Percival pulled up suddenly and stopped near the tree. “Go on,” Cnán called to him, “do as the others.” Looking away, she resumed singing, beating time with her fist.
“My lady,” Percival began. He had called her that yesterday, and she had guessed it was some kind of elaborate sarcasm. But this didn’t seem like the time for unpleasant jibes. Maybe it was just the way he’d been raised. Cnán wished she could meet Percival’s mother. “I cannot recommend that you remain in that position,” he said, “considering that hostile archers, in large numbers, are about to surround you.”
She did not respond. She was nearing the end of the chorus and did not want to lose her place.
“And if you do remain,” he continued, “you might leave off singing. Your tune is beautiful, but it will soon draw many arrows.”
She stuck out her thumb and said, “It’s part of a plan—Feronantus’s plan, if that impresses you—which you are currently fouling up. Go and fight for a place in that hedge hole.” With a quick scowl in Percival’s direction, Cnán took up singing again and stuck out her index finger.
“Ah, you are to be the lapwing,” Percival guessed. He turned and looked toward Raphael and Eleázar, who were about halfway to the gap. “You will run toward yonder gap and find it blocked by those selfish clods. You will then divert round the other way in—the low rubble wall at the end of the field. Which happens to be much better suited for Mongols anyway.”
Next came her long finger. She badly wanted to climb down out of the tree, but it was important that the Mongols catch sight of her first.
Percival looked up at her and said, “The performance will lack verisimilitude if I fail to give way to a lady in distress. For it is my duty as a knight to see you safe to your destination—as difficult as you sometimes make that.”
Cnán thrust the current finger at him and interrupted the song long enough to shout, “You’re fucking it up! Go!” Then she noticed movement along the rise—the tips of Mongol lances bobbing up and down.
“I shall follow you in,” Percival said thoughtfully. “The ruse shall work just as well.”
“Suit yourself,” Cnán snarled. She could clearly see the broad faces of Mongols beneath their helmets, and one of them pointed directly at her, calling excitedly to his brothers.
Cnán began to descend the tree. This went slower than she’d hoped, since a branch broke under her foot and forced her to dangle for a few beats of the song while she flailed for a handhold.
Percival, adroitly maneuvering his mount underneath her, took her ankle and guided her down over her patiently waiting pony, then saw to it that her ass slammed directly into the saddle. Even as she reached for the reins, he smacked the pony on the buttocks. It bolted. Percival cut behind, getting between Cnán and the Mongols.
Cnán, finally securing a grip on the reins, rushed along the same path that Istvan, Raphael, and Eleázar had followed. Trying to ignore whatever Percival might be doing behind her, she rode hard in the direction of the mouse hole, a ride long enough, she hoped, to let the Mongols get some sense of what she was trying for.
Raphael and Eleázar were overplaying their roles, berating and shoving each other in front of the narrow opening.
She could hear the Mongols shouting as they turned to follow her. Cnán veered the pony into a sharp turn. The pony veered onto a course roughly parallel to the hedge and maybe ten paces distant. She would have to cover about one bowshot, then execute a full reversal and jump the low barrier of rubble in order to gain entry to the field. Concerned about the pony’s ability to make such a tight turn at full gallop, she guided it away from the hedge wall.
The disaster came so quickly that she was tumbling ass-over-ears through the rye before she was fully aware that something had gone wrong. She used the last of her momentum to roll back on her feet. A loud snapping noise was fresh in her ears. She looked back. The pony lay in a motionless heap. Perhaps it had stepped into an animal’s burrow, broken a leg, tossed her…landed on its neck.
Dazed, she stood tall in the weeds and stalks—not the best strategy when archers were taking aim.
Two noises sounded at once: the hiss of an arrow by her left ear and thunder rising through the soles of her feet. She turned to see more arrows arc across the sky—and Percival riding for her at a high gallop.
Again, if it had been anyone else, she’d have hesitated, thinking it through, not knowing what was on his mind, what his intentions might be. But because it was Percival, she knew instantly. He would save her or die trying. She didn’t want him dead. So she stuck her hand up in the air.
Percival’s steel-clad arm came swooping from the sky like a bright-winged falcon, whirling in an underhand movement; his gauntlet slammed Cnán’s upraised arm between elbow and shoulder and clenched it in an excruciating grip. A sharp bolt of pain—her arm was being jerked out of its socket—compelled her to grab for a fistful of bunched mail, swing her other hand up, and hook her fingertips over the edge of the steel cop that covered his elbow. For a time, she held on with all the strength she had left, seeing in bumping, spinning glimpses Percival’s thigh, the saddle, the horse’s pumping flank, the sky above, and the reeling ground beneath. Clods and grass flew up to strike her in the face.
She pulled her knees in just before Percival heaved her up like a bag of grain and slung her sideways across the front of his saddle. Had she been expecting a longer ride, she’d have slung her leg over and struggled upright, but this position felt more secure even though she was being punched in the stomach and ribs by the saddle. So she held on to whatever bits of tack her flailing hands could discover and tried as best she could to review their situation.
The horse was definitely turning—making that wheeling maneuver into the open mouth of the long field.
Something streaked past the horse’s left flank and embedded itself in the ground ahead. Even more impressive thunking noises startled her—arrows hitting Percival in his back, which was at least partly protected by his slung shield. But his mount had no such protection.
The horse gave out an awful scream and lost its gait, staggered for a couple of paces, tried to return to the gallop, but staggered again and fell into an off-rhythm, off-balance diagonal stride that felt like a slow descent. The saddle stopped pounding her belly. Rubble flashed beneath her, a plunging hoof cracked down on a big rock, and then the ground came up fast.
Sky and rubble and rye vied for her attention as she and Percival skidded and tumbled over each other. Ending up on top, she rolled to unsteady feet, sucked back the wind that had been knocked out of her, and turned to face the enemy, wondering how many more times she would fall off a dying horse today.
Four Mongols abreast rode toward them, with many more negotiating the turn behind. One archer had drawn his bow and nocked an arrow. He pushed the bow forward, loosed the arrow. Another was in the act. Both arrows found their target.
With the apparent strength of a Hercules, Percival hefted body, mail, and armor from a crouch and swung his shield off his shoulder. Three arrows stuck out of it. Another shaft flew his way—no, for Cnán—and he extended the shield just in time to catch that one as well. Another whanged off his steel helmet.
The knight staggered sideways, turned, crouched, and hurled the bristling shield into the pounding legs of the nearest Mongol horse. It fell in a heap, its shriek cut off as its muzzle plowed into green grass and dirt. The rider somersaulted out of control and slid across the grass like a child on a sled. Percival abruptly halted the Mongol’s glide with a downward, double-handed thrust of his sword, pinning him to the ground.