Margrit shook her head. “It’s been sixteen hours already. As I said, it’s a difficult birth and the poor woman is exhausted. The longer it goes, the weaker she’ll become.” She paused. “She may not have the strength to deliver the baby.”
Crowley felt the blood leaving his face at the thought. “You mean she might die?” he said at length.
Margrit nodded somberly. “It’s a very distinct possibility.” She didn’t believe in raising false hopes. She was a practical woman, and a realist. She went to turn away, but Crowley reached out a hand to stop her.
“Assuming she has the baby,” he said, “and she’s all right, would it be safe for her to travel?”
Margrit sniffed scornfully. “Only if you want to kill her,” she said. “The journey here was bad enough, but in her present weakened state . . .” She didn’t say anything more, but slowly shook her head.
“She can’t stay here,” Crowley protested.
Margrit’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “She can’t travel. There’s no point in our using our skill to save her here, only to have you kill her by putting her in a carriage and bouncing her along the back roads to Castle Araluen.” Margrit believed in dealing with one problem at a time. The current, and most pressing, one was to help Rosalind have the baby safely. They could worry about the approach of Morgarath’s forces after that was done. With that thought in mind, she turned on her heel and went back inside the abbey.
Crowley absently patted Cropper’s soft muzzle while he thought through this latest development.
“Maybe I could find a place to hide her in the woods,” he said, half to himself. It wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was the only one he could come up with at the moment.
Athol rested a hand on his shoulder. “We could fight them,” he suggested. “My men are ready to give their lives for the Queen.”
“They may have to,” Crowley said dully. “There are thirty of these Wargals and, from what I’ve heard, they’re virtually unstoppable. They don’t care how many they lose in a battle. They just keep coming until they win.”
A flicker of fear showed in the young knight’s eyes for a second, then he recovered and drew himself up.
“We’ll fight them,” he declared firmly. “I’m not afraid of them.”
Crowley patted his arm. “Well, you should be.”
But before Athol could reply, the air was split by a shuddering scream from the abbey. Both men started. Then Crowley set off at a run for the door.
He blundered into the lobby. The polished wood floors and paneled walls reflected a sense of peace and orderliness. A faint smell of incense permeated the room. There was nobody behind the registrar’s desk. Once more, the air was split by a terrible scream. Indoors now, and even closer, they heard it more clearly and the sound was enough to freeze their blood.
There was another nerve-rending scream, then an ominous silence. The two men exchanged a fearful look. Then a different sound broke the incense-tinted silence of the abbey.
A baby crying.
Instinctively, Crowley made for the door leading to the inner rooms. As he reached it and put his hand on the door handle, it swung open before him to reveal Abbess Margrit. In contrast to her usual calm demeanor, she was flushed. There was a stain of blood on her gray gown.
She composed herself quickly. She hadn’t expected to be confronted by Crowley the moment she opened the door. She managed a wan smile.
“It’s a girl,” she said. “A healthy baby girl.”
The baby’s cry echoed through the room once more, louder than before.
“And possessed of a fine pair of lungs,” she added.
“The Queen?” Crowley asked, fearful of what the answer might be.
The Abbess’s smile faded. “She’s alive. But she’s very weak. She lost a lot of blood and the birth was difficult. It’ll be touch and go if we can save her.” She admitted the last with an air of desperation.
“I want to see her,” Crowley demanded, but the Abbess shook her head.
“She’s sleeping now. I’m not going to wake her so you can bother her with a lot of stupid questions. Rest is the best thing for her.” She turned a shrewd eye on him. “And a little rest wouldn’t do you any harm either. You’re going to have some big decisions to make over the next twenty-four hours and you’d better be in good condition to make them.”
Crowley passed a hand over his brow. Now that she mentioned the idea of sleep, he realized how much his body craved it. He swayed slightly and she steadied him with one firm hand on his arm.
“Maybe twenty minutes,” he said, and she led him forward.
“I’ll take you to a chamber,” she said.
• • •
“The Queen is asking for you.”
The words penetrated the fog of sleep that had seeped into Crowley’s brain. His eyes opened and he looked around the room, disoriented for a moment and not knowing where he was.
Then he remembered. The Abbess leaned over him, one hand out to shake his shoulder, then saw his eyes were open and withdrew it. Hastily, he swung upright. He had thrown himself on the bed without bothering to even remove his boots or weapon belt. He glanced apologetically at the dust and mud stains he had left on the coverlet.
“I’m sorry—” he began.
The Abbess waved his apology aside. “No matter.”
He stood up. His eyes were bleary and he rammed the heels of his hands into them, rubbing them side to side to clear his vision. He shook his head, then looked at the Abbess.
“Take me to her.”
She led him out of the small room into the corridor and past three other doors to an end room. She opened the door and gestured for him to go on. Queen Rosalind was propped up against a pile of soft pillows, in a bed by the window. Sunlight streamed into the room. Outside, he could hear the soft murmur of doves.
But it was the Queen who drew his attention, and he tried to stop the shock showing on his face. She mustered the strength to raise one hand and beckoned him toward her. She was pale, deathly pale. The flesh seemed to have melted from her bones, and she gazed at him through feverish eyes that were sunk deep in her cheeks. Huge dark shadows circled the flesh under her eyes and her cheekbones were in stark relief. The skin was waxy and had a dreadful pallor to it.
He knew straightaway she was dying.
He stepped closer to the bed, leaning down to take her clawlike hand in his. He couldn’t believe how she had deteriorated since he had last seen her. It was evidence of how badly the delivery of the baby had wracked her already weakened body. Behind him, he was conscious of the Abbess watching them, ready to step in at any moment if the Queen needed her.
“My lady . . . ,” he said uncertainly. Then he stopped, not knowing what to say next. He felt the weak pressure of her hand on his and her lips moved. He could barely hear her and he bent closer.
“Crowley. Why are you back here?”
He tried to smile reassuringly. “I’m to take you back to Castle Araluen, my lady,” he said.
But she shook her head weakly. “I’ll never make it. I’m dying, Crowley.”
He started to protest, but the look in her eyes stopped him. She knew, he realized, and no platitudes or words of false cheer would help her. She saw the decision in his eyes and she nodded weakly.
“Morgarath’s men are coming, aren’t they?” she asked. Before he could begin to answer, she added, “Don’t lie to me. I need to know.” Her voice was still soft, but it held an intensity now that he couldn’t deny.
He nodded sadly.
“Then take my baby to safety,” she said. She began to rise on the pillows and repeated the command with more force. “Take her out of here and keep her safe. Swear you will do that!”
The effort drained her and she sank back on the pillows, her eyes closing. For a few seconds, he feared she was dead. The
n her eyes flicked open, locking on his, bright and feverish and demanding.
“Swear it to me, Crowley.”
He bowed his head. Then he looked up again and met her eyes.
“I swear it, my lady,” he said miserably. He knew she was right. The end was very close for her and he had to get the royal baby to safety.
She closed her eyes again for several seconds, then opened them and patted his hand weakly. She smiled at him, a ghastly travesty of a smile.
“Thank you,” she said weakly. “I know she’ll be safe with you.” This time, when her eyes closed, they didn’t reopen. He could see her chest rising and falling and knew she was still alive. But for how long, he wondered.
Margrit touched his arm. “Leave her now,” she said. “She needs to rest.”
He nodded dumbly and allowed the Abbess to lead him from the room. At the door he stopped and turned for one more look back at the Queen.
A ray of sunlight was coming through the window beside her, from a high angle. It lit on her face and transformed it from a ghastly, pallid skull-like thing, giving it a translucent, delicate beauty.
“Good-bye, my lady,” he said. At least, his lips moved with the words, but no sound emerged.
21
HALT PACED SLOWLY ALONG BEHIND THE SHOOTING LINE, watching the Rangers practice their shooting. In rapid succession, arrows whirred over the field toward the line of targets set up two hundred meters away, thudding into the canvas stretched over the tightly packed straw. The majority of shafts were concentrated in the central gold ring of the targets. Occasionally, a shooter would mutter a low exclamation of disgust as one of his shots went wide. Although none went wider than the red inner circle of the target, next to the central ring.
The Rangers’ shooting was good—better than good. It was phenomenal, considering the distance and the casual way the arrows were dispatched. There was no deliberate and painstaking aiming going on. The line of Rangers simply nocked, drew and shot in one almost continuous action, sending the arrows whistling out over the field in a constant stream.
Several of the members of the small company of archers attached to the army had wandered over to the field to watch the Rangers at work. They were all carrying their bows slung over their shoulders, hoping for a chance to show these much-vaunted bowmen a thing or two. After the first few seconds, they had exchanged surprised glances and left their bows where they were. They knew they couldn’t match the speed or the accuracy on display here. They had never seen so many expert archers in one spot.
Halt, who had seen their arrival and noticed their original cocky attitude dissolve, stepped away from the shooting mound and indicated a couple of spare targets at the end of the line.
“Care to join in?” he asked, with a smile.
The senior of the three archers shook his head. “Thanks, but our egos have taken too big a battering already. We’d heard about you people, of course, but we’ve never seen so many of you in one spot. Or such good shooting.”
“Even those young ones can show us a thing or two,” another soldier declared, nodding his head to the spot where the six new apprentices were also practicing. None of them could yet handle the eighty-pound longbow, and they were shooting lower-powered recurve bows over a shorter distance. But even so, they were displaying remarkable skill already.
“Well, we won’t be shooting at one another when Morgarath gets here,” Halt said, “and we’ll want every arrow to count. Make sure you get in as much practice as possible when we finish.”
“Aye, we’ll do that,” the senior archer said, appreciating the Ranger’s friendly and cooperative tone.
Halt bade them farewell and returned to the shooting line. He put his fingers in his mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. The line of shooters all turned to look at him.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I’ve seen how good you are. No need to keep showing me.”
The Rangers relaxed, lowering their bows from the shooting position and turning to face him, sensing he had something further to say. Cedric, one of the new arrivals, allowed a challenging grin to cross his face.
“You’ve seen us shoot,” he said. “But we haven’t seen you. After all, if you’re—”
He got no further. Halt swung his bow down from his shoulder and, in the same motion, flicked an arrow from his quiver and laid it on the string. Without seeming to aim, he sent the arrow whistling on its way. Then another. Then another. Then a fourth, which was in the air before the first arrow had reached the target he had selected.
They could hear the rapid series of thuds as the arrows slammed into the gold central ring of the target, the fourth virtually having to shoulder the others aside as they clustered together in the very center.
There was a low murmur of approval from the Rangers, and a quiet exclamation of surprise from the three archers who were still watching.
Halt raised an eyebrow at Cedric. “Happy now?”
Cedric shook his head slowly in admiration. “I think you know which end of an arrow points outward,” he said.
Halt nodded, a trace of a smile on his face. Then he became serious again.
“All right. Sorry to have put you through that practice session but I wanted to make sure none of you have got rusty while you’ve been away.” He paused, then added, with a slight smile, “Obviously, you’ve all kept up your skills. Thank you for that. We will be needing them. But now we have tasks that are more suited to your other skills. We need to know what Morgarath’s troops are doing. We need to know when he decides to gather them together again and head this way to confront us in force. So we’ll be heading out individually, to scout the surrounding fiefs and see how long Morgarath plans to keep up these nuisance raids and when he plans to fight us in strength.”
There were nods of approval along the line of faces. As Halt had intimated, this was closer to the traditional role that Rangers played when there was an impending battle.
“I’ve drawn up a list of fiefs and assigned Rangers to scout each of them,” he said. “Let’s regather at my—or, rather, Crowley’s—command tent and I’ll pass them out. I want you on your way this evening.”
Again, nods of approval and agreement. Then another thought struck Halt and he went on. “One more thing: Which of you have been assigned apprentices?”
Six hands went up and he met their expectant gazes.
“You’ve done well with them so far. They all shoot well already.” The six heads nodded, knowing more was to come. “But we need them to shoot better than well. You six stay here and keep drilling them. I want them shooting morning and afternoon until their arms ache.” A saying of Pritchard’s occurred to him. “You know what we say: An ordinary archer practices until he gets it right. A Ranger—”
“Practices till he never gets it wrong,” more than a dozen voices finished for him and he grinned, a little shamefaced.
“Oh, I see you’ve heard that,” he said. “Well, keep them at it. We’re going to need them in the coming battle and we want every arrow to count, as I told our friends the archers.” He nodded to the three men who were still standing a little apart, watching.
“Now, the rest of you, let’s get back to the command tent and I’ll tell you where you’re going.”
• • •
It was a sad little group that trudged back to the abbey from the small cemetery, set in a clearing among the trees. They had laid the Queen to rest in a simple grave and the Abbess had said a few words over the freshly dug earth. Even though she was not of a religious order, she seemed the most fitting to speak over Rosalind’s grave.
Crowley watched the brief ceremony, staying until two of the soldiers had finished filling in the grave. Athol wanted them to level the mound and cover it with old earth.
“We can’t let the Wargals find her grave,” the young knight said miserably.
Crowley turned a
steady gaze on him. “On the contrary, it would be better if they did,” he said. “Have one of the men carve a headstone for her. Wood will do. But mark it clearly as the grave of Queen Rosalind of Araluen.”
“But Morgarath’s men might despoil the grave!” Athol protested.
Crowley nodded agreement. “They might. But it won’t harm the Queen. She’s beyond all that now. On the other hand, if they find the grave, they’ll stop looking for her—and the Abbess and her nurses.”
A thought had occurred to him as he remembered the earlier idea of finding a hiding place for the Queen in the woods. They could do the same for the Abbess and the other women who staffed the abbey, keeping them safe.
“We’re going to need skilled healers when this is all over,” he said to the Abbess an hour later when he described his idea. Somewhat to his surprise, she agreed with him. He had been worried that she might refuse to leave the abbey, staying to face the approaching enemy armed only with her powerful personality. But she understood that empty gestures of defiance were a luxury they couldn’t afford.
“I’ll leave Athol and one of the archers to help you,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t spare more men, but the King needs every soldier he can find.”
Margrit waved his apology aside. “I’m sure we can cope by ourselves.”
But he shook his head. “No. You’ll need them to set up the camp, and to hunt for food.”
She considered his statement and nodded. “You’re right. We’ll be glad of their help. Now, have you considered how you’ll get the baby back to Castle Araluen?”
The Ranger hesitated. Truth be told, he hadn’t had time to give the matter a great deal of thought. He assumed he’d carry her in his arms while he rode Cropper. The horse had a steady, even gait that would prevent the baby being jolted and jerked, even as they traveled at speed. But now he wondered how he might feed her. He had a vague idea that babies required constant feeding. He voiced his concern and Margrit solved the problem for him.