‘What’s the matter?’ Sylvriss whispered as if fearful of disturbing the quiet calm of the street.
‘Nothing,’ he said, waving his hand. ‘Just tired.’
Sylvriss nodded and reined to a halt. She looked up and down the street thoughtfully. Apart from a solitary and bedraggled dog, and a bleary, incurious face glancing briefly through a rain spattered window, there was no movement.
‘We’ve hardly roused them to battle stations,’ Islo-man said with gently irony, shaking off the last remnants of his brief longing.
Sylvriss did not reply, but dismounted and began walking along the street looking carefully at the threshold carvings. Isloman made to join her, but silently she signalled to him to stay mounted. They might yet have to leave quickly. The cold memory of her neglect in forgetting about the Mathidrin patrols was still with her and she would not be so careless again. This village was the old Fyorlund and it could protect neither them nor itself from the new.
At last she found the cottage she had been seeking and handing her reins to Isloman she walked up the short paved path and knocked softly on the door. There was no reply. She knocked more loudly.
Isloman glanced up and down the street, feeling peculiarly exposed. Overhead he heard the thrumming beat of Gavor’s wings.
Still no reply.
Frowning anxiously, Sylvriss walked round to the side of the cottage and, hands around her eyes, peered in through a window. Isloman saw her tapping vigor-ously and then signalling to someone inside.
Then she ran quickly back to the door which opened to reveal a small, elderly lady clutching a nightgown about herself. She curtseyed slightly to the Queen and smiled affectionately, though Isloman could see that she too was anxious and concerned. He threw back his hood to improve his visibility.
There was a whispered conversation, then Sylvriss disappeared into the cottage to reappear almost immediately carrying two large panniers. After a further, brief conversation, the old lady reached out and embraced the Queen tightly, patting her back gently, reluctant to have her leave, reluctant to have her stay.
Without speaking, Sylvriss slung the panniers ex-pertly on the horses and with a wave to the watching woman, now clutching her nightgown about her again, she remounted and clicked her horse forward.
‘Who was that?’ Isloman asked as he came along-side.
Sylvriss seemed preoccupied. Isloman repeated the question and she started. ‘I’m sorry, Isloman. That was Virna. She used to nurse Rgoric when he was a boy,’ she said. ‘Then she was my maid for a long time… ’ She hesitated.
‘What’s the matter?’ Isloman said.
Sylvriss frowned. ‘Involving innocent people is the matter, Isloman,’ she said. ‘I hate it.’ Then she shook her head as if to clear her mind of thoughts that could now only hinder. ‘It’s as well we stopped,’ she said. ‘Virna said that a Mathidrin patrol passed through here only yesterday. Travelling our way.’
Isloman frowned. ‘How many were there?’ he said.
‘Six,’ Sylvriss replied.
‘Did they cause any trouble?’ Isloman asked, re-membering the accounts he had heard from Yatsu, and the uneasy greeting they had had from villagers as he and Hawklan had been escorted to Vakloss from the mountains.
‘No,’ Sylvriss replied. ‘They just rode through.’
Isloman looked down at Hawklan and his frown deepened. He signalled to Gavor who glided down and landed on his outstretched hand. ‘There’s a Mathidrin patrol ahead somewhere, Gavor.’ he said. ‘We can’t risk either fighting our way through them, or losing time moving too cautiously. Try and find them so that we can move around them.’
Gavor hesitated. ‘I’ll find them if they’re there,’ he said. ‘But there are woods ahead. It won’t be easy. Go slowly until I come back to you.’
For all Gavor’s assurance that the village was safe, Isloman was glad to leave it behind. Away from the houses there would at least be space to flee, and he was also haunted by the images of the innocents he had seen caught in the rioting in Vakloss.
However, as Gavor had suggested, they maintained a walking pace, though neither found it either easy or restful. The reason for his advice soon became apparent. Ahead of them lay a rocky outcrop covered with dense woodland, grey and misty in the blowing rain. There was no sign of Gavor.
Isloman reined to a halt and looked at Sylvriss. ‘Can we go round this?’ he asked. Sylvriss tried to see again Dilrap’s map.
It had been a mistake not to bring it but their plan had been implemented unexpectedly and many things were not as they should have been.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘There’s only this road on the map.’ She pointed up to the left. ‘It’s obviously too steep up there.’ Then, down to the right. ‘And I think there’s a river down there. We’d have to go back through the village to cross that, then we’d have to travel south across country for a long way before we could cross it again.’
Isloman scowled and then let out a deep breath. ‘We’ll have to wait, then.’
He was looking about for somewhere to make a temporary shelter when Gavor returned.
‘I’ve found them,’ he said, shaking his feathers vio-lently and sending up a great spray of water. ‘They’re camped about halfway through, just off the road.’ His voice fell. ‘And they’re still asleep. If we’re careful I can lead you through the trees, well clear of them.’
‘Have they posted any sentries?’ Isloman asked.
‘No,’ said Gavor.
Isloman looked at Sylvriss and then along the length of the outcrop that barred their way. She nodded.
As they entered the woods, the sounds about them changed. The wind trapped in the trees could reach them only fitfully, and the steady fall of the rain was replaced by intermittent cascades of large drops splattering noisily on to the forest floor. The rich, damp scents of the woodland rose up to greet them, but its quiet peacefulness was lost in the heightened tension that the two riders felt as the trees and undergrowth constricted their paths for escape.
‘Their camp’s a little way ahead,’ whispered Gavor after they had gone for some distance. ‘Dismount, and follow me.’
Carefully the little group wended its way after Gavor through the pathless trees. He would walk, then glide up on to a branch to look around, then sit on Isloman’s shoulder. They trod as gently as the damp undergrowth would allow; soft shadows in the forest’s dawn twilight.
‘How much further?’ Isloman whispered as their slow progress began to irk him.
Gavor shushed him. ‘I can’t see them from here, but we’re about level with them now,’ he whispered. ‘Be quiet.’
Isloman nodded apologetically, but even as he did so, the random sounds of the forest were broken by a sudden swift rushing, and an arrow passed in front of him to thud into a tree just to his right.
Involuntarily he crouched low and drew his club, but another arrow passed over his head to join the first, and a voice said. ‘No. The next one will kill you.’
Chapter 5
Dilrap stood alone at a window high in one of the palace towers. Below him lay the City, hitherto an unchanging and deeply familiar sight which, he mused sadly, was like the face of a well-loved friend, often seen but rarely noticed; giving security by virtue of its seeming immutability rather than by its actual appearance.
Now, like so many other things in his life, it was changed, and changed radically, and he realized that another small prop had been removed from him. With each such he knew that he had the choice of toppling or developing the strength to stand unaided.
The great arched gateway at the front of the Palace had stood, like the Palace itself, for untold generations, solid and purposeful, welcoming friends and deterring ill-wishers. Now it was gone utterly, and in its place was a jagged gap in the courtyard wall. The broken and torn stonework that marked the edge of Oklar’s fury had seen neither rain nor sun since it was first laid, and seemed now fresh and raw, like a new wound, standing bemused and vulnerable at its sudden and violent exposure to a new age.