Ladyhawke (6 page)

But he had never ridden a horse in his life. Horses terrified him. The animals, so massive beside even a large, heavy man, seemed to loom over him like mountains. Under normal circumstances he would never even have considered this insanity. But these were hardly normal circumstances. He untied the reins of the nearest horse with fumbling hands. Grabbing hold of the saddle, he tried to get his foot into the stirrup. Sensing his nervousness, the horse flattened its ears and shied away from him.

“Nice horse,” Phillipe soothed unconvincingly, “good horse . . .”

The horse jerked back and bolted away down the street.

Phillipe looked tensely toward the tavern. The shouts and screams, the clash of metal, told him that the fight was still going on. Navarre was holding off the entire company of guards single-handed. For a fleeting instant it occurred to him that he should go back and help the man who had just saved his life a second time. Just as swiftly, he realized that the idea was not only suicidal but completely absurd. He pulled the reins of the next horse free and jammed his foot into the stirrup.

He held on to the saddle, boosting himself up, without seeing the dangling cinch strap. The saddle slid off the horse’s back and crashed to the ground on top of him. Cursing with frustration and humiliation, Phillipe ran to the next horse.

Back in the yard, Navarre slashed another man’s sword arm, watched blood spurt and the other’s sword fly free. His own body smarted with cuts, none of them serious. His reaction time was slowing; but only two guards and a few more feet separated him from the gateway. He pressed his attack with fresh determination, inching his way toward freedom. Marquet was still alive; but he had accomplished the thing he had come to do, the truly vital thing—he had saved the young thief.

Navarre knocked a last guard aside with the flaming brand and sprinted out of the courtyard. Glancing down the street as a riderless horse cantered by, he saw, with incredulous dismay, that Phillipe Gaston was still in view. The boy stood in a milling herd of horses, trying vainly to catch one after another. He looked up as Navarre burst into view, and his own face filled with dismay. He turned and ran.

Swearing furiously under his breath, Navarre ran to his stallion and vaulted into the saddle. The hawk, waiting on his saddlebow, spread its wings and soared up into the air. Pulling his horse’s head around, he galloped away down the street after the boy. Behind him, one of the guards blew a warning call on a horn. Navarre looked ahead, his mouth tightening, knowing what it meant.
That damned idiot,
he thought, watching the boy run straight into another trap.

The town wall loomed ahead of them. The high wooden gate at the end of the street was open, but the guardsman stationed there had heard the horn blast. As Navarre watched, he began to push the gate shut.

Navarre’s stallion bore down on Phillipe. The boy looked back as he ran, his expression a jumble of panic and terror. “No! No! No!” he cried. Behind them Navarre heard more horses galloping in pursuit. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Fornac and another guard riding hard after him.

He looked forward again, just in time to see the heavy gate slam closed ahead. Leaning down from his saddle, he thrust out his arm and scooped Phillipe up. The thief’s small, wiry body scarcely strained his arm. He flung Phillipe across the front of his saddle like a sack of meal and dug his spurs into the stallion’s flanks. The black’s heavy muscles bunched as he gathered himself and leaped into the air. The stallion cleared the gate as if he were winged and landed at a dead run on the other side. The guard waiting at the gate lunged at them as they flew past; Navarre smashed the man in the face with his fist.

Navarre looked back, steadying Phillipe’s groaning body with his hand. Behind him their two pursuers cleared the gate with far less grace. He caught up the sling that hung from his saddle and thrust a stone into it. Whirling it over his head, he let the stone fly. It struck the rider beside Fornac in the head, knocking him from his horse. But the awkward burden of Phillipe slowed his own stallion, and Fornac was still closing fast.

Navarre glanced up into the sky. The hawk wheeled in the blue heavens high above him, its silhouette like a drawn crossbow. “Hoy!” he shouted.

The hawk screeched and plummeted down through the air, its talons flashing like knives as it dove toward Fornac. The guardsman flung up his arm with a bellow. He pitched from the saddle as his horse reared, sprawling heavily on the ground. Navarre rode on without looking back, as the hawk soared triumphantly over his head.

Standing in the muddy street before the tavern, Marquet squinted from beneath his singed brows as Navarre and the thief disappeared into the forest. His smoke-blackened face hardened into stone. He turned back to his remaining men, all of whom were nursing wounds of their own. None of them met his eyes.

The hawk circled lazily in the warm updrafts that rose with the mountain wall. The long, sensitive primary feathers of her wingtips and the broad fan of her tail flared, twisted, narrowed, as she manipulated them with the delicate precision of fingers on a hand. Far below her, the man in black rode slowly through the blazing colors of the autumn forest along a narrow ridgeline. Perched behind him on the stallion was the smaller figure of a second rider, whose drab peasant clothing blended well with the forest floor. The hawk studied the pair of riders for a long time with expressionless golden eyes. At last she shifted her wings, increasing their drag, and began to drift down and down, until she settled at last on Navarre’s gauntleted wrist. She flared her wings once, gazing up at him. Navarre smiled faintly in acknowledgment.

Phillipe peered past Navarre’s broad shoulder to look at the bird, grateful for any distraction that would take his mind off the ride. Now that his life was not in immediate danger of ending for the first time in days, he had found himself with unexpected time in which to reflect on his new situation. But unfortunately, all that he seemed to be able to think about was how much he still hated horses. He had slipped in and out of an exhausted doze all through the afternoon, waking with every sudden lurch over the uneven ground, while his empty stomach endured a previously unknown form of motion sickness. He decided that this year he would give up horses for Lent.

He studied the preening bird, admiring the subtle shadings of brown and olive on its smooth feathered back, its soft, cinnamon-streaked breast and black-striped tail. He was impressed in spite of his circumstances by its beauty, and by its ferocious loyalty to its master. Navarre wore no jesses or straps to keep the hawk always at his command. It came and went as it pleased, always returning to his arm. “That is a truly remarkable bird, sir,” Phillipe said, attempting conversation for the first time in hours. Navarre was a man of few words, and in his grim presence, Philippe had obediently been the same. “I’d swear she flew at those men of her own free will!”

Navarre glanced back at him. “We’ve traveled together awhile. I suppose she feels a certain . . .” he hesitated, “. . . loyalty to me.” The hawk trained a beady eye on Phillipe and hissed defiantly, flaring her speckled wings. Suddenly he felt that the bird was in no way this man’s property . . . that they traveled as equals. And that he was very definitely an unwelcome addition to their relationship, at least as far as the bird was concerned. But what about Navarre? The man who dressed like a mourner and fought like an angel of death plainly had some grudge against the Bishop’s Guard; but that didn’t change the fact that he had risked his own life twice to save the life of a total stranger they happened to be hunting. Once, it could have been a lucky coincidence; but not twice. It was almost as if the man had been following him . . .

Phillipe cleared his throat. “If . . . you don’t mind, sir, perhaps you could explain a certain loyalty which you seem to feel to me.” This time Navarre did not respond, or even look back. Phillipe went on, pressing for an answer that was suddenly important to him. “It’s just that you’ve saved my life twice and . . . I’m nobody!” Realizing how that sounded, he added, “Well, I’m somebody, of course . . .”

Navarre rode in silence for another long moment, thinking carefully. Thinking about the truth, and about why he needed this remarkable mass of contradictions who clung to the saddle behind him. Weighing what he had seen of Phillipe Gaston’s potential so far against the possibility of telling him that truth. The words rose up inside him—the sudden, terrible need to share his burden with someone . . .
But not this one. Not yet.
He forced himself to remember that the boy was only a common thief, a quick-tongued liar with no honor and probably no future. He had seen enough of those to know better than to trust one, even one with such spirit.

He closed his mouth and thought for another moment, remembering their first meeting. He smiled to himself, out of Phillipe’s view. “I began thinking about what you said to me that day on the bridge.”

“Aha,” Phillipe said, “I see.” There was a moment of silence. “What did I say?”

“That I would be needing a good man to watch my flank.”

He felt Phillipe straighten up behind him with sudden surprise and pride. “One does what one can,” Phillipe murmured, in a fair imitation of modesty. After another moment he asked, nonchalantly, “Did you happen to notice that wicked gash across Captain Marquet’s cheek?”

Navarre swiveled in his saddle, looking back in curiosity.

“He asked for it.”

Navarre’s eyes turned bleak, as he thought of how much more Marquet deserved. But seeing the boy’s expression, he only nodded gravely, one warrior acknowledging another. He looked ahead again, to hide the smile that suddenly eased the tight, bitter line of his mouth.

C H A P T E R
Six

F
ornac stood in the road outside the tavern with a hand pressed to his bandaged, aching head, overseeing the bloody job of loading the dead bodies of his fellow guardsmen onto an oxcart. Marquet had ridden back to Aquila to report to the Bishop. Jehan had taken the handful of men who were still able to ride and gone in pursuit of Navarre and Gaston. Fornac had been left in command of the cripples and the dead, which he realized was more of a rebuke than a compliment.

He shouted at the driver as the last body was dropped into the cart. The driver cracked his whip, and the cart lumbered away on its long journey to Aquila. Watching it go, he noticed an unexpected figure coming in his direction. A fat, wheezing old man in the brown robes of a monk stopped to cross himself as the cart passed by. Then he continued along the muddy lane, precariously but resolutely. Fornac turned away and went in search of his horse, having come too close to needing last rites today for a conversation with a holy man.

The road was empty by the time Brother Imperius reached the spot where the guard had been standing. He stopped there, wiping his brow, gazing at the ruins of the tavern yard. For a moment guilt showed in his weary, bloodshot eyes. Shaking his head, he slipped his winesack from his shoulder and drank until it was empty. Then he started toward the tavern with the uncertain gait of a man who had drunk far too much already.

The innkeeper crouched in the courtyard, searching through the broken debris for anything salvageable. There was not much reward for his effort. He heard the sound of tankards clanking behind him and turned, shouting furiously, “Get away from that wine, you filthy bastards!” Too late he saw that the man who stood behind a charred table, pouring himself an enormous drink, was a monk. The innkeeper’s face reddened. “Sorry, Father,” he muttered.

The monk’s shocked expression faded. “God has already forgiven you, my son,” Imperius said kindly. He lifted the tankard and drained its contents before he said, “They tell me Etienne Navarre stopped by here not long ago.”

“You might say that,” the innkeeper answered sourly, thinking that word traveled fast.

“Did you happen to notice the direction he was headed in? It’s crucial I find him.”

“I’ll tell you what I noticed, Father,” the innkeeper said. “Swords, arrows, fire, and blood!” He flung a broken plate against the wall and watched it shatter.

Imperius nodded sadly and poured himself another drink. He downed the second tankard and wiped his mouth. “May God have mercy on you, and on those desperate enough to drink this wine.” He put the tankard down and staggered out of the yard toward the road. The innkeeper shook his head.

Farther up in the hills, and later in the day, an isolated farm in a weedy forest clearing also received unexpected visitors. The middle-aged couple who eked out an existence there looked up from their endless round of labors as two men on one enormous black horse rode slowly out of the trees.

The woman, sweeping a futile cloud of dust out the front door with a ragged broom, stopped and stared, wiping her brow with greasy hands. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the two men. The man in front, the one she could see clearly, looked dangerous . . . but he didn’t look poor. “Pitou! Pitou!” She ran across the yard, calling shrilly to her husband. Pitou studied the strangers from where he stood in the field beside the barn. His own eyes told him much the same story. The sickle he had been sharpening still hung in his grasp, and dark speculation filled his eyes. He ran a finger along the sickle’s razor-sharp curve until a tiny line of blood formed on its tip. He put the finger into his mouth and sucked it thoughtfully.

Phillipe glanced around the farmyard as Navarre reined in the black. The tumbledown barn, the filthy yard, the cottage with its peeling walls and rotting thatch—this was not the sort of place he had anticipated spending the night in. But any human habitation was hard to come by this far up into the hills—and he knew that Navarre was just as much a hunted man as he was now. From Navarre’s manner, and the weapons he carried, Phillipe suspected that he might have been a fugitive much longer. They had to take what they could get, for now. And besides, at this point he would gladly spend the night in hell itself just to get down off this horse.