There were certain shadowy places on Faolan’s map, places he could not see clearly in his mind. Fords that had claimed lives. Hillsides with a reputation for rockslides. Hemmed-in valleys perfect for ambush. Lastly, there would be the forest itself: Briar Wood, a place with a reputation for oddity.
He pushed his party on as quickly as he thought they could manage. The men were good, and the servant, Creisa, was at least more capable than her predecessor. She could ride, and her brisk competence in camp was some compensation for her busy tongue and flirtatious manner. One could hardly expect a royal bride to travel alone among men.
He did not quite know what to make of Ana. Sometimes she challenged him, showing wit and strength. More often she was quiet, docile, so accepting of her fate that it would have irked him, had such matters been of any interest to him. She was like a creature led to the slaughter, all big eyes and golden hair and fastidious attention to cleanliness, when she was about to be handed over to a warrior of dubious reputation who would probably use her as roughly as he might any filthy creature by the wayside … He was letting his mind wander; he was breaking his own rules. Faolan rode ahead of his party, fixing his thoughts on the here and now. He had not mistaken it, that slight hint of moisture in the air. Rain was coming, if not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, a day or two later. They had made good progress, and he judged they might reach Briar Wood close to dark of the moon or a little after, a matter of eight or nine days more. If he had imagined his map right, there was a river to the northwest, and a ford of which Ged’s man had spoken in troubling terms. By the time the rain set in, Faolan wanted to be on the other side of it.
He called Wrad and Kinet to ride closer; consulted briefly. Judging by the thickly wooded country they were passing through, the chain of small lakes to the south, the hazy contour of the distant mountains, they agreed on an estimate of two days’ ride to the place in question. Perhaps the rain would hold off long enough. Perhaps the horses would make sufficient speed. Had Bridei been here, he would have called down the aid of the gods to see them safely across the water and on to Briar Wood. Faolan did not believe in gods or in luck, only in good management. He gathered the full party around him on the forest track. The pines were tall here, and in the shadows beneath there was a strange quiet, as if the woods were listening; breathing; waiting. He would be glad when this mission was over.
“We’ll ride on until the light fails,” he told them. “No hunting today; we’ll eat after dark, from what supplies we have. Straight on in the morning as soon as the sky lightens.”
“But—” Creisa began, and fell silent at his look.
“It’s important that we move on quickly,” Faolan said. He would not explain why; no point in getting the women alarmed. The men would work it out for themselves.
“Is there a risk of ambush here?” Ana asked, surprising him.
“Why would you suggest that?”
She hesitated before speaking. “It’s densely wooded; good cover, I would think. And they do speak of rival tribes here, warring chieftains …”
“If he has his wits about him,” Faolan said, not believing his own words, “Alpin will be anticipating our arrival, and will have taken what steps are necessary to make our way safe. He should have received the king’s message by now, advising him of our intention to travel to Briar Wood.”
“Of course.”
There was something in Ana’s tone that alerted him. He looked at her more closely and observed that she was paler than usual; she looked tired. “Did you understand?” he asked her. “We must keep riding until nightfall, make what progress we can.”
“Of course I understand!” she snapped, surprising him again; she had the good manners of a lady, and rarely let them slip even when tried severely, as with the bathing episode. “I’m not a fool. Rain’s coming and we have a ford to cross. A child could understand.”
Creisa made to speak again. This time it was Ana who silenced her, making a sharp gesture.
“On, then,” said Faolan. “Let us make what way we can while the light still holds.”
When the sun was hanging low in the sky, and the dark trees stretched long shadows across the narrow, needled path, they came down to the bank of a river. The track followed its course, winding between alders and willows. The riverbed was broad and stony, the water flowing fast. Faolan sent Kinet to wade in with a staff in his hand; they watched him take two cautious steps, three, and go in up to his waist, struggling to balance against the pull of the current. Faolan and Wrad helped him out.
“The ford’s almost certainly downstream,” Faolan said, trying to fix this spot on his imagined map. “Keep up the pace; we must cross before dusk.” This could not be the river Ged’s man had warned him of. They had made good speed, but not as good as that. He was sure the major obstacle was days ahead and situated in a broader valley than this wooded divide. “Move!” he snapped, seeing how the women were holding back, seemingly reluctant to start off again. They had disappeared into the woods while Kinet was testing the water and now, returned, were slow to remount. They conferred in low voices, then Creisa helped Ana up into the saddle before getting on her own pony. “Don’t fall behind,” Faolan warned them. “We can’t afford to be trapped here after dark. We must find the crossing. Make sure you keep up.”
Creisa scowled at him. Ana rode forward without a word. Was he imagining how white she looked? Curse this mission. Already, he had slowed the pace to accommodate the women’s weakness. In the world of men, the journey would have been relatively simple, its principal hazard the chance of ambush.
Faolan could deal capably with difficulties. He had learned early that alongside the stunning blows fate could deliver, the practical matters of day-to-day life were trivial. Once there had been people, pastimes, ideas that had possessed significance for him. They were gone. In the space of a single moment’s decision, a single instant’s action, that part of him had died. For a long time, until he met Bridei, there had been nothing at all save the requirement to take the next breath, to set one foot before the other and move on. Bridei had given him a purpose; had offered a friendship Faolan did not have it in him to return. Instead, he gave what he could manage: loyalty and perfect work. Hence this mission. It might not be to his taste, but he would execute it perfectly. The women were doubtless weary of living rough, but they could not be allowed to endanger the party by lagging behind.
They followed the riverbank as the sun slipped lower and the valley darkened. Here the familiar trees were joined by other, stranger ones whose twisting branches and clawing twigs stretched out across the path, scratching at horse and rider, seeking to slow their progress. The ground became slippery, the sward giving way to a slick, muddy surface; here it had already rained. Faolan pushed them on. They must cross this valley and get to higher ground. Only a fool would halt for the night in such a spot.
Once or twice the women fell back, and Faolan sent a man to hurry them forward. He held his tongue with some difficulty. If his anger showed in his face, so much the better. He hoped he would not need to spell it out for them: rain, a river in spate, a narrow defile in darkness. A welldefined track, wooded hills providing cover, a perfect spot for travelers to be ambushed. “Move!” he called again, and at the same time heard a shout from farther ahead. Wrad, who had gone forward to ensure the path was clear, was yelling, “The ford!”
Around a bend the river broadened, dividing into four channels across a wide expanse of flat ground covered in stones. On the other side, the track snaked away up the hill under trees. They halted. Kinet, the tallest man, dismounted and waded across, one, two, three, four small rivers; he reached the other side wet only as far as his knees. Beyond the pines, the sun was setting. The sky was darkening toward dusk.
“Forward,” Faolan said. “Take it slowly. Once you’re over, straight up that track to higher ground.” He looked around and saw the women’s ponies standing together; their riders had disappeared. He swallowed an oath. “Where—??
?
“Just slipped into the woods,” a man-at-arms called Benard offered. “Think the young lady has a pain in the belly. Might be that hare we had last night; thought it was on the rank side.”
“By all that’s holy,” Faolan muttered, making himself breathe slowly. “Wrad, you wait with me, the rest of you get on over and up, then find a campsite for tonight, it will be dark soon. Get a fire going.”
He and Wrad waited for what seemed an interminable time. Men, ponies, and pack animals crossed efficiently and disappeared up the track. The light dimmed still further. The stones of the ford were a pale gleam among shadows. By the time the women reappeared, Faolan was holding on to his temper by the merest thread. “Your sense of timing leaves a great deal to be desired,” he said. “You want to be left behind in these woods? Get back on your ponies! We must cross now, without delay.” As he spoke, Ana swayed, buckled at the knees, and collapsed onto the muddy ground beside her mount. Creisa, exclaiming in alarm, crouched down beside her, putting a hand to her brow.
Faolan dismounted, addressed the serving woman sharply. “Is she sick? What is this?”
Creisa’s tone was accusatory. “You shouldn’t have made her go on. You can’t treat a lady as if she were just another of your men-at-arms. She has cramps. And she’s tired.”
“Cramps?”
In the fading light Creisa’s face could be seen to flush red with embarrassment. “Women’s business. She’s one of those gets taken bad when her courses come on; at home, she’d likely be two days in bed at the very least. Delicate. A real lady. The pain’s fierce, not that you’d know. You shouldn’t have made her ride.”
Ana lay limp, her head on the serving woman’s knee, her face a pale oval in the dusk.
“She should have told me,” Faolan said.
“How could she tell you?” hissed Creisa. “A lady doesn’t speak of such matters before men. I’d have said, but she wouldn’t let me. And now what, since you seem to have the answer to everything?”
Faolan looked at her. “Now you make yourself useful,” he said. “Wrad, over here. The lady will have to go across with me. Help me lift her—careful—that’s it.” Ana was returning to herself slowly, but they could not wait for that. They lifted her onto Faolan’s horse, sitting sideways, and he mounted behind her,balancing her against him with one arm, holding the reins in the other. “Go!” he barked. “Wrad, lead the lady’s pony. Creisa, follow him closely and keep your mouth shut. I’ll need to take it slowly. Don’t wait for me, go on up to the others. I want us out of this valley.”
They obeyed him in silence, their horses moving steadily away across river channels and gravelly shoals. Using his knees, Faolan guided his own mount forward.
As they moved into the water, Ana stirred in his arms, reaching out a hand. “What—” she murmured groggily, her eyes closed. Faolan tightened his grip; he must ensure she did not topple the two of them in her confusion. Cramps. So she had been bleeding, and he had made her ride all day. He remembered how pale she had looked; how he had chosen not to ask what was wrong. He recalled how easily he had dismissed it as contrived, insignificant. He knew little of such matters. But the evidence was there for him to see: her face ghastly white, her eyelids purple with shadows, her cheeks hollow with exhaustion. Her hair had come partly unplaited and spilled down across his chest and over his knees, a waterfall of silvery moonlight. “How—” she muttered.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We’re nearly there.” Her hand came up and fastened itself on a fold of his cloak as a child clutches its father for reassurance, an infant its mother as surety against the dark. No, not like that at all. He felt her shift against him, turning her head into his shoulder; heard her sigh. He sensed the quickening of his own heart; its beating was a music of warning, of unexpected danger. So, holding her safe, he guided the horse on in the half-dark and reminded himself that he was a man who could not afford to feel. His job was to convey this woman to Briar Wood. When that was done, Bridei would give him another job. One foot in front of the other, step by step. Just like crossing a ford. There was room in him for exactly that and no more. And yet, as they moved forward in the dusk, and her body, pressed close against his, was the only warm thing in the chill of the wooded valley, there was a song in Faolan’s mind, a whisper of melody from long ago, from the time he thought he had managed to forget … Like summertime her flowing locks, like spring’s first blush her skin … Away from Fionnbharr’s dazzled mind fied home and craft and kin … That was a tale of a fairy woman, of course, one of the daoine sidhe. Ana was real, she was alive, he could feel her gentle breathing, smell the scent of her, sweet and pleasing for all the rigors of the journey. She was real, and there was a small part of him that wanted to be crossing this river forever; something deep inside that wanted this moment to be the only thing there was.
Ana stirred in his arms.
“Hush,” he said. “Keep still. We are nearly safe.”
“What—”
“You fainted. I didn’t know you were ill.”
“Oh—oh, gods, oh, I’m sorry—”
“Shh.” He shifted his position, balancing her slight weight as the horse scrambled out of the last stretch of water and began the ascent of the steep path on the other side. There was barely enough light left to show the way.
“You were singing,” Ana said quietly, as if unsure whether she was dreaming or waking.
“Me?” Faolan retorted, wondering if he had indeed uttered those words aloud, while believing them only in his mind. “Hardly. You’re the one who does that.” He glanced down; met her gaze, the gray eyes coming back to awareness, wide and clear for all the weary shadows that encircled them. He wondered if he would be able to see them even when it was dark.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, trying to sit up. It was distasteful to her, Faolan supposed, to find herself in his embrace, as if they were a pair of lovers sharing a horse just so their bodies could touch, press close, feel the heady warmth of it like fine mead, promising good things to come. “I’ve slowed us down,” Ana went on. “I’ll try to keep up tomorrow. I know it’s important.”
“Shh,” Faolan said again. He had heard the tightness in her voice, the pain not far below the surface. “The men are making camp now. Time enough for decisions in the morning. And if there’s an apology to be made, it’s mine to you. I was unobservant. As leader, I cannot afford to be so. I regret that.” As apologies went, it was perhaps somewhat lacking. He had not said what he wished to say. This, however, was safe. It was what he would have said, before they crossed the river.
“We’re both to blame,” Ana said. “And both not to blame, for it’s clear to me neither of us truly wishes to be here.”
To that, Faolan had no reply. It was no longer clear to him what the answer was.
NIGHT. THE MEN were weary, the strain of the journey beginning to tell. He divided them into three shifts to allow more rest. Those off duty fell asleep the moment they lay down by the fire. Faolan himself would rest before dawn, while Wrad and Kinet, the men he judged most reliable, kept watch. His plan had been for an early departure, a quick ride to the next river. This must now be changed. In the darkness, he felt the cool in the air, the taste of rain. Ana lay in the shelter, a warmed waterskin against her belly. She was only pretending to sleep; he could hear in her breathing that she was wakeful and still in pain. Creisa was dead to the world.
The night wore on. The first shift came back in and settled to sleep. The second shift went out into the darkness. There were many birds in this part of the forest; what kind they were, Faolan did not know. Something that hunted at night, owls maybe. Their cries were hollow and deep, making the hair rise on the back of his neck. There were other sounds in these woods, odd sounds he could not place for all his knowledge of wild realms: cracklings, hissings, whisperings. He fixed his mind on the immediate dilemma: the rain, the ford, the woman who could not be asked to go on in the morning. He regretted greatly that he had no gods in wh
om to put his faith, no deity or spirit who might be offered a polite request to hold back the rain, just for a day or two, so they could get safely to the edge of Briar Wood.
He had made up his mind as they crossed the ford. They must wait here for at least one day and let Ana rest. Rain or no rain, he could not let her ride on until those spasms were over. His job was not simply to travel to Alpin’s stronghold within a certain margin, it was to convey there a treasure of great worth and some delicacy. Getting there on time but with that cargo damaged in some way was failing to execute the mission perfectly, and was therefore not to be considered. They would wait. By doing so, they would narrow the options. If one river rose, so would others. If the rain came they might find themselves trapped, unable to go either forward or back. The prickling of Faolan’s skin, the vague unease in his mind told him they were not alone in these woods. He placed little credence in tales of Otherworld presences. Far more likely was an acquisitive local chieftain accompanied by his war band, tracking the travelers to a point of ambush.
“What’s that smell?” The voice was Ana’s; she was stirring. He saw her reach for a shawl, wrap it around herself and make her way out of the shelter, moving to sit quietly by the fire among the huddled forms of the sleeping men. Her pale hair shone in the light of the waning moon. The fire’s glow touched to a false rosiness a face that was drained and wretched.
“One of the men had herbs in his pack, a mixture to dull pain,” Faolan told her, lifting a small pannikin from the edge of the fire where it had been cooling. “I thought this brew might help. Is it bad?”
“I’m used to it. I don’t know if I can drink. Sometimes the pain makes it hard to keep anything down.”
Faolan poured the brew into a metal cup. He said nothing.
“I’ll try it if you want,” Ana said. “I can’t sleep. Maybe it will help.”