The Escapement Read online

  But the fourth shot, though not perfect, was close enough; it hit the forehead just under the rim of the helmet, slightly gashing the steel (but two minutes with a file and a bit of brick would see to that) before the taper of the arrow blade fed it into the skull. Job done.

  Now, of course, the panic started. First, catch and secure the horse. Mercifully it held still and let him grab the reins; he found a heavy stone, wrapped the reins round it three times and put it on the ground. Next, strip the first body, because the second was going to be miserably complicated by the dead horse, and he might have to abandon it and run if he caught sight of anyone coming on the road. Boots first; he had the knack of the twist and jerk that frees a boot easily from a dead man’s foot. Next the helmet (damaged strap; easy to replace), then the mailshirt. A bit like skinning a deer; you start at the knees and work it up over the neck (a foot on the chest helps with leverage) before the final tug to free the sleeves from the elbows, taking care not to fall over backwards when it finally comes away. Similar procedure for the padded arming doublet: trousers just a straight pull, after you’ve lifted the body and put a big stone under the small of the back. One ring, bronze, on the left hand. Then the trousers go inside the helmet, which rolls up inside the arming doublet, which in turn rolls up in the mailshirt, secure into a bundle with the belt, which forms a handy carrying strap. Load it on to the horse, along with the sword, bow, quiver, spear and shield. Everything else is waste; leave it for the crows and foxes to clear up for you.

  Number two was going to be a real pain. At first he thought he was going to have to saw the arrow out of the skull, but miraculously it came away on the third tug, without even breaking the shaft. It was a good arrow, numbered seven out of the original sheaf of twelve. He wiped it on the grass, and turned his attention to the problem of shifting the dead horse off the body. Just grabbing a leg and hauling didn’t get him anywhere, and he gave up when his back started to give notice. Then he realised he was being stupid. He stripped off the dead horse’s bridle, unbuckled the reins, tied them together. Not long enough. After a minute of painful indecision, he decided to risk it and took the living horse’s reins off as well. Just as well the horse was docile and good-natured; it stayed where it was, happily munching the coarse, fat river bank grass as he tied one end of the improvised rope to its girth. Then he led it by its throatstrap over to where the dead horse lay, and tied the other end to the outstretched back nearside hoof.

  Problem solved, but it all took time; as did putting the reins back on the good horse and securing them with a stone, as before. When you’re in a hurry, of course, inanimate objects start picking on you. The mailshirt simply didn’t want to come, and he ended up having to cut the laces at the neck. By the time he’d wrestled off the arming doublet he was starting to get uncomfortably nervous, so he decided to abandon the dead horse’s saddle (damaged, anyway) Then, just to be awkward, the piled-up stuff wouldn’t sit right on the horse. He’d only gone five yards when half of it slithered off on to the ground, which meant unloading the whole lot and stowing it all again, this time using the spare reins and the uncut mailshirt laces to tie it down.

  With all the delays, no wonder it was pitch dark by the time he got home. He led the horse into the stable, took off the bundled gear, dumped it in the feed bin and covered it over with hay, not that that was going to fool anybody if they came looking; then unsaddled, hid the harness, gave the horse its hay net and bucket of water, stuck his bow and quiver up in the rafters and stomped back through the muddy yard to the house.

  As he opened the door, she called out, “Miel, is that you?”

  “For crying out loud,” he sighed. “Who else would it be?”

  “Any luck?”

  Her choice of words made him smile. Fifteen years ago, his mother always asked him the same question when he came back from the hunt, exhausted, his clothes ruined, usually dripping blood from some alarming-looking cut or other. What she meant was, “Did anybody die, have you been disfigured or maimed for life, am I going to have to think up endless ways for the kitchens to deal with mountains of perishable dead animals and birds, and do try not to track blood across the carpets.” The same words; but now they meant, you’d better have got something this time, or I don’t know what we’re going to do.

  “Yes,” he said, stepping out of his boots and checking them for splashes of blood. “Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.”

  “Not unless you brought it with you.”

  Good point. He hadn’t checked the saddlebags. “Just a moment,” he called out, and squirmed his feet back into his boots. Easier to get a dead foot out of a boot than a living foot into it.

  It was noticeably darker now, and he had to grope around in the feed bin till he found a saddle. A quick fumble with the saddlebag straps. Yes!

  Back in the house, in the light, he examined his trophy. Oh well, he thought, better than nothing. By all accounts the savages thrived on it.

  “Well?” she said.

  She had a blanket, Vadani military issue, over her shoulders, her hair tucked in under it. Her eyes were red from the smoke of the peat-fed fire and its thoroughly inadequate chimney. She couldn’t understand why he kept making excuses instead of fixing it. He was ashamed to admit he was scared to death of fooling about up ladders.

  “Cheese and smoked meat,” he said cheerfully. A sort of truth.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Oh,” she said. “The savages again.”

  Of course she had every right to complain. Mares’-milk cheese and wind-cured smoked horsemeat; you wouldn’t feed it to a dog, and if you did, the dog would just look at you. But it was the way she said it, and the look on her face. “I can’t help it,” he snapped (the Ducas is always courteous and polite, especially to ladies). “I was lucky to find anything at all, and even luckier to get away with it. I can’t just send a runner down to the market and tell them to send me up a colonel’s wife and a couple of merchants.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, meaning the exact opposite. “Get any horses?”

  “One.”

  She didn’t sniff, but the effort cost her dear. “It’s not branded, is it? You did check.”

  Of course he hadn’t, and he should have. The savages branded their horses, quite a complex vocabulary of dots, dashes and squiggles. Nobody would dare buy a branded horse, not even for the bones and hide. “I didn’t have time,” he replied lamely. “It wasn’t exactly straightforward.”

  Her expression told him she was in no mood for hunting stories. Needless to say, Cousin Jarnac wouldn’t have taken any notice. If he really wanted to tell you, nothing short of feigning a stroke would get you off the hook. “Oh well,” she said. “We’ll get something for the boots, at any rate.”

  They ate the mares’ cheese and horsemeat in solemn silence, apart from the grimly resigned sound of chewing. One good thing about horse jerky: it left the jaws too weary for talking afterwards. When he went out to fetch more fuel for the fire, he noticed the peat stack was getting low again. Another of his favourite jobs to look forward to.

  That night, in bed, she said: “We can’t go on like this much longer.”

  He’d be hard put to it to disagree with that, on several levels. “Got any better ideas?”

  She appeared not to have heard him. “It’s five days before the buyer’s due back again, assuming he’s still coming. He said last time it wasn’t really worth his while coming out this far.”

  “That’s just bargaining talk.”

  “And quite apart from that, there’s the risk. He said he can talk his way round Eremians, and Vadani take bribes, but if he gets stopped by the savages, he doesn’t want to think what’d happen. And fairly soon, of course, the war’s going to start up again and then the market’ll be flooded. And if it’s true the Cure Doce have sided with the Mezentines, will their buyers still be able to cross the border? And if they close off the Lonazep road—”

  “All right,” Miel grunted, “you’ve made your
point. There’s no future in it, I entirely agree. But what the hell else am I supposed to do?”

  “I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying.” That flat tone of voice, more corrosive than any reproaches. “We aren’t making ends meet now, and it’s only going to get worse. That’s all.”

  “I’m not doing this because I enjoy it, you know. It’s bloody hard work, and most of the time I’m scared out of my wits. I’d love to do something else, it’s just that there isn’t anything. Well, is there?”

  Silence. If such a thing were possible, her silences were worse than anything she could find to say. Well, fine, he thought. If that’s the end of the discussion, I’ll go to sleep now.

  “By the way,” she said, “I think I’m pregnant.”

  The Ducas is always positive, upbeat and optimistic. Even when he has personal misgivings, he’s under an obligation to uphold the morale of those around him and put the best possible interpretation on any given turn of events.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not yet.” A slight sharpening of the voice, as she added: “But I thought I’d better let you know there’s a distinct possibility. Just in case you give a damn.”

  The Ducas is always positive; the Ducas is always courteous; the Ducas is always considerate of the feelings of his household and inferiors. “Of course I give a damn,” he snapped. “It’s just… well, I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

  “Really?” Now it was a voice he could’ve shaved with. “You surprise me. I’d have thought at some point someone would’ve briefed you on where little aristocrats come from. I thought it was such a big deal, ensuring the succession.”

  Mere vulgar chiding; he was under no obligation to reply to that. He lay still in the dark, trying to think. Correction: trying to care.

  “We could go to the Vadani,” she said.

  He was too tired to be angry. “No we can’t.”

  “We can. It’s the only—”

  “For crying out loud, they were going to kill us.”

  Patient sigh. He found her patience almost unendurable. “First, they won’t remember me. Second, things are different now. The duke’s married her.” Pause. “Your girlfriend.”

  “She was never—”

  “You were going to marry her. You were best friends when you were kids. You got arrested because you hid that letter, for her sake. She’s not going to let him have you killed.” Another pause. Perfect timing, like a great actor. “We’d be safe,” she said. “You wouldn’t have to stay with me if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s not like that, of course I want to stay with you, that’s not the point…”

  She ignored him. “If we stay out here, we’re going to starve to death. Or one day a soldier’s going to kill you, instead of the other way round. Or the savages will catch us with a branded horse. There’s loads of ways it could all go wrong. But if we go to Duke Valens, at the very least he’ll feed us, he’ll give us a place to sleep, even if it’s in a prison. It’s got to be better.”

  He felt like he was choking on feathers. “I can’t go to the Vadani,” he said. “For God’s sake, I’ve been murdering their soldiers for the last four months.”

  “They don’t know that.”

  “Maybe not, but what if one of the buyers shows up and recognises me? I don’t suppose Duke Valens is going to be very impressed, do you?”

  “That’s hardly likely, is it?” He felt her move beside him. “And even if it did happen, she could protect you. She could, I’m sure of it. Think about it, will you? He had her husband killed, that’s got to be a really serious issue between them. You were her husband’s best friend, you and she were going to get married, it was because of that bloody letter he wrote that you nearly got killed then. If you deny it, say you never killed any soldiers and it’s all a mistake, he’ll have to pretend to believe you, for her sake.” Even in the dark, he could feel her tears coming. When she started crying, all he wanted to do was hit her. “If you’re going to let your stupid pride stand between us and our only chance of staying alive…”

  “All right,” he said. “All right, I’ll think about it.”

  “I know what that means. It means no.”

  “No it doesn’t. I’ll think about it. There may be another way, something else we could—”

  “No there isn’t. You said there isn’t. You said so yourself.”

  “For pity’s sake,” he groaned, “have we got to do this now, when I’m completely exhausted? You always do this, start on me when I’ve had enough, when I’m too tired to think.”

  She laughed. “The only time I ever see you is when you’re worn out,” she said. “The rest of the time you’re out, hunting soldiers. God almighty,” she added, “will you just listen to that? Out hunting soldiers, what a bloody ridiculous way to make a living. All right, my husband used to go round battlefields robbing bodies, but at least they were already dead. And look what happened. They caught him and cut his head off for it. You’re killing live soldiers just to get their boots, and you’re saying we can’t go to the Vadani because it’s too dangerous.”

  Tears any second now; anything rather than that. “You don’t understand,” he said. “It’s…”

  “It’s what? Well? Are you going to try and tell me you’re scared? Like, more scared than picking off soldiers, two, three, four against one? No, it’s that bloody pride of yours, the whole idiotic Ducas thing. You’d rather be lynched as a highwayman than dishonoured as an aristocrat. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Well, of course, he thought. Of course it is, and if you weren’t a stupid, ignorant low-class woman you’d understand that; because if a soldier kills me or I’m caught and hanged, all they kill is a body. But if I go to Veatriz like you want me to, it’s the real me that’ll die; the real me that you could never possibly hope to understand.

  And, of course; in the last resort, where necessary, it’s the duty of the Ducas to die for his people; his household, his inferiors. People like you.

  “Fine,” he said. “If that’s what you want, we’ll go to Duke Valens. Just don’t…”

  Pause. “Don’t what?”

  He sighed. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll do it because…” He couldn’t think of a reason, not one he could say out loud. “Because of the baby. Because I love you.”

  Silence; then she said, “I love you too.”

  Yet another attack on a routine patrol, the third in as many weeks; it couldn’t be allowed to continue, the Aram Chantat liaison insisted, something had to be done about it, particularly since the insurgents had once again singled out Aram Chantat rather than Vadani as their targets. Examination of the bodies suggested the work of a band or bands of light, mobile snipers. It was well known that the Cure Doce trained as archers and hunted extensively with the bow. Most likely this was their way of striking back after the destruction of their sneak attack on the allied camp. At the moment it was only a nuisance, but it had to be stopped before it escalated into a significant annoyance. The liaison also felt constrained to point out that by sparing and releasing on parole the prisoners taken during the night attack, the duke would appear to have given the Cure Doce an unfortunate impression of leniency bordering on weakness.

  Duke Valens replied that he accepted the points so ably raised by the liaison, and in the circumstances he felt it appropriate that the Aram Chantat should take such action as they saw fit. There was no need to keep him informed. He had every confidence in their capabilities.

  The very next day, therefore, a squadron of Aram Chantat (ten lancers and thirty mounted archers) crossed the river at dawn and rode over the crest of the moor into Cure Doce territory. Reports said that the villages nearest the border had been abandoned after the night raid as a precaution, but a substantial farm only twelve miles from the river was still occupied.

  Following the scouts’ directions, the squadron’s two outriders picked up t
he farm track where it left the road, until the ground levelled out and they were in danger of being seen. Taking their bearings from the helpful column of chimney smoke that rose calmly into the still morning air, they drew a wide circle under the lip of the surrounding hills, in doing so encountering a substantial brook which they assumed to be the farm’s water supply. This brook ran down through a deep, narrow combe, lightly wooded with rowan, ash and willow coppice, showing signs of carefully managed cutting. Venturing a little way down the combe, the outriders decided that it would afford the necessary cover for the approach, and reported back to their captain, who agreed.

  The outriders’ assessment proved to be correct. With the smoke column to guide them, the squadron followed the brook down, satisfied that they were adequately concealed and would therefore have the element of surprise. When they eventually cleared the coppice, they found themselves barely two hundred yards from the fences of the home pastures, with the farm buildings directly ahead of them.

  The captain made his dispositions quickly, sending five archers out on each flank to encircle the building and act as stops. He deployed the remaining twenty archers to ring the pastures and work inwards, and himself led the lancers in a dash for the main yard around which the buildings were grouped.

  The plan worked efficiently. Four hours after dawn, the farm inhabitants had finished the early chores and gone indoors for breakfast. The alarm was, therefore, only raised when the lancers rode into the yard. Four men dismounted and broke into the smallest of the three houses whose chimneys were smoking. They killed the people they found there, two men, five women and a boy, lit torches from the hearth and came back outside. The screams drew out the remaining inhabitants, of whom approximately half were immediately cut down, the rest running out into the pastures or heading for barns and outbuildings. As soon as the firing party had remounted, the lancers set about kindling the thatches, by which time the twenty archers of the inner encirclement had drawn the pastures and arrived in time to shoot down the fugitives trying to escape in the open. The rest either were shot as they tried to flee the burning buildings, or perished in the flames. Fifty-seven bodies were recovered, twenty-five males and thirty-two females, with an estimated twelve additional males burnt in the buildings. Aram Chantat casualties were limited to one arrow wound, superficial, friendly fire, and a small number of inconsequential burns and bruises.