A Mankind Witch (34 page)

She colored. Looked awkward. "It is nothing. You should mount and get the weight off your feet, until they can be properly treated."

"Let me give you a leg up, Manfred," said Erik.

"He thinks I'm dying," said Manfred, with a grin, accepting. "I can tell. He's babying me instead of bullying me."

Erik climbed into the saddle. "You make pretty speeches to the ladies, but all I get is insults."

They began to ride. Erik had noted that the daughter of the royal house of Telemark rode astride with the ease of an old cavalry trooper, her skirts hitched awkwardly. Erik weighed up Manfred's little speech. The boy was three times the womanizer he'd ever be. And he had an instinct for politics. There had been that mention of Jagellion. These were murky, complex doings, indeed. He could do worse than follow Manfred's lead on this. "My lady. I also spoke a little out of turn. My thanks for what you have done for my Godar's heir."

She bit her lip. And then gestured with her elbow at Cair. "You should thank my thrall. His loyalty in coming with you resulted in you being free instead of in a dungeon. He didn't know that you'd tricked him and come to capture me."

Erik looked back at Cair. And caught a quick shake of the head. Curious indeed. "We . . . have had to reevaluate things, milady," he said disarmingly. "Your man told us you were no witch."

Manfred hadn't seen Cair's head shake. He turned in the saddle. "Master Cair. We owe you our liberty if not our lives. Don't think I am ungrateful, but every time I've sought explanations, we've been plunged into the next crisis. Can I ask now without risking my neck?"

"No, Prince Manfred, not right now," said the man with perfect urbanity. "Because I think we should gallop up this slope while we are out of sight of our pursuit."

And he put his heels into his steed.

Erik had trained with the masters of this kind of skirmish on Vinland's plains. It wasn't a bad point to gallop. The apparently flat, bleak fell had hidden rills and folds, and a canny horseman could keep out of sight, but he was sure that they were being followed by scent. And he was also sure that that little gallop had been because Cair wasn't ready to explain anything.

By default Erik took over leading the party away from the pursuing trolls. Manfred was plainly a little fevered from the sepsis on his feet, and Cair was also obviously no countryman. Thus it fell to Erik or Signy. And Signy, although she had seemed to have fantastic eyesight, did not have any experience of avoiding foes. Erik found the little princess peculiarly naive about some things. One of them was just what sort of man her "thrall" was. She was full enough of her own surprises though. She'd dropped an arctic hare, with a single arrow, at a canter, at two hundred paces. Erik knew that there were very very few huntsmen who could do as well. He knew he couldn't.

Eventually, they just had to stop. They'd gained some time and distance on their foes. Erik judged that spending some of that time on resting the horses and themselves would be time well spent. Besides, he was worried about Manfred. He was not used to the boy being sick.

They stopped in a tiny copse of stunted trees next to a boggy fen patch. Not, except for the possibility of firewood, the sort of place Erik would have chosen, but Signy said that it looked good for the herbs she wanted. The trees, unfortunately, wouldn't provide what they needed for the trolls—good strong lances.

As soon as they dismounted, Signy set off to collect her herbs, coolly giving orders as she did so. "I need a fire. And hot water. We need to draw the poison out of his feet. And those dressings need to be washed and wrung out and dried as well as may be. There's a little forage for the horses . . ."

"I put two bags of oats on the spare horses, Princess. I'll feed them. And see them rubbed down."

She smiled at Cair. "He's a rare thrall."

Erik nodded. "Few knights could organize a campaign as well," he said, trying to keep the irony out of his voice. "I'll give him a hand as soon as I have a fire going. No, Manfred. You will lie down. You can tend the fire once I've organized a firebow."

"There are several tinderboxes with flint and steel. Our bear-men were well equipped," said Cair, unloading horses.

Erik shook his head in amazement. "Never mind knights. There are few quartermasters that organize as well as you do."

"But a number that are even better thieves," said Cair cheerfully.

Erik smiled. The fellow was incorrigible. Even if he felt that he couldn't trust him a finger-width, he had to be amused. "That's hard to believe, too, looking at this lot." He looked across at where Signy was picking her way along the edge of the fen. "What's your game, Cair? What are you trying to keep quiet about? Why did you want her to believe that you're a good thrall who came along with us . . . instead of the other way around?"

The slight sardonic smile that usually hovered on Cair's lips was absent. "I am content to be her thrall," he said. And it looked as if he meant it.

Erik shook his head, and blew the sparks into a tiny flame. For a while he concentrated on nursing the fire. Then he left it to Manfred and walked over to where Cair was rubbing down the horses with a handful of dry grass. "Give you a hand?" he offered.

"I'd rather you gutted and skinned that hare. I've never done that before."

So, wherever he came from, the man was ignorant of the kind of field craft most ordinary freemen would take for granted. Either he was born a peasant churl—and most of those could gut a poached rabbit before they were breeched—or he'd been born to power and wealth. Or he was an oblate, given to the cloister. But no oblate was that good with a knife. Besides, he spoke Frankish too well. No regional peasant accent—the Frankish of Mainz—with a very slight Aquitaine burr, as taught by a tutor, no doubt. "I'll show you. If you want to pass as a thrall, you need to know things like that."

Cair grinned. "Good idea." He glanced across at Signy, who was still some distance off. "It's to not hurt her, you understand. She has lost everything. I am going to have to take her away from her whole way of life. She was born and bred in this culture, as a princess, bound to her duty. To marry for the royal house, to serve its honor. Now, she has nothing. If she needs a thrall, then I will be it."

"To be honest with you, Cair," Erik said, as he neatly eviscerated the hare. "I'm coming to doubt that 'thief-finding' myself. It is, as you said, out of character. There are more complex magical tests. Things that are beyond fakery."

Cair shrugged. "Believe me, there is no such thing as either magic or being beyond fakery. I'll take her beyond the reach of Telemark or the Empire."

Erik had reason to know that magical powers were real enough. But the reference to "beyond the reach of the Empire" said Lithuania to him. But no Lithuanian could doubt the existence of magic. Well, a sceptic would find reason to doubt his own senses if need be. There was no point in arguing about it. "Surely her mother would protect her?"

"Stepmother. And she's dead, friend. I haven't told Signy, but I found Queen Albruna's head in a jar in that troll fortress. Anyway, that woman made her life a misery. Honeyed poison in her speech, and constantly belittling the girl. And she'd have seen that Signy's marriage to Hjorda of Rogaland went through, even if I had dealt with this arm-ring fakery. Hush. She's nearly here."

Signy stumbled into view with a handful of herbs. A woman who could drop a hare from a running horse at two hundred paces, who struggled with buckles and tripped over tussocks? An idea came to Erik. He resolved to watch how well she dealt with close objects.

Manfred looked at his feet. To him they looked a fairly unpleasant sight, but perhaps less so than when she'd initially bandaged them. But it hadn't stopped him feeling feverish and shaky. He couldn't afford to sicken on them now. And it wasn't even for something understandable like a sword thrust. There was really no dignity in it. He would be like Lord Arabladan, butt of everyone's jokes because he missed the charge at Salamanca because he had dismounted to ease the pain of his piles.

"What is it?" he asked warily as she handed him a hot and not-pleasant-smelling cup.

"Chamomile and bog-myrtle tea. You have a fever. Drink it."

"Couldn't I rather have some of that armor polish . . . that alcohol?" he asked hopefully.

"No. This is better for you," she said firmly. "Drink it down. All of it."

Cair grinned from where he was chopping a black root into some more boiling water. "She is treating you just like she does the horses. And they recover."

"He's about the same size as one," said Signy. She bit her lip. "It's the only way I can deal with people, Prince Manfred. Drink the rest, now. It is good for you."

He did. It was still vile. They bathed his feet in yet another potion. "Horseweed and black snakeroot," said Signy when he enquired. He wished that he hadn't asked. She poulticed them with more chamomile leaves and boiled his bandages in the horseweed and black snakeroot mixture, before hanging them out to dry on sticks by their fire.

Erik had in the meanwhile been grilling the hare.

"In among your looting you didn't happen to bring any salt did you?" he asked Cair.

"Unfortunately not," said Signy's "thrall." "Please don't beat me, lord."

It was said in jest, but Signy turned on Erik like a vixen to someone threatening her cubs. "He's mine. Nobody beats him."

"I wouldn't dream of it," said Erik respectfully. "Too much salt is bad for you anyway, I'm sure."

They ate. Manfred knew he ought to be ravening, but he ate because Erik looked worried when he didn't. After that Erik took first watch, and they slept wrapped in the cloaks that the mysterious supposed thrall-cum-assassin had allowed their enemy to provide.

When it was time for them to move again Manfred found that the other three had cheerfully conspired to let him sleep through his watch.

"And how are the prince's hooves this morning?" asked Cair. "If it is morning. Funny, I'd read of the land of the midnight sun, but I expected it to be lighter."

"Except that it stays dark in winter," said Erik. "So you aren't there. And how are your feet, Manfred?"

"I'd swear they're better. I'm certainly feeling a bit better. What's for breakfast?"

"
Flattbrød
on the run," said Cair. "The trolls are not more than two miles back. They've not stopped to rest."

"And more chamomile and bog-myrtle tea," said Signy, handing it to him. "Don't pull such a face. Some people like chamomile tea."

"They're welcome to it," said Manfred, drinking it all the same. The look on Erik's face said that resistance would be futile. Besides, it, or something, had made him feel a good deal better. Of course, some protest was obligatory.

They rode out, leaving the hare bones and ashes for the trolls.

It was a long ride across lands that grew increasingly more treacherous and boggy, full of half-frozen hummocks and apparently solid ground where the horses' hooves would burst through into fetlock-deep mud. Black mud, fetid and stinking.

The second time that they'd had to backtrack, Signy sidled her horse up to Erik. "Knight. We need to make for that line over there. The lighter plants. The ground is dryer there." Erik could barely make out the difference in plant color, but Signy obviously could. Erik was no fool, and his brief was to keep Manfred alive. Not to lead the way. So Signy took over. She took them along "trails" marked by plant types that Erik began to recognize after a while as dry-loving. But she could pick them out across a hundred yards of valley. He could only do so from ten or fifteen yards off.

Even Manfred noticed. "You have superb eyesight, Princess," he said.

She shook her head. "Not really. The colors are slightly different. You can only see the plants when you get closer. And I see well enough out here where there is light and air, but put me in front of a loom or a tambour frame and I can hardly see at all."

"I knew a warrior like that in Vinland," said Erik, thoughtfully. "He was long-sighted. Could drop a buck at full range, but half the time he'd miss one under his feet."

Signy colored slightly. "Yes. I do that, too. I'm very clumsy."

"It's not clumsiness," said Erik. "It's long-sight, Princess. I wondered about it when I watched you gathering herbs, to be honest. I imagine that you can see things which are far off clearly, but those that are really close with difficulty and probably not with clear definition. I do believe that you can correct it with eyeglasses."

"Oh no. I tried a pair of those that a visiting Jarl from Vestfold had. They made things even worse."

Riding behind them Cair wanted to kick himself. Hard. He'd had a long-sighted sailor on lookout duty on his flagship. He knew that the condition existed. He also knew just how it could be corrected. Convex and concave lenses. One of them was suited to shortsightedness. The other dealt with the opposite problem. And he'd personally been too blind to see it. Well, Erik Hakkonsen had done the princess no small favor, accidentally. It could be corrected. There were those who made their living by traveling, making eyeglasses. Some of them made things worse rather than better, apparently. But there were those among them who had achieved great reputations from the results they'd achieved.

"I believe there are different types of eyeglasses," said Erik, but Signy wasn't listening anymore. Instead she was staring intently back.

Cair could just make out the dust back across the plain. Two plumes.

"We have more pursuit. Many more trolls are coming," said Signy worriedly.

"Well, I can't say I'm delighted that there are more, but why is that worse than the situation as it is?" asked Manfred. "We couldn't fight off those who're after us now."

Erik shook his head at him, as if disappointed in his charge. "They can divide up and flank us. Drive us like game. They know this countryside. They'll herd us."

"Look for signs of it and break out of the encirclement. That'll be the way they don't want us to go," said Manfred, obviously reciting something he'd been told.