Prince Lorien took a carefully measured pull from his saddle bottle. "Ranger set?" he questioned.
"By one who knows many trail tricks, Highness. There were those among the outlaws who have such knowledge but for them to deliberately leave signs of travel, as well hidden as those are, that I do not believe."
The Prince grimaced. "No, for any following from the town now would not have the wit to read such. Therefore we may believe that you spot the directions of Trufors the Lord Chancellor's man. And before him two parties who made no attempt to hide their going?"
"The second rode hard and in the night, but they must have known the way well, Highness, as if this were indeed an open trail."
"Send out the summons, Trufors, but also alert the scouts."
"We are going, Highness?"
"Undoubtedly to Ishbi," the Prince replied. He was well aware of the shadow on the other man's face. Trufors could not be judged by any man to lack courage, but he, also, was of the Old Blood. Men of his name clan had marched this way full two hundred years ago to a bitter and near devastating battle.
The scout saluted and was gone, swallowed up by the foliage as if he had never been there, while Lorien was left to stare down at the hoof-cut dead leaf tracks among the trees. That a man could not leave untreated an unhealed sore on his body—that was the truth. Nor could those who were of the ancient houses leave a festering wound within the land itself. His father—well, he had sent his squire to carry the message to him. But it took time to assemble a force to sweep this rugged country, full of cuts and draws, thick trees, and hills rising to the mountains.
There were the forces from Kronengred, and he was certain that Vazul had enough influence over his master to see that they would also be on the move. But already there had been rioting in two sections of the city. A whole street of merchant warehouses burnt— Odd that that should have appeared to start in the Herbmistress's shop. She was a strange one, but in her way she was like Vazul, strong of spirit and knowledgeable in other ways. And now she had gone to the Abbey. They said prayers strengthened a man's sword arm—if so they would need those in plenty.
That they took the girl appeared to weigh the hardest on Halwice as the hours passed. Hostage, he was sure, bargaining piece— He looked down again at that churned road they had left. She was very young and from all accounts she knew very little save what had been her home. He tried to remember her face—but another seemed ever to form between—that of the ripe beauty who had openly tried to pull him into her net. One memory did float through his mind— of that dance which should have been so stiffly formal to follow custom but had suddenly become lightsome as any frolic while her hand had been in his. It had never happened so before— And she had been taken from the safety of her bed, where she should have been in peace. Lorien's jaw squared. Ishbi—no, such innocence belonged not in Ishbi, nor could the Dark be allowed to take it so.
Dawn had come and the first tinges of pink shone in the sky when Willadene, hoping to hide her shrinking from another day in the saddle, allowed Nicolas to help her to mount and they rode away. But he did not follow the open trail of those who had passed earlier. Instead he threaded a parallel way among such cover as there was. Now and then he halted and she sat shivering nervously as he left her to cast over to that other trace. He was not just making sure of it, she was certain, but rather setting some of those subtle signs such as he had called to her attention yesterday, and of this she accused him when he returned.
"Just so. The Prince's scouts will be out. Those we follow now ride freely, for they believe that any picking up their traces will be of their own kind and perhaps will gather to accompany and support them. But the Prince will be not too far behind—if we are lucky his scouts may reach us." However, it would seem that such luck as that was to be denied them. They did halt at intervals and Nicolas allowed their horses to graze or drink at streams and springs he seemed to know of old. He was very quiet this morning and was short in answer to any talk she tried. It occurred to Willadene that he was perhaps regretting his openness of the night before and would welcome no more confidences concerning the past, or more than surface acquaintanceship for the present.
She kept the amulet packet in one hand, though the other was tight on her saddle horn, and sniffed at it from time to time. Always she feared that that scent which was Mahart's own had been dissipated by the time or distance and she could not be sure they still followed on the track of her captors.
Yet, even when Willadene attempted with all the will she could summon to keep her senses fixed upon the matter which had brought her here, she still was aware that the country around her was slowly also becoming a part of her. The scent of all the rich growth about her, the sounds of insects and of birds—it was almost as if she had been in a box all her life and now was free.
Those faint memories she had recalled for Nicolas— those lost almost for good behind the horror of Jacoba's kitchen—had held such things, and she had known them before. Had she really gone with her mother out for the harvesting? It could well have been, for her mother was well-known, and she had been called to attend cases of illness beyond Kronengred's walls. She did not fight to pursue those faint suggestions of memory. What counted now was their quest. The High Lady must be finding this open world as strange as she herself did. Willadene hoped with all her heart that Mahart's captors had thought her too valuable to be ill-used.
Ssssaaa was hissing almost sleepily in her ear, and on impulse she reached up with the amulet so that small, pointed nose could sniff at what she cherished. Before she could withdraw her hand needle teeth closed on flat leaves she had found between leaves of the ancient book.
"No!" she said with such vigor that Nicolas turned his head to look at her. Gently she pushed Ssssaaa's head away from the folded silk and forgot her hold on the saddle horn as she spread out its length. She could see the teeth marks in the silk, but the two strange leaves remained intact.
"What is it?" Nicolas had now moved in beside her.
"I do not know—" Swiftly she told him of how Ssssaaa had freed it from the glued pages of the moldering herbal. He did not try to take it from her but leaned the closer.
"Leaves—" Willadene was saying. "See here the veins. I have seen many dried plants but none as old as this which did not crumble at the touch. Yet I have carried it since I found it and there shows no break."
His brown finger touched her hands lightly as she held them palm up, the leaves resting on them. And she yielded to that touch, letting him draw nearer to her.
"You say," he said after a moment, "these are leaves—"
She felt her talent questioned. "But it is true, anyone can see that!"
"I say it may be a map. You speak of Heart-Hold—could this be a clue to its rooting?"
Quickly she drew her hands back and folded the silk about the leaves. "We do not seek flowers!" she said firmly. "Heart-Hold was given to the Star until—"
"Until," he interrupted her, "those wolf heads came down from the western hills and there was no more an Abbey. If evil is again astir, so must be good. How many years was that pent up in that book of Halwice's unfound? Why was Ssssaaa able to free it intact?"
She made a careful business of rewrapping the amulet and its two appendages. "You would have it that we do not move by our will, but another's!" Her voice sounded a little shrill.
Halwice, yes, Willadene would answer eagerly any request that the Herbmistress would make of her. Was she not now enduring the agony of riding because it was asked of her talent? But somehow she shrank from the thought that some will beyond her comprehension now used her as she might use a salve to cure an ill.
Nicolas shrugged. "Mistress, this much I have found out in my life. Nothing comes purely to us by chance alone. That which you hold is perhaps greater treasure than any in the Duke's locked coffers. Take good care of it."
His hand came up and brought her mount to an abrupt stop.
It was the silence which warned. An instant
earlier two birds had been singing lustily from a tree not far away. She instinctively used the talent. Yes, there was man smell—and one she knew. Her hands pressed the amulet tightly against her breast and she swallowed.
Man smell, and evil, and the evil had grown the thicker since the last time she had picked up that scent. She saw Nicolas glance at her, and with her lips she shaped a name: "Wyche."
He gave only a shadow of a nod. They could hear the thud of hooves now, sounding as clearly as those of the party who had passed them earlier. And then that thick voice reached her.
"We was doin' good in th' city. She should have let us be. That spindle-shanked Duke is overready to be booted to Head Hill an' shorted by the one on his shoulders/'
"You overrate yourself, city scum." That voice was cold, so cold it might have been a lash of sleet in their faces. "She has need—that is all you need to know. Had your followers not blundered so we could have had the Prince also." Willa-dene could feel the rage in that.
"Now he's out hunting and we have no time left for the sport of tracking him down in turn."
The voice sounded farther away as did the sound of hooves. Nicolas grinned. "The tunnel snakes seek refuge—"
"He said that the town was fighting—" Willadene now had full hold of her saddle horn again.
"Yes, we have known that this would come—only not when. There are those who serve the Duke with swords they do not wear in public. Wyche is a boaster and he has been allowed much rope that we might learn through him how far this web might spread. We move to stand face-to-face with that which would swallow us all and it would not be nice in its feeding—for it will like to turn upon those serving it who are no longer of value. Thank you, little one—"
The girl saw he spoke to Ssssaaa. Then he added, "This one is a protection greater than any armor forged. We are privileged that she was loaned to us. And let us now be about paying for that privilege."
She still nursed the packet against her as an armswoman might raise a shield. Nicolas urged the horses into a slow walk again, but now they angled a little more northward, slanting away from the route those other two were taking.
It was a whiffling sort of noise which brought Mahart fully awake. She looked up into a sky which was sun bright and yet hazy as if some veil had been drawn between its rays and where she lay. She sat up, her blanket covering falling away. The horse was not too far away, grazing eagerly at the moisture-soaked growth about the edge of the basin, showing no desire to drink directly from it.
Her steed was certainly not any finely cherished mount from the ducal stables. She could see the outlines of ribs on the side nearest her as if it had not been adequately fed for a long time, though it seemed to be making up for that now.
Food—she roused and moved toward the nearest of the miniature trees and selected two well-rounded plumferts for herself. But as she returned to the blanket Mahart was forced to think of the here and now, and also what might lie ahead.
"I was favored. Star," she said and made the proper hand sign of thankfulness, yet this time not courtesy but in truth. "I have been brought out of the hands of my enemies and into this sanctuary, but for this there must be some reason."
The murmur of her voice died away. Without turning her body she tried to see as much of the enclosure in which she had taken refuge as was possible. The strangeness of all these growing things ripening together—that was beyond any guess she could make. She licked plumfert juice from her fingers and tried hard to add together what she did know.
Had she been taken as a hostage, a weapon to be used against her father? She could remember little of that journey under the depths of Kronengred now. Then there had been that camp where they had forced her on horseback, still prisoner and the word Jshbi —
Thought seized upon that word. She closed her eyes for a moment and was back in the musty, shadowed depth of that library where she had roamed undirected, taking here a chronicle, there a journal, reading with a careless lack of any directed interest. Legend slid into ancient fact, fact faded into legend—monsters warred with heroes and treasures spilled out in dark caverns for anyone fortunate or strong enough to take them.
Ishbi—yes. Mahart suddenly grasped the second plumfert so tightly in her hand that its skin broke and the pulp squeezed between her fingers.
Something from the west—yet none that had written of it had given it a name—only hinted that it was not of human kind—in fact that there lay a vast gulf between it and humans and it strove to cross that gulf—to take—
There had been a woman— Mahart shook her head as if to settle her memories into a proper pattern. Now— she had been human. Or had she? There had been talk of some taint in her bloodline. But she had not been of Kronengred— rather of the kingdom. Nona—
It was as if a chill finger had touched her forehead. She shivered. Yes, it had been the flawed one, King's daughter though she was, who had made that pact. And it was the keep Ishbi that she and her followers had raised as a focal point to draw on powers perhaps only the Abbess of the Star could begin to understand.
Mahart's sticky fist thumped down on her knee in exasperation. All this she had dismissed in her disorganized reading as legend. If she only knew more!
She went to the basin and washed her hands and then on impulse gathered up some tufts of coarse grass which grew along the wall and gingerly began to try to groom the horse. To be doing anything here and now was a relief of beating memory. She was an inept hostler but the animal blew, then shook its head from side to side, as if, Mahart hoped, it was expressing some liking for her ministrations.
There was still no appearance of sun, nor, as far as she could see, any other sign of life except the patient horse and herself. No insects buzzed from flower to flower, no birds sang. Though she knew so little of the outer world she was sure that this was somehow wrong.
Having done her best for the horse, she went to that lower section of the wall over which they had entered this place. She could see the pier and beyond it the island. Though it was not dark yet there appeared to be a sheen of a faint green aura about it. But the water was motionless and she caught no sign of the creatures who had scuttled among the rocks.
The fern forest surrounded these ruins on three sides. The tumble of stones had been reduced to such piles as one could not tell if these were the remains of a border keep, a castle, or a town. Though if this were Ishbi it could well be all three. However, she had no intention of leaving the safety she had found to go exploring.
Mahart regarded herself. Though the night rail she had had on had been of triple thickness, as was necessary in the chill of the castle, the material selected had been purposefully soft for the ease of the noble who would wear it. Tags of lace still held by a thread or so, but there were also rents and tears which left only a mass of rags.
Her hair had been braided for the night, but those braids had snagged on briars and twigs. She began to work with it, loosening what she could, picking out the leaves and twigs caught in it, feeling the soreness of her scalp where those had pulled. Once loose about her shoulders she could do no more than use her fingers as ineffectual combs and try to pull out all the debris she could reach.
When it hung in as good order as she could achieve Mahart shed her rags, gathered them in a bundle under her arm and went back to the basin. After all there was only the horse to witness her bare body.
Around the foot of the basin had been growing a spongelike plant which caught and held a measure of water and felt soft in her fingers. Mahart gathered two handfuls of this and began to bathe as well as she could, wincing at the smart of scratch and chafe but proceeding grimly in spite of such discomforts.
When she was through the pleasant warmth seemed to dry her skin as well as any towel toasted before the fireplace and, finding a fairly open space, she spread out the remnants of her only garment to survey them critically.
For a moment or two she was elsewhere again—back in the castle facing the long mirror of her cha
mber to survey the glory of her ball gown—a ball gown—her eyes were closed. Once more she felt a firm hand closing fingers about hers, leading her into such lightness of step she had never believed possible. She drew now a face out of memory. How could she who had known so few men in her life say whether he was handsome? She only knew that to meet his eyes, answer a smile of his with hers, gave her warmth and pleasure.
From beneath the closed lids of her eyes now moisture gathered; she was brought back to the grimness of the here and now by a tear slipping down her smarting cheek.
Fool that she was! What was past was past and there were no real memories in it. This was no legend of ancient chivalry—what would bring any riding after her except those who were her father's liege men—and, she wondered, bleakly, how many of those could be trusted now?
There remained the matter of clothing. The long sleeves, one of which was split near half its length, could be torn out. She stood up and held the full length about her.
Some judicious tearing would give her at least a kind of loincloth for underwear and a sleeveless slip reaching near knee length with strips to belt it in snugly. Mahart set to work. Solving those alterations without scissors or even knife as an aid, was a formidable task.
At length she tried on again the awkward garment she had managed to produce and was very glad that this time there was no long mirror to make visible her shortcomings as seamstress.
She had been so intent upon this labor that she was startled when she realized that the hazy light which had signaled day was fading. Surely, and she was fearfully sure of this, it was not yet night—she had not lost that much measurement of time.
The horse's head came up. It had seemed to be dozing against the wall. Now it snorted, looking out over their wall of safety. Mahart hastily scrabbled in the hollow where she had spent the night until her hand once more closed about that length of smooth stone she hoped could be a weapon.
With that in hand she made a careful circle of the entire wall, looking out at all she could see of lake and that loom of fern forest. Her feet found grass and plants easy enough to tread, but she stumbled in some places painfully over stone and knew that she must find some form of foot covering also.