Cnán watched as Feronantus quietly took Taran’s battle-scarred sword, removing the scabbard from the fallen man’s horse and affixing it to his own saddle, clasping the hilt with closed eyes and whispering a prayer.
The others finished filling the grave and built a cairn of stones over it, then pounded a cut shaft of wood, tall enough to serve as a staff, at its center. The shaft rose from the ground, already ancient looking, their pronouncement of ageless grief.
Cnán remembered Percival’s whispered words to Tonnerre. Only now was it sinking in to all of the group that, on this journey, they were all expendable—no different from horses.
“I need a drink,” Yasper said as he brought his horse in line with Raphael’s. They had been riding for several hours, traveling more south than east by Raphael’s reckoning, and the company had been lost in their own thoughts. Raphael had been reflecting on the siege of Córdoba, remembering those—both Moorish and Castilian—whom he counted as friends, and he was glad to be interrupted by the Dutchman. The litany of loss that always came on the heels of battle was the perpetual wound sustained by the survivors.
“A drink, you say,” he replied, glancing shrewdly at Yasper. “I suspect that you are not seeking permission to drink so much as to inquire if I would like to join you.”
Yasper nodded, his eyes twinkling. His hair was still stained by the smoke from his alchemical smoke pots, and Raphael smelled the acrid aroma of his chemical reagents. If it was not evident from the proliferation of pouches and pots as well as the curling spouts and narrow mouths of other arcane containers that peeked from his bulging saddlebags, then the pervasive smell that surrounded the smiling Dutchman was ample clue enough as to his profession. “Of course, Raphael. You and I have traveled together long enough that my preferences are well known to you.” He thrust a round object at Raphael.
It was a leather skin, and Raphael noted that, among the panoply of equipment burdening Yasper’s mount, there were several others just like it, each hanging from a cleverly tied loop, identical to the strap on the one in his hand. The skin—horsehide from the feel of it—was oblong, narrow at the top, much like their own water skins, and when Raphael lifted it to his lips, his nose was assaulted by the smell of the liquid within.
“This is putrid,” he said.
“That is the point, I believe,” Yasper chuckled. He motioned with his hands, indicating that Raphael should drink.
Dubiously, Raphael tried again, expecting the taste to be as foul as the smell. The liquid was thicker than he expected, though not unpleasant, and it tasted like… “Almonds,” he noted. “Where did you get it?”
“The Mongols. Each of them had a skin, as well as…” Yasper shuddered.
“What?”
“Under their saddles.” Yasper made a face and indicated Raphael should either drink again or give back the skin. “Meat, wrapped in oiled rags.”
“Raw?”
Yasper took a huge pull from the skin and nodded as he wiped his mouth. “It was,” he said, and Raphael noted there was a note of admiration mixed in with the revulsion in his voice, “the most tender meat I have ever seen. But…” He handed the skin back to Raphael.
“We are not that hungry,” Raphael said. He tried the drink again, noting that the back of his throat tingled as he swallowed.
“Not yet,” Yasper agreed. He leaned toward Raphael, lowering his voice. “But this”—he indicated the skin—“this is pretty good. Not strong enough, in my opinion.”
“Can you make it stronger?” Raphael asked.
“Probably. But I will need assistance. And some supplies.”
Raphael glanced over at Istvan, who was riding ahead and to the right of the main party. Far enough away to be out of range of simple conversation but close enough that they were aware of his presence. “We already have one member of our company who wanders off, looking for supplies. I do not think another will be tolerated.”
Yasper snorted. “Nothing as illicit as what he seeks. I can find what I need in any good-sized settlement. Provided we travel near one.”
“I hesitate to offer any hope in that matter, my friend. We are far from any settlement I would call friendly.”
Yasper took the offered skin. “I agree, and in reflecting on the matter, I have begun to wonder about this journey of ours.”
“Begun?” Raphael responded.
Yasper quirked his lips. “If, as you say, we are far from friendly lands, and as I judge, we are but a fraction of the way to our destination, what is our plan for the supplies and aid that we might require?” He drank from the skin of Mongolian liquor. “We are accustomed to long marches and sleeping under the stars, but after this morning’s…loss, a man’s mood darkens. It becomes more difficult with each passing hour to sustain his…enthusiasm. A man begins to think of a warm fire and a bed—a roof overhead, even. If only for one night.”
“Every soldier dreams of the night when he can put aside his armor and sleep without care,” Raphael said. “It is a familiar part of our burden to be denied such comforts—or any comforts.” He returned the skin bag. His words were slurring. “As you say, we have all marched to war before; these hopes and disappointments are not new.”
“True,” Yasper said. “But in the past, I have always found solace with hope of our destination, of knowing that we will—someday—reach a shining goal. If my destination is a place I have never visited, there is usually someone in my party who has, and I can persuade them to tell me tales of that place so that it becomes more real to me.”
“None of us has visited this destination,” Raphael pointed out. “We knew that when we accepted Feronantus’s call to join the company.”
Yasper laughed. “I’m not a member of your Order, remember. I volunteered.” He took one more swig from the skin and offered it back to Raphael, who held up his hand in denial, then relented and accepted another swallow. “But,” he said, all levity gone from his voice, “it has occurred to me since we buried Taran that you and the others are good soldiers. You will follow Feronantus wherever he may lead you, and that is all you need to know. But me? I fear not the repercussions of curiosity, nor of insubordination, and so I do wonder if that man knows where he is going. Where he is taking us all.”
Raphael recalled the look on Percival’s face in the woods, the serenity of knowing, and he mentally noted how cleverly Yasper had maneuvered their conversation. He knew the alchemist to be an intelligent and inquisitive man. The strange and esoteric matters that he strove to comprehend and master with his experiments were much more arcane and mystic than simply crafting smoke pots and figuring out how to distill this Mongolian liquor into something stronger. Of all the company, the Dutchman was probably as fluent in as many languages as he was himself, and he didn’t doubt the man could read and write all of them as well—even, very possibly, Arabic. If he knew the Greek physical sciences, then it followed he knew their rhetoric and philosophy as well. The man was no fool, as much as his countenance and his jangling pots and potions suggested otherwise.
Raphael nodded. “‘It is an ill plan that cannot be changed.’”