5

16th Side: The Ride

A Reiver's moon, full and bright, hung low over the hills and washed the sky gray with moonlight. It showed the ground in grays that imperceptibly shifted one into another, a hillock lighter here, a hollow darker there, deeper shadows all black. But men and horses knew the track to the ford well, having crossed and recrossed the ground a thousand times, and they went at a fast trot.

Fowl’s jolting strength threw Per up out of the saddle to briefly grip the horse’s shoulders with his knees, and as he touched the saddle, the power of Fowl’s hindquarters threw him up again. At each rising, the shaft of the lance in his left hand slid in his grip and its butt pressed a little harder against the toe of his boot where it rested. “On!” Fowl’s onward lunge strengthened and quickened. He needed no kick, only Per’s voice.

Fowl’s hooves thumped in thick turf. Grass and scrub, barely seen in the dusk, skimmed past them. Around and behind them, the hooves of the other horses fell and fell with a thick drumming. There was the creaking of saddles and boots, the rattling of bits, the breathing of men and animals. Per grinned, his heart and breathing fast, his attention on the shadow-tricked ground ahead.

The ground sloped to the water and the ford, becoming more broken with river stone. Fowl chose his own time to slow to a walk, and Per let him, loosing the reins so the horse could pick his own way, while his shoulders swayed and he swiveled at the waist with Fowl’s movements. Patting the horse’s neck, he told him he was good, good.

Fowl gave a long, shuddering snort and shook his head, flurrying his long mane. Another horse and rider, black in the dusk, came close at his side and a second nudged at his tail. The running of the water rose to them, suddenly loud, and they smelled the river and felt its coolness in the air.

Per sang out:

“My hob is swift-footed and sure,

My sword hangs down at my knee;

I never held back from a fight:

Come, who dares meddle with me!”

From the dusk around him, from the black shapes of horses and riders, came quiet laughter. The horses, splashing, walked into the river.

“Eh, Per, dost reckon that lass—which one do I mean now?” That was Sim’s voice.

“Janna!”

“Big Anna!”

“Wee Anna!” Other voices called out, as if to help Sim remember, the names of girls Per had courted in the past.

From behind Per, on his other side, came Ecky’s voice, underlaid by the rippling of water around rocks and the splashing of horses’ legs. “Tha means Elf-May, Sim!”

“Do I? Well, well. Dost think her might be glad to see thee back after this?”

“Her’ll be so gladdened, I shouldn’t wonder but her’ll drag him off that hoss straight into bed.”

Quiet laughter was all around Per now, letting him know how well they knew him and all his doings, even thoughts he imagined he had kept to himself. He tipped back his head, his face taking on a pained grin, and then looked to the side to see Sweet Milk laughing at him from within his helmet’s shadows.

Sim, whose horse was already climbing the bank, looked over his shoulder and, making his voice lighter than usual, called, “Put tha feet up, Daddy. I’ll lead ride!”

More sniggers acknowledged the best joke of all. Per had long ago learned better than to show pique, but as the laughter died, he cupped his hand to his ear. “I hear Grannams laughing!” Fowl reached the water’s edge on the other side and bucked up onto dry land.

Sweet Milk brought his horse close to Fowl as they walked up the bank, reached out a long arm and slapped Per on the shoulder. It was only in the way of things, Sweet Milk thought, that the lad should want to impress the Elf-May and show he was as good as his daddy. Nobody ought to laugh too long at him for that.

Per kicked Fowl to the trot, and Sweet Milk kicked his horse to keep pace. Behind them, to a rolling thump of hooves on turf, the others came, following the track to the reived farm.

They saw the smoke and glare from the burning first. A golden light flowed over the hillsides ahead, lighting the underside of the hanging smoke, then dying to a sullen, red ember’s glow before flaring again. Rounding a hill spur, they came in sight of the flames, a red-and-gold shining in the dark. They kicked the horses to a fresh trot.

The farm was surrounded by a bank and ditch, meant to discourage attack. They reined in close by the ditch, and the light of the burning house flicked over them and then withdrew. The heat tightened their skin. Outside the circle of firelight, the darkness was black.

It hadn’t been a strong house: just one belonging to a poor crofter, the kind built in a morning. High, yellow flames burned on the collapsed mass of heather thatch, gnawing and crackling on the walls of brushwood, mud and turf. Ash and soot smut whirled down on them in showers of red sparks. Smoke fetched tears from their eyes, and the stink of burning wood and damp heather was thick and choking. The horses shied and fidgeted a little, but it wasn’t the first burning they’d seen.

No one came to greet them. “Cast about,” Per said to the man with the sleuthhound, and then kicked Fowl on around the edge of the ditch. Sweet Milk rode after him. They peered into the jumping shadows about the edge of the firelight, looking for any sign of the goodwife and bairns of the farm.

The crackling and brilliance of the flames, and the deep silence and darkness that underlay them, brought Per’s spirits down. He looked at Sweet Milk, whose face was lit by the fire, and wondered what he was remembering. Per had always lived behind the stone walls of the tower, under the protection of his father’s reputation and armed men. His home had never been burned down.

On the other side of the ditch they were clear of the smoke, and Per stood in his stirrups and raised a trumpet yell to echo from the hills: “Sterkarm!” Sweet Milk added his deeper bellow.

They waited while the echoes died, and the crackling and huffing of the fire became again the only sound. They yelled again, twice more, and echoes came back, thinly, from hills hidden in the darkness. But from the women and bairns of the farm nothing. Per’s eyes smarted with tears, both of pity and anger. The Grannams had done this …

“They’ve gone away to friends?” Per said, hoping Sweet Milk would agree. Sweet Milk kept silence and his usual grim expression.

A yelping and a shout came from the other side of the farm, and they kicked on their horses, riding back into the smoke. A flimsy wall fell, sending up a shower of red sparks and making Fowl spring sideways, stiff-legged. Per fought with him as he backed and shied, and he thought: They dare do this; the Grannams dare do this, so close to the tower! They think so little of us, they dare— The exhilaration he’d felt earlier was turning to rage. Every Grannam ought to be dug out and killed like a nest of rats except that, like rats, there were too many of them.

The sleuthhound was yelping and whining, running to and fro, its tail up. It had found the trail and was eager to follow. So was Per. Walking and trotting, the ride moved on behind the intent dog.

They half expected the trail to lead to the water’s edge, but instead it veered away from the river and was plainly making for one of the side valleys. Per reined in, standing in his stirrups as he looked up at the overhanging black mass of the hills. The dark sky above them was barely lighter. It could be that the Grannams wanted to lead them into that dark and narrow valley because they had laid an ambush there.

Per’s mouth was clamped hard shut, his eyes wide as he stared into the dark. He breathed deep and felt close to trembling. Keen as he was to ride on, if he guessed wrongly here, he could get himself and every man with him killed. Or—nearly as bad—they could lose the Grannams and let them get away to boast that Sterkarm farms were easy targets.

He glanced around at the dim, dark shapes near him: the men, sitting their horses, waiting—impatiently, scornfully, he thought—for his decision.

Follow the Grannams into the valley, hoping that they were too intent on making their best speed to bother with an ambush? No. Even if he were killed, he couldn’t bear the thought that Andrea and his mother and father might learn that he’d been so stupid.

Sending scouts to climb the slopes above the valley, to check for any sign of ambush, would mean waiting for the men to scramble up the steep slopes in the dark—and while they waited, the Grannams would be going on their way.

He sat back in his saddle, rose again in impatience, sat again. Fowl turned restively. Quicker for the whole party to climb to the moors above the valley, since that was where the Grannams were headed, but they’d lose the trail in the valley. The sleuthhound might be able to cast about and pick it up again, but they’d be lucky to find it once they’d left it.

No, better to follow the trail in the valley as far as they could. Even if they had to wait for the scouts, they could still travel faster than the Grannams, who were hampered with sheep. “Ecky! Sim!”

The men urged their horses close to Fowl. The animals tossed their heads and long manes a little, but they were herd mates, and soon calmed. Briefly, Per explained what he wanted the men to do, but was disconcerted and irritated by the way they grinned through their beards and glanced at each other while he talked.

Sweet Milk, watching and grinning himself, could see it was Per’s new, wide-eyed earnestness that amused them—and all the others. Some long-lived jokes were being prepared, at Per’s expense, for when they got back from the ride.

Sim and Ecky gathered up their reins. Ecky reached out and flicked his fingers against Per’s chin, making him snatch back his head. Grinning, looking back over his shoulder, Ecky rode away after Sim.

Sweet Milk brought his horse close to Fowl and, when Per looked around, gave a barely noticeable nod. Sweet Milk looked forward, when this miserable business was over, to telling Toorkild that the lad could spot an ambush before he fell into it, and pick the right men for the job. Toorkild would fly up into the rafters with pride.

Per put his lance down on the turf and slipped down from Fowl’s back, to spare the horse his weight for a little while. He peered into the darkness, searching for any sign of his scouts’ movement. Around him other men dismounted. Some led their horses up and down. The cold became more noticeable as the waiting drew out.

Per fidgeted, drawing his sword half from its scabbard and sliding it back again. In his mind he was with the scouts he’d sent forward, trying to gauge how far they’d traveled—and then with the Grannams, going forward at the slower pace of the stolen sheep. Had they reached the end of the valley yet? Had they climbed to the moors above? He wanted to bring back the farmer’s sheep, and at least a few of the men who’d stolen them and burned his farm.

Fowl had been amusing himself by buffeting Per with his head, almost knocking him from his feet, but now he lifted his head, his ears up, and tugged at the reins about Per’s arm. Somewhere behind them the sleuthhound growled. Some sound that the men couldn’t yet hear had disturbed them.

Per swung back up into the saddle, leaned down and picked up his lance and then concentrated, listening, as he patted Fowl’s neck. The slight shifting of horses around him, saddles creaking, the wind—and there! Horse hooves, coming on at a trot.

“Behind us?” Per said, and looked wildly at Sweet Milk. He couldn’t understand how Grannams could be behind them—unless they were a few lost stragglers. They would soon be prisoners then. He rose in his stirrups and looked around at the men. They needed no more instruction than that—all of them were riders. In an eye’s blink, and with hardly a sound, every horse and man had moved close to trees and bushes, into hollows or close to rocks, which, in the confusing half darkness, would be enough to hide them.

They waited. Per’s heart, at the thought that they might soon be fighting, was pumping harder, and his breath was coming fast, with an exhilarating mixture of dread and eagerness.

The louder sound of hooves on the soft ground—riders coming openly. And then the whimpering and snuffling of a hound. Per caught his breath, and men began to laugh in a series of gasps—the party behind them had a sleuthhound and was following a trail. They weren’t Grannams then. Reivers had no use for hounds.

The dark shapes of horses and riders were glimpsed, some silhouetted against the light of Bedes Water. Per lifted his head and sang out:

“My hob is swift-footed and sure,

My sword hangs down at my knee—”

From the approaching riders came a laugh and the second half of the verse:

“I never held back from a fight:

Come, who dares meddle with me!”

It was Young Toorkild’s voice, and Per’s band rode out of hiding to join their friends, the horses snorting and kicking as they were brought together. “Whose men?”

“Gobby Per’s. Whose men?”

“May’s, we.”

Gobby’s men greeted Per as he managed Fowl among the restless horses, searching for his uncle: “Has Mammy let thee out, then?”

“Art keeping warm enough, May?”

“Nunkie’s over here!”

Per was grinning under his helmet as he brought his horse alongside his uncle’s, anxious to tell him everything he’d done because, he knew—little though it had been—that he’d done it well. “Daddy’s-brother—”

Gobby reached out and patted his nephew’s cheek, in place of the usual greeting kiss. Looking past Per, he called out, “Sweet Milk, what dost know?”

Per, startled, glanced toward Sweet Milk and then turned back to his uncle. “Daddy’s-brother, I—”

Without looking at him, Gobby raised a gloved hand and gestured for him to be quiet. At Sweet Milk he nodded, waiting for an answer.

There was enough moonlight for Sweet Milk to see the snubbed and angry look on Per’s face. He guided his horse toward Gobby through the press of other horses, trying to think of some way of telling Gobby that he was mistaken and Per was leading Toorkild’s men. But Sweet Milk was better at knowing when to keep silent than at finding such clever words, and when Gobby asked, he had to answer. As briefly as he could, he told Gobby all they’d found and done. “It was Per’s thinking—”

“Have scouts had time enough to get up there?” Gobby asked.

Sweet Milk considered, nodded. “Time enough.”

Gobby lifted his arm high, signaled forward. “Then, on.”

The ride followed Gobby on into the valley. Sweet Milk brought his horse alongside Per’s. Per looked the other way. He was stinging and smarting from the setdown his uncle had given him. In front of men who’d been following his orders, he’d been silenced like a boy who’d spoken out of turn. And Sweet Milk had gone along with it—so did Sweet Milk think he had been doing badly? Worse, Andrea would come to hear of it.

Their entrance into the valley was greeted by a gleam of moonlight and the waving of a longbow from high above on the hillside. No immediate danger of ambush then: a warning would have been yelled. They made their best speed up the valley, but it was a steep and narrow trail, winding among tumbled rocks, and often the best pace they could manage was a walk. They would do better when they reached the moors.

No ambush had been laid—perhaps the Grannams couldn’t spare the men. As they reached the head of the steep valley, they disturbed a couple of sheep that went bounding away, black shapes in the darkness. They might be a couple the Grannams had lost during their climb. The Sterkarms scrambled, by the same steep sheep paths, up to the moor above. Per dismounted, hung his lance in its sling at the saddle, and led Fowl up. He reached the top panting and laughing.

Up there, in the moor wind, they were met by the scouts, and had to wait while the sleuthhounds cast about for the trail. The Grannams must have paused there too, to round up the sheep again after the climb.

“We’ll catch them!” Per said to Sweet Milk, as he jumped up onto Fowl. Sweet Milk nodded and grinned. Per had already forgotten to sulk

Sheep roamed the moor constantly, which confused the scent trail. The hounds cast about, rose on their hind legs to sniff the air, and then led off through scrub and heather until they struck one of the wide tracks that ran across the moor. They sniffed the ground and air again, and ran fast along the tracks. It seemed the Grannams were driving the sheep along the track as openly as if they’d been their own.

The track, a broad strip of grassy turf running through darker heather, shone white in the moonlight, and they pounded along it at a fast trot, the riders rising and falling, even urging the mounts to a canter when the moonlight was strong and the path showed smooth. The wind fluted against their helmets and chilled their hands and faces. Rolled blankets and wrapped longbows thumped against their backs.

Per kicked Fowl on and on, intent on staying near the head of the ride, where he could be into the fight before his uncle or cousins. He scanned the black and silvered land ahead, knowing that Fowl’s every stride must be carrying them nearer to the Grannam ride. If they’d come this way, there must be sight of them soon.

Ahead the track split, the main branch going on across the moor but a right-hand branch, little wider than a sheep track, making off through the heather. The dogs were casting wide about the place where the tracks met, sniffing the air, sniffing the ground, running a little way along the main path but then coming back.

The leading riders reined in, waiting for the others to come up, waiting for the dogs to find the scent. Fowl was breathing hard, snorting and shaking his mane. Per patted him as he backed and stamped and, breathing deep himself, looked down and saw how pounded and trodden was the turf of the narrow track, and the scrub on either side of it.

That was the way they’d gone! The track led down into a valley, where it would be easier to drive the sheep, and where they’d be hidden. What was more, the slant of the valley led toward the Grannam land. That was the way they’d gone! Waving his arm to call the others on, Per set Fowl at the narrow, right-hand track.

“Per! May!” It was a bellow that reached him above the noise of Fowl’s hooves, of the creaking of his saddle, the metallic scratching of the overlapped plates sewn into his jakke. He reined in and turned Fowl, to see the dark mass of horsemen that had come up to the place where the tracks divided. Waving arms called him back.

He pointed on along the path, but saw the two horsemen who had begun to follow him walking away from him, returning to the ride.

“Per!” That was his uncle’s voice. Gobby stood in his stirrups, beckoning him with an angry sweep of his whole arm.

Remembering how Gobby had silenced him earlier, Per kicked Fowl on along the path—but Gobby was his uncle. Disobeying him meant disobeying his father too. The ramifications of the quarrel would go on and on. “God’s shit!” Per reined in and swung Fowl around in a circle, and had to spend a few moments fighting with Fowl, who disliked such indecisiveness.

“Where wert gadding?” Gobby demanded, when he trotted back to the main party.

“After—”

“Quiet!” Gobby had not wanted or expected an answer. His own sons would have known that. He kicked his horse forward, to lead the ride down the broader track.

“Grannams went that way!” Per pointed down the narrow path with his lance. A rider near him—his cousin Wat—murmured his name warningly.

Gobby turned in his saddle. “Tha’st a better nose than hounds, hast tha?”

“My eyes tell me! That way’s all trodden down. That’s where they went!”

Young Toorkild, the eldest of Gobby’s sons, pointed to the main track and said, “That’s best trodden. Odds on they went that way.”

Young Toorkild was almost three years older than Per, and since infancy had tormented his younger cousin by claiming always to be right because he was older, and he often wasn’t. To see Gobby nod solemnly at Young Toorkild’s words was infuriating.

“That track’s always worn,” Per said. “It be used all time. This one be no. Look at it, Clod-head! It be—”

“God’s arse!” Gobby said, astonished. He swung his lance around in his hand so it came butt upward. “Will I shut tha mouth for thee?” He glared at Per, expecting the boy to look away.

Per held his uncle’s stare, trying to think of something that would convince him, but Gobby’s face grew angrier, and the lance was still raised in threat. Gobby would do no more than tap him with it, but it would be shaming in front of everyone. Per looked aside.

Gobby lowered his lance and said, “Tha’rt nesh. Nesh! Like any son of Bella Hob’s-daughter.”

Per’s head came up again, his eyes wide and his mouth opening. Nesh!—soft, like overripe fruit. Someone would tell Andrea about that.

From Gobby’s other side, Sweet Milk’s voice came through the dark. “Forgive me, Master Sterkarm, but lad be right. About path.”

There was a low grumble of agreement from all the tower men that took Per by surprise and soothed him a little.

Gobby was ill pleased. “Two men,” he said, “to take little path.”

Per walked Fowl onto the narrow, right-hand path, silently offering to be one of the men who rode that way. He wondered if he dared call his own men, the tower men, after him. Would they obey him if he did? He couldn’t believe that Sweet Milk would disobey Gobby and follow him, and if Sweet Milk wouldn’t, none of the others would.

Gobby saw that Per was again on the narrow path and called out, “By God, that boy tries my patience! Per! Get back here.”

“Why?” Per said.

Gobby rose in his stirrups. “Bring thine ’oss here by me.” As Per’s mouth opened, he said, “Do no argue!” Sitting in his saddle again, he glowered as Per walked Fowl back to his uncle. Others pulled their horses aside to make way for him. As Per reined in, his face furious, Gobby said, “This be no childer’s game.”

“Nay,” Per said. “But that—” Gobby raised his gloved hand, threatening a cuff. Per broke off and sat his horse with lowered head. Not sulking, Sweet Milk guessed, but seething.

Gobby, grinning through his beard with irritation, called out the names of the men who were to ride along the narrower path and return to the main party if they saw the Grannams.

Per watched the two horsemen trot away into the dark and again looked around for his own men—but he didn’t dare, he didn’t dare! If he called his men to follow him, and they didn’t, he could never lead them again.

Gobby motioned the ride forward along the main path, glancing aside to make sure Per was staying with him. Sweet Milk, following, wondered if Gobby had noticed that his ride was dividing into two. The men of the tower were all behind or beside Per. He was himself riding close beside the lad.

The horses trotted, walked, trotted again. Per loved the rise and fall of the trot but now resented every stride that carried them farther along the track and farther from the Grannams. Every time they reined in for a breather, he stood in his stirrups, peering into the dark, trying to see if the two scouts were returning.

The Grannams hadn’t been so far ahead, and they’d been driving slow sheep. The Sterkarms had been riding fast. It was getting on for the middle of the night. Per wanted to ask his uncle: So where are the Grannams? He kept quiet, not wanting to sound like a whining child, but he struck his clenched fist on his own thigh, thinking: They’ll get away, they’ll get away!

From the dark mass of riders behind them, a voice called out, “Which road was it they went again?” There was laughter, mainly from Toorkild’s men. Per knew the voice for Davy’s. Gobby pretended not to have heard.

The ride was moving forward at a fast walk when a cry came carrying across the moor: “Sterkarm!” The soft, rhythmic thump of hooves followed, and Per caught sight of movement in the dark

Their two scouts were returning to them with enough urgency to risk crossing the rough, open moor instead of keeping to the safer tracks. Per rose in his stirrups and sat, rose and sat, grinning without knowing he was. Fowl, thinking that Per had something interesting in mind, paced with his front feet and skittered half in a circle, crowding other horses. That drew a glare from Gobby, and Per reined Fowl in, patting his neck.

Gobby rode forward to meet the scouts, and Per kicked Fowl after him, needing no prompting now to stay at his uncle’s side. Pointing behind him, the first rider called out, “Grannams!” The sheep had, indeed, been driven along the narrower path, and the path led down into another valley, and there were the Grannams with the reived flock, getting farther away all the time.

Gobby turned and saw that it was Per beside him. Per stared into his uncle’s eyes, refusing to look away.

Gobby stood in his stirrups and waved, signaling the whole ride to follow him, and then he struck across the moor, leaving the track behind. He set a dangerous pace too, a trot over rough and ill-lit ground, thickly grown with heather and bilberry that concealed holes and dips, but it was either risk the horses’ legs and the men’s necks, or lose the Grannams.

All around was the rolling thud and thump of the hooves, the clattering of the jakkes, the grunting of the men, the whisk of the brush as the horses moved through it. Per’s knees jolted into Fowl’s hard shoulders every time Fowl’s haunches threw him up, his own breathing was loud to his ears, and he was dizzy with squinting into the blurred and moving dark. And then they were on the heights above the valley. The wind, moaning past them, blew down the slope. Moonlight silvered the hills opposite, touching rock faces and falling streams.

From below came the din of the driven sheep: a harsh, frantic baaing, never stopping. It came from a little behind them. Gobby signaled the ride to halt, beckoned to Sweet Milk, and dismounted.

Per slid down from Fowl and gave the reins to Ecky, who said, “Thou’ll catch it.” Per followed his uncle—he had, after all, been ordered to stay at Gobby’s side. Gobby swung around and saw him, and Per stood still, waiting to be told to go back. But Gobby ignored him, and went on edging his way forward over the awkward ground.

A face of broken rock leaned out over the valley. They went out onto it, careful of where they put their feet in the tricky black-and-gray light, and crouched among the corners of rock, the ferns and rock-rooted bushes, peering down into the valley.

There was little to see except darkness and shadows. Even where the moonlight fell, it showed nothing of which they could be certain. The helmets of the Grannams, like their own, had been darkened with sheep’s fat and soot and gave hardly a gleam. Their horses were mostly black, and so were the sheep, all disappearing into the dark.

But the sheep could be heard, as could the occasional shout. The Grannams were down there, sauntering coolly through Sterkarm country, driving Sterkarm sheep. Per, lying flat on his belly and peering down, caught sight of movement and clenched his fists.

Gobby slapped a hand on Per’s shoulder. “Thou wert right all along.”

Per was startled by the apology. Immediately, he loved Gobby again.

“No easy to get down there,” Sweet Milk said. He was looking up and down the valley, at the way the hills folded. “But can be done.”

“Take thine and get down behind ’em,” Gobby said. The din of the sheep, filling the Grannams’ ears, should cover the noise of their approach, and if the darkness wasn’t enough cover, then the folds in the hills would hide them. “We’ll get down in front of ’em.”

They talked of signals. A man of Sweet Milk’s party was to sit his horse where he could see both bands. When both were in position to start descending the slopes, he would raise his lance and then ride to join Sweet Milk again. On reaching the valley floor, the first party to find itself ready to attack would do so, raising the cry of “Sterkarm!” The other party would attack as soon after that as it could, in silence.

Sweet Milk turned, half crouching, to go back to the ride and call together the men of his party. Per, thinking all forgiven, made to follow. Gobby stopped him. “Stay.”

“Why?” Per said.

Gobby gritted his teeth. “Let that be last time tha says ‘why?’ to me. When I tell thee summat, do it!”

Sweet Milk had gone into the dark. Per followed his uncle back to the ride, jittery with anger. He should be with his own people, not trailing along behind Gobby, and he suspected that his uncle meant to order him to stay on the hillside, taking no part in the fight, like a boy making his first ride.

For a heart’s beat the idea appealed. It would be no fault of his and, up on the height, no sword could slice off half his face or axe chop through his arm and break its bone. But that feeling passed with the heartbeat. If others fought, he had to fight. He wanted to get a swipe at the Grannams for the farm they’d burned. And the story taken back to the tower had to be that the May had fought, and fought well.

Gobby swung up onto his horse. Instead of going to Fowl, Per went to stand at his knee, looking up at him. “Father’s-brother?”

Gobby looked down. “What now?”

“I’m sad for what I said, Father’s-brother.” Even though he’d been right. But Gobby deserved an apology for having admitted that Per had been right.

“So tha shouldst be,” Gobby said. “Mount up.”

“Father’s-brother?”

“What?”

“Will you be so kind, may I go with Sweet Milk?”

Gobby leaned down from his saddle, making the leather creak. “Nay. I’m no thy father. Tha don’t get all thou asks from me. Now mount up!”

Per laid hold of his uncle’s knee, looking up at him. “You’ll let me fight! Be so kind!”

Gobby knocked his hand away. “Thine ’oss!” His exasperation betrayed that, much as he would like to thwart Per, he would not.

Per ran to Fowl and mounted, as scared of the coming fight as he was relieved that he was to be part of it. His lance was still in its sling, under his right thigh once he was seated, and he shifted it so its butt rested on the toe of his right boot. As he settled into the saddle, the horseman higher up the trail, dimly seen against the sky, lifted his lance and rode away. Gobby kicked his horse on, leading his band along the narrow sheep path and down into the valley.

The grass was short and slick under the horses’ hooves, and the slope quickly became steeper. Per was among the first to sling his lance again and drop down from his horse’s back. He clung to Fowl’s neck and mane and let his feet slither as the horse picked the way down. Fowl brought them both safely to the valley floor.

Even down there, the ground was broken and rough. Gobby’s men were assembling in the shelter of a hill spur. Per jumped up onto Fowl’s back again and stroked and patted his neck, leaning forward to whisper reassurances and kiss the rough, dusty coat. He took long, deep breaths to steady the beating of his own heart. In the dark were the blurred masses of boulders fallen from the hillside. The valley floor was thick with them. Not a good place for a charge. The fighting was going to be close.

The constant braying of the reived sheep was louder as the first of them rounded the hill spur. Fowl stamped and shifted, lifting Per up and down like a boat on swelling water. Per, hauling at breath, wiped his left palm on the top of his leather boot. He drew his sword half from its scabbard, making sure it drew easily, before taking a fresh grip on his lance and tilting it into position.

Through the dark he glimpsed the bobbing shapes of the sheep and, behind them, the first dark mass of a horse and rider.

“Sterkarm!” The yell echoed from the hills. A horse in front of Per sprang forward, and Per felt Fowl’s strength gather and rise under him as Fowl, without waiting for Per’s order, followed. Per leaned forward and swung down his lance to the ready.

At the noise and onward rush of the Sterkarms, the sheep broke and bounded wildly every way, bleating ever more frantically. The Grannams yelled and swung their horses around, or swung their lances down. There was trampling and horses’ squeals, cries of warning and surprise, smacks and crashes of blows.

Per, seeing a broad Grannam back turned to him, drove his lance head squarely at its center. The jar knocked him back in his saddle, knocked breath from him, and sent Fowl to his haunches. Per’s feet were braced against the stirrups, the lance shaft and the iron plates of his jakke bruising his arm and side.

The lance head clanged against the metal plates in the Grannam’s jakke, shoving him forward onto his horse’s neck, but didn’t unseat him. Reeling, he struggled to get upright in his saddle again, trying, at the same time, to turn his horse, to use his own lance against Per.

Per drew back his lance and took aim, driving the point down at the man’s hip, where the jakke ended, more with the intent of toppling him from his horse than injuring him. The lance head entered the man’s thigh—Per knew it by the resistance and then the yielding of the flesh as the point entered, and by the wild yell torn from the man. Per kicked at Fowl: “On!” Arms waving, the Grannam fell from his saddle.

Per twisted his lance as the man’s weight dragged it through his gloved hand, and it came free. His own hair moved under his helmet in fear of the unseen blow he felt coming at him from behind, but he reversed his lance and whacked the Grannam’s horse on the rump with the butt end. The horse bounded away, the wounded Grannam yelling and dangling from the saddle.

Per wrenched Fowl around, pressing himself low against the horse’s neck, but no one was threatening him. As he rose in the saddle again, he gasped for breath and sweat ran down his face from under his helmet. The darkness of the narrow valley was an uproar of bleating and shouting, a stink of sheep and blood, a thumping and panting, a din of iron, all echoing dismally between the hills.

The fight was already ending, the din dying away, the press of horses slackening. A brightening of the moon showed Grannams surrounded, threatened by lances. They were throwing down their weapons and calling out their ransom prices, hoping to save their lives. Per threw back his head and filled his lungs. He’d come through unscathed. A few bruises, nothing more.

Reining in Fowl, he rose in his stirrups, peering about for any of his own tower men. And then he thought of how the story would be told back at the tower and realized that he hadn’t done enough. One man toppled from his saddle wasn’t much to set against the burning farm—or the dressing-down Gobby had given him. Would Andrea be impressed with one man downed? Kicking Fowl, he guided him around the knot of horsemen and prisoners, hoping for some unfinished skirmish.

His eye was caught by movement farther down the valley. Horsemen, flitting through the shifting moonlight, going recklessly fast over the rough ground, two of them. Grannams for sure—escaping! He raised his bloody lance, yelled, “Sterkarm!” and kicked Fowl after them.

Most Sterkarms were busy with the prisoners. If they heard the call, they left it to others to answer. It was Sweet Milk, riding down from his end of the valley, where his share of the skirmish was finished, who saw the chase of riders. Rising in his stirrups, he recognized the pursuing rider by his movements, by the lance in his left hand.

Sweet Milk cursed, broke off, yelled, “Tower!” Looking around, and seeing few taking any interest, he changed the shout to “May!” A couple of horses were kicked toward him. He pointed down the valley with his lance, kicking on his horse. After him came Sim, Davy, Ecky and Hob.

As his body was jarred by the hard ride, Sweet Milk tried to watch the rough and rock-strewn ground ahead of his horse, and watch the chase too. Somewhere at the back of his mind was a grudge that he had to stir himself to this when he’d thought the worst of it was over.

The Grannams were still ahead, but Per was catching them. Both would turn on him. Sweet Milk felt a desperation, a sense of reaching to catch something he knew was going to fall through his fingers and smash. Filling his lungs, he yelled, “Per!” He wasn’t heard.

The leading Grannam set his horse at the steep hillside; if there was a track there, Sweet Milk couldn’t see it. The second tried to follow, but his horse balked, slipped back, fell and rolled.

Sweet Milk saw Per set Fowl at the slope, intent on chasing the escaping Grannam whose horse was, with difficulty, scrambling toward the hilltop. One Grannam wasn’t worth the risk. Sweet Milk filled his lungs to call Per back again, but before he had the breath, he glimpsed a man on foot running nimbly up the slope toward Per: the Grannam from the fallen horse, unhurt but with sword upraised.

A horse passed Sweet Milk, racing. Ecky, with lance leveled. Sweet Milk yelled, “Per!”

Per heard only the rattle of stones dislodged by the Grannam above him, saw only the frightened backward glances of the man, which urged him on. The unhorsed man he’d forgotten. He kicked Fowl again, who disliked being alone, without other familiar horses around him, and was unwilling to climb the difficult slope. He kept turning his head back to the valley floor, and Per pulled his head around, kicked him, urged him on, whacked his rump with the butt of his lance, set on taking his own prisoner, a man Gobby would have let escape.

He didn’t hear Sweet Milk yelling, and only saw the swoop of the sword blow from the corner of his eye when it was too late to avoid it. Down the blade came, hard as a cudgel blow but with a cutting edge—and it felt like a cudgel blow, hot and bruising, when it hit his thigh above the top of his boot. He yelled out in sheer surprise, though a sharper cry was pulled from him when the sword blade was dragged free of his flesh.

Sweet Milk heard the cries, saw the sword dragged back and raised for another blow. Then Ecky’s lance skewered the Grannam low in the back, below his jakke’s edge, and took him to the ground. Shouting approval, coming up hard and turning his horse aside from the slope only at the last moment, Sweet Milk drove his own lance home, the blow jarring through him.

The dizziness of fright and pain cleared from Per’s head, and he realized that he was still alive and still in the saddle, and so couldn’t be badly hurt, despite the blood. The slightest cuts bled most anyway. Looking up, he saw the Grannam above him, struggling on the slope. He could still be captured. Per’s own heart was racing, pounding, urging him on. He whacked Fowl’s rump and kicked him. The kick hurt his leg, but not much. “On!”

Sweet Milk left his lance in the Grannam and jumped from his horse to run up the slope toward Per, scrambling with his hands where it was steep. He knew from his own experience that deep wounds often felt like nothing more than a hard blow, especially if taken in hot blood. The lad might hardly know he’d been hurt yet. Reaching the narrow path where Fowl was shaking his head and refusing to move, Sweet Milk caught at the bridle.

Fowl had seen Sweet Milk coming, and smelled him, and knew him. Of the two, Per was the more startled by Sweet Milk’s sudden springing up, and raised his lance.

“Sterkarm! Sweet Milk!”

The lance was lowered. “Out my way!” Per kicked Fowl again, ignoring the pain in his leg. Fowl jumped on the path, rattling his bit. Sweet Milk, buffeted by Fowl’s head, staggered and almost fell down the slope. He clambered onto the path above the horse, shouting, “Thou’rt hurt!”

Per’s own yells deafened him to Sweet Milk. He knew only that Sweet Milk was in his way. He swung his lance around and threatened Sweet Milk with the butt end.

From up the valley came an echoing shout of “Sterkarm!” as Gobby called them back. Hearing it, Per gave Fowl another kick. It was Ecky, scrambling up the slope, who got Per’s attention by slapping at his wounded leg and then holding up his hand, black with blood. Per looked down and saw the leg of his breeches, wet and black, and the moonlight catching the lips of the wide wound. He looked up and saw the Grannam disappearing over the slope above, and tried yet again to urge Fowl on, but now he knew the pain in his leg was from something more than a slight cut. Sweet Milk grasped Fowl’s bridle and firmly turned the horse off the path and down the slope. Fowl nimbly and gratefully found his own way down.

Per wiped tears from his eyes, pushing up his helmet and smearing blood across his face. The tears weren’t of pain—he felt little—but of anger. He’d been bested, cut, and he’d lost his prisoner. Sweet Milk’s fault! Sweet Milk and Ecky, getting in his way … He knew, though anger wouldn’t yet allow him to admit it, that his own carelessness had been the fault. He’d assumed the unhorsed man was no further danger and hadn’t been enough on guard. The other riders came circling closer and their anxious faces, peering at him, made him wish them all a hundred miles away and himself alone. But he was glad they were there.

Gobby yelled again. Sweet Milk, down at Fowl’s side, said, “Shut tha gob, Gobby.”

Per surprised himself by laughing, and Sweet Milk looked up, grinning. “Let’s look at this.” He shoved Fowl around until Per’s wounded leg was in the best of the moonlight. Even so, it was hard to see—and Fowl kept turning his head, nudging at Per’s foot and Sweet Milk’s arms. Fowl knew something was wrong. Ecky came and held the horse’s head, while Sim took Per’s lance.

Sweet Milk squinted and felt around the wound, making Per gasp and shift in the saddle. “God’s teeth! It no hurt until—”

“It’ll hurt plenty,” Sweet Milk said. Even in the poor light he could tell it was the worst he’d feared when he’d seen the blow go home. Not a sidelong slash that would have lifted a flap of flesh, but a straight-on, downward cut that, like as not, had gone to the bone. “It be deep,” he said, while thinking: There’ll be no stitching that. It’ll fester. Jesus, it’ll cripple him. The bleeding was slow—that was something to be thankful for. Black blood dripped to the ground and down Fowl’s flank. Sweet Milk thought of all the miles they had to go before reaching home. The leg would be working all the way.

Sweet Milk unslung his bedroll from his back and crouched beside Fowl to open it. Inside he had some old rags, for bandages.

Sim and Hob came up on Fowl’s other side, on horseback. “Here, lad,” Hob said. “That’s who tha’ve to thank.” He held up, by the hair, the head of the man who’d made the wound. Sim was wagging the hand that had struck the blow.

Per looked at the head. He knew its face, and his shoulders flinched in a shudder. “Jem,” he said. If it hadn’t been for Sweet Milk and Ecky, his own head, hacked from his body, could easily have been dangling from someone’s hand.

“We’ve got sword—for tha mammy,” Hob said.

Sweet Milk, as he folded cloth into a pad, shook his head. Like many others, Hob believed that if Isobel washed the sword blade that had cut Per’s leg, and rubbed it with ointment, it would heal the wound. But Hob hadn’t seen how deep the slash was. Sweet Milk pressed the pad against the wound and held it in place. Fowl stood like a rock. “Hold it,” he said to Per, and bound the pad in place with a second strip of cloth, slipping it between Per’s leg and Fowl’s side.

“If tha’d hit me with that butt end,” he said, looking up at Per, “I’d have had thee off there and knocked seven colors out o’ thee. Tha knows that, don’t tha?”

Per laughed. Laughter came easily; he felt dizzy and lightheaded, as if drunk.

“Try to keep it still,” Sweet Milk said, and remounted his own horse, which Davy had caught for him. His own bruises were beginning to burn and ache. The metal plates of his jakke had been driven into him in several places. He thought longingly of his safe bed.

They rode gently back along the valley to rejoin Gobby. Sweet Milk watched Per as they went. There seemed nothing wrong with the boy—except, maybe, he was a bit quiet. Fowl, stepping gently, obediently followed the other horses, so that Per had no need even to kick him on. But the wound was a bad one.

The other end of the valley was full of the harsh baaing of sheep as Gobby’s men tried to gather them in the dark. Gobby himself came riding to meet them. Before he reached them, Ecky and Sim had called out, angrily, that the May was hurt.

Per turned his face aside, looking down, as Gobby nudged his horse close to see the bandage on Per’s thigh. The white linen showed, a blur in the dark, but was already blackening. “Badly?” Gobby asked.

Per said, “Nay.” He wouldn’t have told his uncle of the wound, and wished the others hadn’t.

Sweet Milk said, “Deep.”

Gobby said nothing. Per, whose temper had already been rising in expectation of his uncle’s anger, was puzzled by his silence and said to Fowl, “Walk on.” Fowl, on his best behavior, walked forward without a kick.

“Where art ganning now?” Gobby demanded.

“To help with sheep.”

“To help with—!” Gobby said. “Stay there and no move! I wish tha’d half as much sense as a bloody sheep.”

Per reined in, feeling mutinous and comforted. The cut to his leg couldn’t be that bad, if Gobby was still yelling at him. He would be able to ride back to the tower, and have something to boast about. Something to worry Andrea with.

Gobby was silent, drawing his thumb along his lower lip again and again as he stared at Per. Sweet Milk, guessing his thoughts, said, “Davy Gibb’s place.” It was a small farm, little more than a hut, but it was within an hour’s ride. Per could be left there while his blood settled. A litter could be rigged at the tower and sent out to fetch him the next day.

Gobby’s eyes flicked to Sweet Milk’s, showing that he’d been thinking the same thing. He went on stroking his lower lip.

“I can ride,” Per said. The cut muscles were smarting, but he could stand it. He wanted to ride through the tower’s gate, not be carried through it.

Gobby ignored him but shook his head at Sweet Milk, who nodded in agreement. It was autumn. Reivers were riding every night. Huts and shepherds offered no protection against them. Any Grannam ride would know Big Toorkild’s Per May. They’d probably take him for ransom, but there was always the chance they’d kill him, in revenge for the Grannams killed on this ride. Or sell him to the citizens of Carloel, who’d hang him.

Sweet Milk thought of offering to escort Per ahead of the sheep, at a faster pace—but it would be no use. A fast pace, over the rough, broken ground that would take them directly to the tower, would put an even greater strain on the wounded leg. And there was no knowing whether other Grannam rides were out. Two men, one wounded, would be easily taken.

Gobby dragged his thumb along his lip again. He had three sons of his own—two to spare, he joked—but he wouldn’t have given up any one of them. He could not, and would not, take the smallest risk with his brother’s one tup lamb. The ride, with its armed men and its slow-moving sheep, was the safest place for Per to be.

Sighing, Gobby looked at Sweet Milk, and gave the slightest of nods toward Per. Sweet Milk needed no such order.

Gobby turned his horse, said to his nephew, “Stay!” and rode away to check on the gathering of the sheep.

Per sat his horse. The helmet on his head felt heavy. His thoughts kept circling around the man he’d stuck in the thigh, and the head that had been held up to him, with Jem Grannam’s face. He neither thought nor felt anything very clearly, except a fuddled desire to laugh.

Sweet Milk, sitting his horse a little behind Per, watched him while, in his head, he rode every stride of the long ride home.