One of them stepped forward, a little apart from the others. That fact, and the commanding tone in his voice, marked him as the leader of the small group. He spoke rapidly to the man who had captured her. She couldn’t understand the words but the tone was unmistakable. He was angry.
While he was obviously the leader of the small party, it was equally obvious that the man who had brought her here was also relatively senior. He refused to be cowed by the other man’s angry words, replying in equally strident tones and gesturing towards her. The two of them stood, nose to nose, becoming louder and louder in their disagreement. The subject was Evanlyn as, from time to time, one or the other of them would amplify his statements with a sweeping gesture that encompassed her.
She stole a quick glance at the other four men. They had resumed their seats around the fire now, their initial interest in the captive having subsided. They watched the argument with interest, but with no apparent concern. One of them went back to turning a few green twigs with fresh meat spitted on them over the fire. The fat and juices ran off the meat and sizzled in the coals, sending up a cloud of fragrant smoke.
Evanlyn’s stomach growled softly. She hadn’t eaten since the meagre breakfast she had shared with Will. From the position of the sun, it must be late afternoon by now. She calculated that they had been travelling some three hours at least.
Finally, the argument seemed to be resolved – and in favour of her captor. The leader threw his hands in the air angrily and turned away, walking back to his place by the fire, and dropping to a cross-legged position. He looked at her, then waved dismissively to the other man. Evanlyn felt a small surge of relief, tempered by the doubt that she had no idea what might be in store for her. It seemed that the leader of the group saw no point in keeping her prisoner. The other man must therefore want to hold her for some specific purpose. But what?
It was that question that sent a rill of fear through her.
But there would be no quick answer. The horseman took a length of rawhide rope from his saddle bow and quickly ran two loops around her neck. Then he dragged her towards a large pine at the edge of the clearing and fastened the rope to it. She had room to move, but not too far in any direction. He turned her around, shoving her roughly, and grabbed her hands, forcing them behind her back and crossing the wrists over each other. Sensing what was coming, she instinctively resisted. The result was another stinging blow across the back of her head. After that, she allowed her hands to be roughly tied behind her, with a shorter piece of rawhide. She winced and muttered a protest as the knots were drawn painfully tight. It was a mistake. Another blow across the back of her head taught her to remain silent.
She stood uncertainly, hands bound and tied by her neck to the tree. She was considering the best way to sit down when the problem was solved for her. The horseman kicked her feet out from under her and sent her sprawling in the snow. That, at least, brought a couple of low chuckles from the men around the fire.
For the next few hours she sat awkwardly, her hands gradually growing numb from the pressure of the bonds. The six men now seemed content to ignore her. They ate and drank, swigging what was obviously a strong spirit from leather bottles. The more they drank, the more boisterous they became. Yet she noticed that, even though they seemed to be drunk, their vigilance didn’t relax for a second. One of them was always on guard, standing outside the glare of the small fire and moving constantly to monitor the approaches to the camp from all directions. The guard changed at regular intervals, she noticed, without any dissension or need for persuasion. All of them seemed to take an equal turn, too.
As it grew to full night, the men began to retire into the small felt tents. They were dome-shaped and barely waist-high, so their occupants had to crawl into them through a low entrance. But, she thought enviously, they were probably a lot warmer than she would be, sitting out here.
The fire died down and one of the men – not the one who had captured her – walked in that same bandy-legged stride towards Evanlyn and tossed a heavy blanket over her. It was rough and carried the rank smell of their horses, but she was grateful for the warmth it provided. Even so, it was not really enough for comfort and she huddled against the tree, shrugging the blanket higher round her shoulders, and prepared for a supremely uncomfortable night.
Halt leant back and surveyed his handiwork with a satisfied sigh.
‘There,’ he said. ‘That should do the trick.’
Horace looked at him doubtfully, his eyes moving from Halt’s pleased expression to the official-looking document that he had just completed forging.
‘Whose seal is that at the bottom?’ he asked finally, indicating the impression of a rampant bull that was set in a large splodge of wax in the bottom right-hand corner of the parchment. Halt touched the wax gently, checking to see if it had hardened completely.
‘Well, I suppose if it’s anyone’s it’s mine,’ he admitted. ‘But I’m hoping that our Skandian friends will think it belongs to King Henri of Gallica.’
‘Is that what his royal seal looks like?’ Horace asked and Halt studied the symbol impressed in the wax a little more critically.
‘Pretty much,’ he replied. ‘I think the real one may be a trifle leaner in the body, but the forger I bought it from had a pretty indistinct impression to work from.’
‘But …’ Horace began unhappily, then stopped. Halt looked at him, one eyebrow raised quizzically.
‘But?’ he repeated, making the word into a question. Horace merely shook his head. He knew Halt would probably laugh at his objection if he voiced it.
‘Oh, never mind,’ he said at length. Then, realising that the former Ranger was still waiting for him to speak, he changed the subject.
‘I thought you said there was no ruling court in Gallica?’ he said. Halt shook his head.
‘There’s no effective ruling court,’ he told the young man. ‘King Henri is the hereditary king of the Gallicans, but he has no real power. He maintains a court in the southern part of the country and lets the local warlords do as they please.’
‘Yes. I noticed some of that,’ Horace said meaningfully, thinking about the encounter with the warlord Deparnieux that had delayed their progress through Gallica.
‘So old King Henri is something of a paper tiger,’ Halt continued. ‘But he has been known to send envoys into other countries from time to time. Hence this.’ He gestured at the sheet of parchment that he was waving gently in the air so that the ink might dry and the wax seal might harden. The sight of the seal brought back all of Horace’s misgivings.
‘It just doesn’t seem right!’ he blurted out, before he could stop himself. Halt smiled patiently at him, blowing gently on some damp patches of ink.
‘It’s as right as I can get it,’ he said mildly. ‘And I doubt that the average border guard in Skandia will see the difference – particularly if you’re dressed in that fine suit of Gallican armour you took from Deparnieux.’
But Horace shook his head doggedly. Now that his concern was out in the open, he was determined to plough on.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said, then added, ‘And well you know it.’
Halt grinned easily at the young man’s troubled expression. ‘Sometimes your sense of morality amazes me,’ he said gently. ‘You do understand that we have to get past the border guards if we’re to have any chance of finding Will and the girl?’
‘Evanlyn,’ Horace corrected him automatically. Halt waved the comment aside.
‘Whoever.’ He knew that Horace tended to refer to Princess Cassandra, the daughter of the Araluan King, by the name she had assumed when Will and Horace had first encountered her. He continued: ‘You do realise that, don’t you?’
Horace heaved a deep sigh. ‘Yes, I suppose so, it’s just that it seems so … dishonest, somehow.’
Halt’s eyebrows rose in a perfect arch. ‘Dishonest?’
Horace went on, awkwardly. ‘Well, I was always taught that people’s seals and crests
were sort of … I don’t know, sacrosanct. I mean …’ He gestured towards the figure of the bull impressed in red wax. ‘That’s a king’s signature.’
Halt pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘He’s not much of a king,’ he replied.
‘That’s not the point. It’s a principle, don’t you see? It’s like …’ He paused, trying to think of a reasonable parallel, and finally came up with: ‘It’s like tampering with the mail.’
In Araluen, the mail was a service controlled by the Crown and there were dire penalties proscribed for anyone who tried to interfere with it. Not that such penalties had ever stopped Halt in the past when he’d needed to do a little tampering in that direction. He decided that it wouldn’t be wise to mention that to Horace right now. Obviously, the morality code taught in Castle Redmont’s Battleschool was a good deal more rigid than the behaviour embraced by the Ranger Corps. Of course, it was the knights of the realm who were entrusted with the protection of the Royal Mail, so it was logical that they should have such an attitude ingrained in them from an early part of their training.
‘So how would you suggest that we deal with the problem?’ he asked, at length. ‘How would you get us past the border?’
Horace shrugged. He preferred simple solutions. ‘We could fight our way in,’ he suggested. Halt raised his eyes to heaven at the thought.
‘So it’s immoral to bluff our way past with an official document …’ he began but Horace corrected him.
‘A false document. With a forged seal at the bottom.’
Halt conceded the point.
‘All right – a forged document if you like. That’s reprehensible. But it would be perfectly all right for us to go through the border post hacking and shooting down everyone in sight? Is that the way you see it?’
Now that he put it that way, Horace had to admit there was an anomaly in his thinking. ‘I didn’t say we should kill everyone in sight,’ he objected. ‘We could just fight our way through, that’s all. It’s more honest and above board and I thought that’s what knights were supposed to be.’
‘Knights may be, but Rangers aren’t,’ Halt muttered. But he said it below his breath so that Horace couldn’t hear him. He reminded himself that Horace was very young and idealistic. Knights did live by a strict code of honour and ethics and those factors were emphasised in the first few years of an apprentice knight’s training. It was only later in life that they learned to temper their ideals with a little expediency.
‘Look,’ he said, in a conciliatory tone. ‘Think about it this way: if we just barged on through and headed for Hallasholm, the border guards would send word after us. The element of surprise would be totally lost and we could find ourselves in big trouble. If we decide to fight our way in, the only way to do it is by leaving nobody alive to spread the word. Understand?’
Horace nodded, unhappily. He could see the logic in what Halt was saying. The Ranger continued in the same reasoning tone. ‘This way, nobody gets hurt. You pose as an emissary from the Gallican court, with a dispatch from King Henri. You wear Deparnieux’s black armour – it’s obviously Gallican in style – and you keep your nose stuck in the air and leave the talking to me – your servant. That’s the sort of behaviour they’d expect from a selfimportant Gallican noble. There’s no reason for any word to be sent informing Ragnak that two outlanders have crossed the border – after all, we’re supposed to be going to see him anyway.’
‘And what’s in the dispatch that I’m supposed to be taking?’ Horace asked.
Halt couldn’t resist a grin. ‘Sorry, that’s confidential. You don’t expect me to breach the secrecy of the mail system, do you?’ Horace gave him a pained look and he relented. ‘All right. It’s a simple business matter, actually. King Henri is negotiating for the hire of three wolfships from the Skandians, that’s all.’
Horace looked surprised at that. ‘Isn’t that a little unusual?’ he asked and Halt shook his head.
‘Not a bit. Skandians are mercenaries. They’re always hiring out to one side or another. We’re just pretending that Henri wants to sub-contract a few ships and crews for a raiding expedition against the Arridi.’
‘The Arridi?’ Horace said, frowning uncertainly and Halt shook his head in mock despair.
‘You know, it might be more useful if Rodney spent less time teaching you people ethics and a little more time on geography. The Arridi are the desert people to the south.’ He paused and saw that this made no impression on the young man. Horace continued to look at him with a blank expression. ‘On the other side of the Constant Sea?’ he added and now Horace showed signs of recognition.
‘Oh, them,’ he said dismissively.
‘Yes, them,’ Halt replied, mimicking the tone. ‘But I wouldn’t expect you to think about them too much. There are only millions of them.’
‘But they never bother us, do they?’ Horace said comfortably. Halt gave a short laugh.
‘Not so far,’ he agreed. ‘And just pray they don’t decide to.’
Horace could sense that Halt was on the verge of delivering a lecture on international strategy and diplomacy. That sort of thing usually left Horace’s head spinning after the first few minutes, while he tried to keep up with who was aligned with whom and who was conspiring against their neighbours and what they hoped to gain from it. He preferred Sir Rodney’s type of lecture: right, wrong, black, white, out swords, hack and bash. He thought it might be expedient to head off Halt’s incipient harangue. The best way to do that, he had learned from past experience, was to agree with him.
‘Well, I suppose you’re right about the forgery,’ he admitted. ‘After all, it’s only the Gallican’s seal we’re forging, isn’t it? It’s not as if you’re forging a document from King Duncan. Even you wouldn’t go as far as that, would you?’
‘Of course not,’ Halt replied smoothly. He began to pack away his pens and ink and his other forger’s tools. He was glad he’d laid hands on the forged Gallican seal in his pack so easily. It was as well that he hadn’t had to tip them all out and risk Horace’s seeing the near perfect copy of King Duncan’s seal that he carried, among others. ‘Now may I suggest that you climb into your elegant tin suit and we’ll go and sweet talk the Skandian border guards.’
Horace snorted indignantly and turned away. But another thought had occurred to Halt – something that had been on his mind for some time.
‘Horace …’ he began and Horace turned back. The Ranger’s voice had lost its former light tone and he sensed that Halt was about to say something important.
‘Yes, Halt?’
‘When we find Will, don’t tell him about the … unpleasantry between me and the King, all right?’
Months ago, denied permission to leave Araluen in search of Will, Halt had devised a desperate plan. He had publicly insulted the king and, as a result, was banished for a period of one year. The subterfuge had caused Halt a great deal of mental anguish in the past months. As a banished person, he was automatically expelled from the Ranger Corps. The loss of his silver oakleaf was possibly the worst punishment of all, yet he bore it willingly for the sake of his missing apprentice.
‘Whatever you say, Halt,’ Horace agreed. But Halt seemed to think, for once, that further explanation was necessary.
‘It’s just that I’d prefer to find my own way to tell him – and the right time. All right?’
Horace shrugged. ‘Whatever you say,’ he repeated. ‘Now let’s go and talk to these Skandians.’
But there was to be no talking. The two riders, trailed by their small string of horses, rode through the pass that zigzagged between the high mountains, until the border post finally came into sight. Halt expected to be hailed from the small wooden stockade and tower at any moment, as the guards demanded that they dismount and approach on foot. That would have been normal procedure. But there was no sign of life in the small fortified outpost as they drew nearer.
‘Gate’s open,’ Halt muttered as they came closer and could make out mor
e detail.
‘How many men usually garrison a place like this?’ Horace asked.
The Ranger shrugged. ‘Half a dozen. A dozen maybe.’
‘There don’t seem to be any of them around,’ Horace observed and Halt glanced sideways at him.
‘I’d noticed that part myself,’ he replied, then added, ‘What’s that?’
There was an indistinct shape apparent now in the shadows just inside the open gate. Acting on the same instinct, they both urged their horses into a canter and closed the distance between them and the fort. Halt already felt certain he knew what the shape was.
It was a dead Skandian, lying in a pool of blood that had soaked into the snow.
Inside there were ten others, all of them killed the same way, with multiple wounds to their torsos and limbs. The two travellers dismounted carefully and moved among the bodies, studying the awful scene.
‘Who could have done this?’ said Horace, in a horrified voice. ‘They’ve been stabbed over and over again.’
‘Not stabbed,’ Halt told him. ‘Shot. These are arrow wounds. And then the killers collected their arrows from the bodies. Except for this one.’ He held up the broken half of an arrow that had been lying concealed under one of the bodies. The Skandian had probably broken it off in an attempt to remove it from the wound. The other half was still buried deeply in his thigh. Halt studied the fletching style and the identification marks painted at the nock end of the arrow. Archers usually identified their own shafts in such ways.
‘Can you tell who did this?’ Horace asked quietly and Halt looked up to meet his gaze. There was an expression of deep concern in the Ranger’s eyes, Horace noted. That fact alone, more than the carnage around them, sent a wave of uneasiness through him. He knew it took a lot to worry Halt.