, hesitating as his hand reached for an arrow.
"Well, all right," he said reluctantly. "But we'll give him one chance only. Then I'm putting an arrow through him. I'm heartily sick of these people."
He slouched back in his saddle as Horace rode to meet the scruffy knight. So far, there had been no sound from the figure in the middle of the road and that, thought Halt, was unusual. As a general rule, the road warriors couldn't wait to issue challenges, usually peppering their speech with generous helpings of "Ho, varlet!" and "Have at thee then, sir knight" and other antiquated claptrap of the sort.
And even as the thought occurred to him, warning bells went off in his mind and he called to the young apprentice who was now some twenty meters away, trotting Kicker to meet his challenger.
"Horace! Come back! It's a:"
But before he could say the last word, an amorphous shape dropped from the branches of an oak tree that overhung the road, draping itself around the head and shoulders of the boy. For a moment, Horace struggled uselessly in the folds of the net that enveloped him. Then an unseen hand tugged on a rope and the net tightened around him and he was jerked out of the saddle, to crash heavily onto the road.
Startled, Kicker reared away from his fallen rider, trotted a few paces, then, sensing he was in no danger himself, stopped and watched, ears pricked warily.
":trap," finished Halt quietly, cursing his lack of awareness.
Distracted by the ridiculous appearance of the shabby knight, he had allowed his senses to relax, leading them into this current predicament.
He had an arrow on the bowstring now, but there was no visible target, save the knight on the ancient battlehorse, who still sat silently in the middle of the road. He was part of the entire elaborate setup, without a doubt. He had shown no sign of surprise when the net had fallen onto Horace.
"Well, my friend, you can pay for your part in this deception,"
Halt muttered, and brought the bow up smoothly, bringing it back in a full draw until the feathered end touched his cheek, just above the corner of his mouth.
"I don't think I'd do that," said a familiar gravelly voice. The ragged, rusty knight pushed back his visor, revealing the dark features of Deparnieux.
Halt swore to himself. He hesitated, the arrow still at full draw, and heard a series of small noises from the underbrush on either side of the road. Slowly, he released the tension on the string as he became aware that at least a dozen shapes had risen from the bushes, all of them holding deadly little crossbows.
All of them pointing toward him.
He replaced the arrow in the quiver at his back and lowered the bow until it rested across his thighs. He glanced hopelessly to where Horace still struggled against the fine woven mesh that had wrapped itself around him. Now more men were emerging from the bushes and trees that flanked the road. They approached the helpless apprentice, and as four of them covered him with crossbows, the others worked to loosen the folds of the net and bring him, red-faced, to his feet.
Deparnieux, grinning widely with satisfaction, urged his bony horse down the road toward them. Stopping within easy speaking distance, he performed a cursory bow from the waist.
"Now, gentlemen," he said mockingly, "I will be privileged to have you as my guests at Chateau Montsombre."
Halt raised one eyebrow. "How could we possibly refuse?" he asked, of no one in particular.
25
I T HAD BEEN FIVE DAYS SINCE E VANLYN HAD BEEN SUMMONED to Erak's quarters. While she waited for further contact from him, she went ahead with the other part of the plan he had outlined to her, complaining loudly at the prospect of being assigned to be one of his personal slaves. According to the story they had concocted, she would finish the week in the kitchen, then take up her new assignment. She professed her disgust with him in general, with his standard of cleanliness in particular, and spoke as often as she could of the cruelty he had shown her on the voyage to Hallasholm.
To hear Erak described by Evanlyn in those few days, he was the worst of the devils of hell, and with bad breath to boot.
After several days of this, Jana, one of the senior kitchen slaves, said to her wearily, "There could be worse things for you, my girl. Get used to it."
She turned away, tired of Evanlyn's constant complaints. For in truth, the life of a personal slave had some advantages: better food and clothing and more comfortable quarters among them.
"I'll kill myself first," Evanlyn called after her, glad of the chance to make her abhorrence of the Jarl more public. A passing kitchen-hand, a freeman, not a slave, cuffed her heavily around the back of the head, setting her ears ringing.
"I'll do it for you, you lazy slacker, if you don't get back to work," he told her. She shook her head, glaring her hatred after his retreating back, and hurried off to serve ale to Ragnak and his fellow diners.
As ever, she felt a distinct surge of anxiety as she entered the dining hall under Ragnak's gaze. Although reason told her that he was unlikely to single her out from the dozens of other hurrying slaves busily serving food and drink, she still lived in the constant fear that, somehow, she would be recognized as Duncan's daughter. It was that anxiety, as much as the nonstop work, that left her drained and exhausted at the end of each night.
After the evening's work was completed, the slaves moved gratefully to their sleeping spaces. Evanlyn noted wryly that Jana, obviously bored with Evanlyn's constant complaints about Erak, had moved her blanket to the far side of the room. She spread her own blanket and went to reroll the cloth around her log pillow. As she did so, a small piece of paper fell from the folds of the old shirt she used to pad the wood.
Her heart racing, Evanlyn quickly covered the scrap with her foot, glancing around to see if any of her neighbors had noticed. Nobody seemed to. They all continued with their own preparations for sleep.