It was soon full dark, the moon a thin paring low in the eastern sky. A low thicket of thorn trees grew in a dip, a carpet of leaves would make a snug bed, Nick thought. He hobbled the horses and, not daring to pull off his boots, he rolled himself in the blanket and tried to sleep. It was a fitful sleep: foxes barked, away in the hills something howled, night creatures rustled through the bushes and it was very cold. Nicholas had become accustomed to life in a crowded city, his childhood days in army camps seemed far away and even then there was shelter and bustle and human activity. “We’ve a long way to go,” he said to Corsair, who stood asleep, a marble statue in the starlight. “I’ll have to do better than this.”
A freezing shower of rain woke him in the early dawn, and he climbed stiffly to his feet and stared round, taking stock. Barren scrubby hillsides stretched as far as he could see, dotted with thorn and bent acacia. Low cloud threatened more rain later. He led the animals to the nearest stream and cupped his hands to drink himself. At least there was no shortage of water. He made a breakfast of some of the bread and goat’s cheese from the smith, saddled up and set off. He saw no sign of habitation that day, nor the next.
In recent years, much of his time had been spent in noisy smoke- and stench-filled cities. Even at sea there was a constant barrage of sound. The wind in the rigging could rise to a scream, the sails banged and cracked, wood groaned and the sea itself set up an unceasing orchestra of sound. All day long on the crowded galley, men had shouted, drums and trumpets sounded, bare feet pounded the decks.
Out here, alone, the silence and space dismayed him. Not even a chorus of insects and birds at this time of year.
Silence. His ears slowly tuned to small sounds, movements of grass and leaf, a snake or a lizard rustling over rock, the far-off cry of a gull. The air was clean and very cold, like a knife between the eyes.
He walked and rode, rested, rode and walked. Sparing though he was with his food, on the fifth day it ran out. This was not like campaigning with his father’s troop, with a body of men well equipped and properly provisioned. He had only the clothes he stood up in, and one rideable horse. He had no tent to share with warm bodies and work up a comfortable fug, just his cloak and one thin blanket. No equipment save what he could contrive for himself. And he faced a journey of some fifty leagues, alone. As he swallowed the last crumb of cheese, and kicked ashes over his fire, he tried to calm his fears. One day at a time. He mounted up and rode on.
In the late afternoon, he came upon what was surely the site of the skirmish he had been expecting. Here was the churned-up turf, the stony mounds, the blown scraps Pedro and his like had not thought worth stooping for.
Nicholas dismounted, pulled off his cap and stood for a while, remembering his father and the good friends from his childhood with the army, men who had dandled him on their knee and talked of home and wives, men who taught him to hold a sword and draw a bow, all lost. These might have been different soldiers fighting for a different cause, but it came to the same in the end.
Remembering those days, other things came to mind and some of his boyhood skills began to come back to him, skills learned playing truant from his tutor to run off with the country-bred corporal who had been pressed into the army. Nat had taught him to fish and use a sling, snare rabbits and guddle trout, which nuts and fruit were good to eat.
Coarse grass had pushed through the stony mounds and Nick estimated several months since the fight. He turned aside with a nod of thanks to comrades of the past, and went on down the hill to a promising stream. Here he hobbled the horses and left them to graze and set about making a fire. He sat beside it to fashion a hook and snares from the gold wire of his sword-hilt, and a sling from strips of blanket and leather cut from Corsair’s bridle. He should have thought of this before, at the smithy. That night he set snares for rabbits and caught a fish for his supper. He wrapped it in leaves and baked it on a flat stone in his fire. While it cooked, he found comfrey and nettles to make tea in the helmet and he drank it from his bronze cup. A feast. In the morning there might be a rabbit.