24

Simon had never walked so purposefully, counting out the steps—fifteen, sixteen—because he knew that with care the day would unfold with no further danger. But his steps had never made such an annoying, troubling crisp-crisp across the many generations of fallen leaves.

Surely, he thought, the huntsmen will call out.

Of course the servants will see the crumpled, heaving form of the marshal beside the increasingly wax-pale doll, the tangle of leaf-green clothing, the stubbornly lifeless monarch. The silence will be lifted, and the day break wide.

But protected by the complicit, almost sentient holly tree, the gasping marshal and his lord were unseen by the company. And this secretive, all but silent pace, with the very ravens that would soon descend, hungry for the dead man’s eyes, made Simon feel the profoundest guilt.

Who are you, insisted a metallic inner whisper, to follow this murderous nobleman while the king lies there like a bloody banquet for the ants?

Call out, insisted this nagging voice. Alert the still-unaware company scattered through the woods. You are no better than Walter, if you do not sound the alarm.

But this shrill consideration was followed by quite a different sort of thought. Was it too late, he wondered, to distance his destiny from that of Walter Tirel?

Walter loosed the killing shaft, Simon would declaim. I am innocent, a wraith, a vapor, without will or power to choose.

But some bright-eyed retainer would retort, “Who was it, then, who struck the royal marshal, Simon?”

Had the woods always been this dazzling tangle of green-filtered sunlight and deep, night-flavored shade? Had the ravens always croaked in that incessant, single-note vocabulary, that surely must convey the message dead-dead-dead even as it sounded like laughter?

The remaining hunters were stirring. The dog handlers and the riders of the follow-horses restrained their animals, their day still ready, still beginning. They had drawn up at the sight of the stag’s escape. They milled quietly now, waiting for the king to give chase. Simon envied them. For them, the king still lived.

Oin the head huntsman no doubt believed that the best part of the hunt was about to begin. He called, “Blood spoor!” alerting the handlers that the dogs best at following a wounded quarry should be loosed from the tethers. He had mistaken the marshal’s shout for word that the deer was hurt.

Walter said nothing more, his mantle swinging behind him. Simon followed his example in refraining from speech, and this was further proof that the stiff, frozen spell of the day’s events could be broken.

The servants and man-at-arms behind the leaf screen ahead had no inkling what had happened. Walter walked toward them, quickly but with no sign of panic, looking, as he raised a gloved hand, like a man who had forgotten some important implement. Walter had never so impressed Simon as he did now.

Certig offered Simon a questioning look, but said nothing. Even so, something about Simon’s glance must have communicated trouble to the veteran servant, who lifted his fingers to his lips as though to silence himself.

Bertram held the bridle of a horse, and he cocked his ear, taking in his master’s whispered message.

The man-at-arms gave a nod, as though the tidings were the sort he heard every day, and the knight turned to Nicolas. The expression on his face was expectant, his cheeks flushed.

Simon drew near, expecting to have to steady the herald when he heard the news. But despite his shock he was curious, too, how a knight conveyed such tidings. It was considered bad luck to share bad news without invoking a saint, or without asking for Heaven’s help. And it was considered cruel to break the worst sort of news without first giving a word of caution regarding the message.

Besides, Simon tried to believe, unless the event could be translated into speech, perhaps it had not yet really taken place.

“The king is down,” said Bertram in a low voice.

Not The king is slain. But while not conveying the definitive word, or an even more pungent The king is dead, the news could not be mistaken. A quarry that was down, an ox roped in for the slaughter, a tree long accustomed to storm, all could be down for one reason alone. And the very slight softening of the tidings made them all the heavier when the mind briefly weighed and understood.

Nicolas’s eyes grew round, but his face took on a look of knowing uninterest, as though the knight was recounting a piece of typical gossip.

Simon wanted to protest. It might not be true. Or it may have been true briefly, but perhaps now the king was choking, gagging, coughing out some new breath and living again.

Someone should go back and look.

The knight added, “We must save Simon Foldre from harm. He is one of us now, and it would shame us if our hunting companion fell into the wrong hands.”

Nicolas gave a nod, and all the retainers looking on expectantly would have seen only a young herald and a man-at-arms discussing plans of no interest, and they beheld Walter leaping onto the nearest mount.

Bertram’s message made no immediate sense to Simon, even as he climbed into a saddle himself, letting the man-at-arms choose the mount and shoulder him up and into a saddle with a low cantle and a modest pommel, yellow leather and decorated around the margin with crosses, as though to keep the rider in the embrace of Heaven.

The animals waiting here were the most placid of all horses, soft-mouthed mares and experienced geldings, horses who would accept the tumult of the hunt, the sight of frenzied hounds, and the eager cries of huntsmen, without growing excited themselves. These creatures had been intended as decoys, a small, placid herd to make the approaching deer feel welcome.

Simon regretted this pacific quality now as he tried to tickle more speed out of his surprised mare, a moon-gray mount with dark forelegs. The horse cocked her ears at the sound of his unfamiliar urging even as she broke from a willing canter to an all-out gallop.