37
Snakes on the Path
Whatever healing arts the shaman Ruzhvang had employed on Levias seemed to be working. The guard sergeant’s fever was mostly gone, though he was still fearfully weak, and the jostling as he sat in front of Porto on the donkey—or rather leaned, with Porto holding him as upright as possible—continually opened up his wound to fresh bleeding. But neither blood nor wound had the terrible stench of the first days, which made it easier for Porto to live with phantom memories of his friend Endri, whom he had carried before him in the same way, so many years ago, but had not been able to save.
The donkey stopped again, looking with distrust at a crooked stick that lay before him. “Curse you, you foolish beast!” Porto said. “That is no serpent! It is a piece of wood.”
Gildreng looked at the stick and made a noise of disagreement.
Sighing, he propped Levias carefully against the animal’s neck and dismounted. His own long legs almost touched the ground when they rode, so it was no trouble to slide himself backward off the donkey’s hind end. He picked up the stick and tossed it into the deep undergrowth.
“There. Stick is gone. Are you happy now?”
The donkey showed him teeth and made a noise that suggested happiness was not a likely prospect, but that he would settle for no sticks. Porto awkwardly climbed on again and shoved himself forward until he could support Levias properly. His wounded friend stirred and said, “You put too much salt in the bread, Gran.”
“I know,” said Porto. “You’ve told me already.”
“I’m hungry, Gran,” Levias said. “Hurry.”
“We’re hurrying.”
They had been traveling for three days since the fateful meeting with the shaman. Gildreng might not be an adequate replacement for the beautiful horse that Lord Pasevalles had given Porto, lost back at Blood Lake, but the balking, single-minded creature was certainly better than making the journey on foot, especially with a companion as large as Levias who could not stand, let alone walk.
I will remember you for your kindness, Ruzhvang, Porto promised. And if there is a way to pay you back someday, I will do so. This I swear on my God and my family honor.
The land along the Erkynlandish border was hilly, forested here and there with copses of beech and stony oak. It was also scant of game, but Porto had encountered several streams of clean, running water along the way, which every soldier knew were gifts from God to be accepted with gratitude. He gave Levias as much to drink as the man could take, did his best to keep the wound clean as Ruzhvang had directed, and when they stopped, tethered the donkey on whatever grass he could find. He and Levias did not have such easy access to food, since he did not like leaving the sergeant alone to go foraging, but Porto did his best to make the bits of dried meat the shaman had given them last, chewing Levias’ small portions until the ailing man could swallow them.
He grows stronger, Porto told himself. It will not be as it was with Endri. If there is anything I can do to make it so, he will live.
Still, even seeing Levias move a short distance out of the shadow of Death did not silence all Porto’s dark thoughts. He and the rest of the prince’s protectors had been ambushed and slaughtered on the High Thrithing, which was not his fault, but he had also singularly failed in the task the troll Binabik had given him, to find Count Eolair and free him from his captors. In fact, if Ruzhvang was right about Eolair being sold to the new Thrithings chieftain, this Unver Shan fellow, then all he and Levias had accomplished by their search was losing both their mounts. Lord Pasevalles will be angry, Porto thought. I would be angry if I were him. All that gold—and that lovely horse—!
As if to underscore the difference between his old steed and his current one, Gildreng the donkey suddenly stopped in the middle of a dale and would not move. Heavy oaks surrounded them, their twisted branches nearly blotting out the afternoon sky, and at first Porto thought the beast had heard some large animal. He drew his sword and sat for some time, but decided at last it was just more of Gildreng’s bad behavior and kicked his heels against the creature’s bony sides.
“Go on, you. Go on!” A phrase from his childhood came to him, something his father used to say to crooked nails or recalcitrant tools. “By all the Heavenly saints, did God make you just to spite me?”
The donkey grunted and moved ahead a few more paces, then stopped again. Porto dismounted and tried to pull the donkey into movement, but Gildreng only leaned backward against the tug of the reins, hooves firmly planted in the mulch and head turned away from Porto as though he smelled something foul.
“You will be the death of us,” Porto told him angrily, though he had discovered days earlier the donkey could not be shamed.
As the last word left his lips, something whirred past him, so close that Porto raised his hand to slap at it, thinking it a stinging insect. Then he saw the arrow stuck deep in the earth not two paces from where he stood and his heart clambered up toward his throat.
He spun, trying to see where the shaft had come from, but the glade was empty. Then he heard another snap of air and a second arrow bloomed beside the first.
Porto raised his hands, still clutching his sword. “Kill us not!” he called loudly in the Thrithings tongue. “Not enemies.” He could not remember the word for wounded. “My friend sick! No gold have!”
Heart thumping, he waited for a long silent moment. When the voice came, it was from above. “By the many, many saints!” it said in Westerling. “Nobody can speak the grassland tongue well because it is a barbarous mumble—but old Porto makes it even worse!”
He peered up into the trees to find its source. “If you are a friend, come down. If you are not, come take what you want but let me tend to my wounded friend in peace. We mean no harm.”
“You mean nothing useful at all, I wager,” said the voice, then something moved in the high branches of one of the oak trees at the edge of the clearing. A moment later Porto was looking in astonishment at Sir Astrian dangling from the tree’s lowest branch by one hand, still holding his bow in the other. He let go and dropped to the ground, landing with the grace of a cat, and bowed. “It is a surprise to see you here, old fellow. Did you have to come so far to avoid our company? As you can see, you have failed in your aim. Olveris! Come down. It is the world’s most ancient warrior, and by the look of it, his dead enemy is a fat Thrithings-man whose heart may have burst while they fought.”
Olveris appeared on a lower limb of a nearby tree. “I wish I had seen it. Fat against old. A brave combat.”
Porto clambered down from the donkey and pulled Levias off its back. Wheezing, he set his wounded friend down on the ground, then stumbled forward to grasp Astrian in an embrace that the younger knight suffered for only a few moments before disengaging. “Now, now, Uncle Porto,” he said with a waspish smile. “Too much sentiment, especially from someone as dirty as you are at the moment, is not to my liking. How come you here?”
Olveris had climbed down and now stood examining Levias. “And where did you get this fellow? You did a poor job killing him. He’s still breathing.”
Startled, overwhelmed, his pulse still racing, Porto was nevertheless plunged back into his old and confusing friendship with these two. And as always, he was never certain when they were jesting with him. “He is my friend and he has been badly wounded by a Thrithings clansman. You know him, I think—Levias, sergeant of the Erkynguard.”
“Levias?” said Astrian. “The one who frowns on dicing and the company of women?”
“He is a devout man, that is all,” Porto said. “A good man. He needs rest, and to be off this wretched donkey, who bumps and stops like a wagon with a loose wheel. Can one of you carry him on your horse?” A sudden thought occurred to him. “By all that’s holy, what are you two doing here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Shooting arrows at old men,” said Olveris. “An amusing pastime.”
“Somewhere is nowhere only when there are no interesting people,” said Astrian. “We are here, so it stands as truth that this cannot be ‘nowhere’.”
“Nevertheless, I did not expect to see you two again, let alone here.”
“We are with Duke Osric, the stubbornest man ever to put on a suit of armor,” Astrian explained. “He is camped across the river from the excitable Bison Clan, which is like laying your sleeping blanket on a nest of scorpions.” He shook his head. “And Olveris and I are meant to save old Count Eolair and young Prince Morgan from the Thrithings barbarians. But it has taken days for His Grace to set us free to do what we were sent by the king himself to do.”
Porto shook his head, his relief and joy at seeing familiar faces suddenly darkened. “Count Eolair you may find—I can tell you something of that. But the Thrithings-men did not take Morgan. He ran for the forest.”
Astrian stared at Porto for a long moment, then exchanged a look with Olveris, whose face as always showed no more expression than the blade of a shovel. “That is rather poor news you bring us. Tell us all.”
Porto shook his head again. “First we must get Levias to the duke’s camp. Please, Astrian, take him on your horse.”
The knight’s nostrils wrinkled in dismay. “No. Olveris, that is your task. You are large enough. If this great lump falls on me, he will knock me from the saddle.”
Olveris did not argue, but the look he gave Astrian spoke for him. Still, he walked from the clearing and appeared a little time later with two fine coursers. Porto looked at them with sadness and envy, keenly aware of what he had lost by his ill luck.
“Don’t just stand there,” Olveris said as he led one of the horses up beside the donkey. “Help shift him.” Together he and Porto managed to wrestle Levias up into the horse’s saddle, then Olveris climbed on behind him. “What is the fool babbling about?” Olveris asked. “He keeps talking about wanting more porridge.”
Porto caught up the donkey’s reins and walked toward Astrian, who had mounted his own horse. When he made it plain he meant to climb into the saddle behind him, Astrian looked at him as though he had started to drip spittle like a mad dog. “No, no,” he said. “That will not happen. Look at you, old man, smeared in blood and only the blessed Usires knows what else, and stinking like a herring that has fallen off the table and down behind the bed. No, you have your own mount, Porto. I think it is more than fit for your purposes. If you are truly so worried for your friend, this guardsman who hates joy and thinks gambling the Devil’s pastime, I suggest you spur your brave steed smartly to keep up.”
And then the two turned and rode out of the clearing, leaving Porto to scramble back onto the donkey. Gildreng, as usual, did not seem to approve of his given role, and followed the two knights on their horses like a man on his way to the gibbet.
Baldhead had brought his evening meal as usual, but Eolair thought the grasslander seemed restless. The hairless man kept looking over his shoulder at the two bearded guards, who for their part seemed to have decided the count was no great danger, especially with the wagon’s heavy door between themselves and the aged, unarmed diplomat. As Eolair took the tray, Baldhead leaned close. His voice was a whisper and the count could barely hear him. “I have something to tell you.”
“Tell, then.”
Another quick glance over his shoulder, then he continued. “Unver is not to be trusted. Nor especially you cannot trust his helper, Fremur of the Crane Clan. They will betray anyone, as they betrayed their own thanes and then blamed me.”
Eolair tried not to lean away from the man, whose strange, shaved features did not make him any more likeable. “What do you mean, do not trust Unver? I am a prisoner. It is not up to me to trust anyone.”
“But your king will trust him, and that will be bad for you and all the other stone-dwellers.” Baldhead looked behind him again, but the two guards were no longer even facing the wagon. “Tell your king that Unver must be destroyed. He plans to burn your cities. He will lie that he wants peace, but I know he already musters the clans to make war against your folk.”
Eolair could not discount what the man said, however much he did not trust him. “And why is that?”
Baldhead looked frustrated. “Because he wants more power! He believes he is the Shan, and the Shan is a leader in war—not against other clans, but to lead the clans against outsiders. That is always the way!”
“I will tell my king and queen what you have said.”
The man dropped his voice even lower, until Eolair had to lean his face against the cold iron bars to hear. “When they send for you, when they pay for your freedom, take me with you! I will tell your rulers all I know. I will help them fight Unver.” Baldhead stared straight into Eolair’s eyes, and the count thought he could see something dark and squirming beneath the man’s features—fear? Hatred? But that did not disprove what he was saying.
“It will not be up to me to grant your freedom, but I will do my best to let my masters know what you said, and to have them help you if I can.” Eolair had decided that the man was most likely trying to sell information he did not have in order to escape his life of servitude, but wars had been won with uglier bargains, and the count was a practical man.
Baldhead’s lip curled. “You do not believe me.”
“I believe nothing without proof,” Eolair said. “But I do not disbelieve you, either. That you can trust. I will think on what you said. And do not underestimate the wisdom of our High King and High Queen.”
The slave made a noise of disgust. “Oh, yes, I understand. You want the information first, then if you still wish you will help me.” He let go of the tray. “It will be your mistake to think so. You are wrong. Your cities will burn because you thought me a liar.”
Eolair could think of nothing to say, but it did not matter. Baldhead had already descended the wagon’s steps and returned to the two guards, who did not even look at him as they led him away.
But as Eolair stared through the barred window of the wagon’s door, still holding the tray with his meal of cooling mutton stew, he saw something else that pushed Baldhead’s warnings out of his head entirely. A woman wrapped in a heavy cloak was walking across the paddock through the failing twilight. It was her short hair that caught his attention first. He was certain it was Prince Josua’s wife Vorzheva, or at least the same woman he had seen before when the bandits had first brought him to the Thanemoot. The light was poor, but she was only thirty or forty paces away.
“Vorzheva!” he shouted. “It is me, Eolair—Josua’s friend!”
She looked up at his first cry, but when she saw where the sound came from, she quickly looked down again. Eolair felt sure it was not mere shyness, or even fear of a foreign prisoner, and the way she hurried her steps to the tent did not change his mind.
What is she doing here, if that truly is her? Why would she be part of Unver’s company? She was Stallion Clan and Unver is Crane Clan, as many have told me.
Was Vorzheva a prisoner of the new Shan? No, for she seemed to walk free, without guards or protectors of any kind. Perhaps she was now the woman of one of Unver’s supporters.
He watched as she vanished from his view, but he could not see where she went. At last he left the window and sat down to eat his supper, though his restless thoughts would not settle.
Porto found Duke Osric’s war camp a strange place. As the barber-surgeon stitched Levias’ wound, and then saw to Porto’s own, much lesser injuries, the talk he heard from the soldiers was of Prince Morgan and their fixed idea that he was being held prisoner by the Thrithings clansmen, that he had been kidnapped by the chieftain called Unver and that it was part of some strategy to bedevil Erkynland. Porto knew from what Binabik and the trolls had told him that Morgan had escaped into the forest, and from what he had heard during his time at Blood Lake, none of the clansmen even seemed aware that the heir to the High Throne had been anywhere nearby.
“I must talk to Duke Osric,” he told Astrian and Olveris. “He needs to hear what I have seen. The troll Binabik sent a message to the king and queen—did they not get it?”
“Message?” said Astrian. “I seem to remember that Ordwine was carrying some such thing when he died.”
“Ordwine is dead?” Porto had liked the impious young guardsman. “God rest his soul. How did it happen?”
“It might have had something to do with all the Thrithings arrows in him,” Astrian said, sharpening his knife on a whetstone.
“If the troll’s message got through, then why is everyone saying that the clansmen have Prince Morgan? They don’t. I told you, he ran back into the forest. His tracks showed it.”
“Ah, well, then,” said Astrian. “If his tracks showed it, it must be true. And when did you become so canny about the spoor of princes?”
Porto shook his head. “Just take me to the duke, I beg you. This is no time for jokes.”
“Here,” said Olveris, handing him a wineskin. “What time is it, old fellow? Is it time for this?”
Porto gave him a hurt look, but accepted it and took a long draught. He had drunk nothing but foul Thrithings drippings for a fortnight, since his own wine had run out—some dreadful thing called yerut, sour as vinegar and as thick as whey—and he could not resist a proper beverage, no matter his hurry. “Thanks for that,” he said, wiping his lips. “Now, please—take me to Osric.”
Astrian shrugged. “As you wish. But speak carefully when you speak of his grandson. He is in a fearful temper about Morgan, and he hates the Thrithings-men.”
“You ask me to take the word of those little troll savages?” Duke Osric said, scowling so fiercely that Porto could almost feel it. “Because one of them saw footprints, I should apologize to the barbarian horse-men and head back to Erkynland, leaving them free to do what they please?”
Porto had never seen Osric so distracted—the man could hardly look in one direction for more than a few moments. “Please, Your Grace, I only tell you what I know, what I saw, what I heard. The trolls are wonderful trackers, and the one called Binabik showed me where the footprints of Prince Morgan and Count Eolair came out of the forest to the battlefield, then Morgan’s footprints returned to the trees. When Levias of the Erkynguard recovers, he can tell you—”
“He can tell me what? That he too believes in this fairytale? No, any fool can see what happened. Why would the clansmen attack a company of armed Erkynguard without a purpose? They came to take hostages. And what better prize than the heir to the throne?” In the firelight Osric seemed like some fierce old god of the north, long-bearded, his brow as menacing as a thunderhead.
“But Morgan was not with the rest of the company when the clansmen attacked,” Porto said. It was hard to look at the duke when disagreeing with him. “The prince and Eolair had gone with the Sithi, as they were sent to do. The attack happened while they were away. What Binabik said made good sense—that they returned when the battle was already almost over—”
“Then why flee back to the forest?” Osric rubbed both hands over his bald head as if to chase away distracting ideas. The weather had turned cold and the duke wore a fur mantle on his shoulders, which made him look more than a little like one of the Thrithings thanes. “Why would my grandson run away if the battle was over?”
Porto did his best not to show frustration. “Because, Your Grace, the battle was over but the battlefield was not empty. We found signs of another struggle, and Eolair’s torn cloak was found nearby.”
“Pfah.” Osric spat into the fire. “Stories. Ideas. Signs! The king wants me to deal kindly with these murdering horsemen, so I have sent their chieftain, this Unver, a message telling him to bring me my grandson and he will be rewarded. And Count Eolair, the Hand of the Throne, too,” he added as if to ward off any more comments from Porto. “And that is all I am going to speak of my charge to you, sir. You did what you could. The king and queen will hear of that, never fear.” The duke still could barely keep his gaze on Porto, his eyes roving as if the tent was filled with dozens of other people instead of only the two of them and Osric’s silent page, who moved only to tend the fire. “Now go. If this Unver Shan will not treat with me as he should then I will have to find other means to get my grandson back. I cannot waste my time arguing over shadows and smoke and what-might-have-beens.”
Outside, Porto found his two friends waiting for him. Astrian wore a sour, knowing grin. “So you see, old bag of bones, Duke Osric does not need to be told anything by you. He already knows all he needs to know.”
“Surely he is not going to war over this—Morgan is not even there!”
Astrian laughed. “Men do not need reasons to go to war—not good ones, anyway. But you are not being ignored completely. In fact, we want you to tell us everything you remember about the Thrithings’ encampment—especially the part where this Unver Shan has his stronghold.”
“It is no stronghold,” said Porto testily. “It is a group of tents in a paddock. They are not preparing to make war, or even to defend themselves.”
“All the better,” said Astrian. “Because if Olveris and myself can quietly make our way into the place and remove Count Eolair from the clansmen, and if Morgan is truly somewhere else as you say, there will be no need for war at all.”
Porto felt a momentary surge of hope. He had seen more than enough of blood lately. “Perhaps you are right.”
Astrian bowed. “When have I ever been wrong?”
Olveris snorted. “Every time you call yourself a swordsman. Or a ladies’ man.”
“I like you better when you are silent, sir,” Astrian told him. “In truth, everybody likes you better when you are silent.”