"Stoop your shoulders a bit more, Princess. Pretend that your stepmother has been sarcastic again." Instantly Cair regretted saying that. Firstly because she looked as if she'd just been whipped, and secondly because somehow her stepmother's head was in a jar next door. Still. They had a lot to do, and little time to do it in. The hilltop had been lowered, and the thralls and trolls were heading for food. Exits would be better guarded later in their rest period—he was not really sure if it was night. He had to press on with speed now, and no one would take her for a princess in that ragged skirt and top and that posture . . . The braided hair would not pass. A piece of folded cloth made a ragged head-kerchief for her.
"Now. At the cells, I will organize the diversion. You will have to go and free the two Franks, while the warder is out of the way. All three of you will have to be out of there, and up the stairwell beyond very quickly. As soon as the warder is in, lock the door. Here is my skeleton key. Most of the trolls and thralls will be at the dining hall. We should have a clear run up the outer passages. The packs are stashed in the stables, hidden in the hay. In case something goes wrong and I cannot join you, here is a diagram showing the way. Head away from the river, as Bakrauf and the kobold raiders will come that way. If something else goes wrong before you can get out—leave the Franks. Let the trolls hunt them, while you mingle with the thralls. You have my key. You can get free."
She looked at him with big eyes. She said nothing, just nodded.
"Let's go."
Head bowed, trying to look even smaller and more unimportant than she felt, Signy walked out of the troll queen's throne chamber and down into the troll hill. Here she was—"Signy you can't do anything right," "Signy you are so clumsy you can't be trusted with anything"—with a skeleton key. His only key. A map which she couldn't read. Instructions she was terrified of having to follow. And it wasn't "Signy you can't succeed at anything." The thrall simply assumed that she would. It was a frightening and somehow uplifting belief. The little hard core of honor that was the essence of Signy Siglunddottir was determined to do it. She kept a wary watch while he set the trap rope. At his gesture she moved past the door toward noisome cells, and waited, willing herself to be invisible.
"The mockers have eased off, and so has that damned paralysis," commented Manfred.
"Which does give us a nice uninterrupted view of the torture chamber," said Erik. "I think, Manfred, that we should take the first opportunity possible to get out of here. You stand in sight at the back. I'll stand here in the shadow next to the door. If someone comes close enough I should be able to pull them close and get at their throats. We'll see if we can get the doors opened."
There was a scream from outside. "Quickly, warder, quick help!"
A moment later someone was at the door. Fumbling with it. Erik snatched and grabbed . . . a thin arm.
He was confronted by a furious face . . . he recognized.
"You idiot Frank! You've made me drop the key into the grating!" hissed Signy in perfect Frankish. "Let go. I've got to try and get it back! Cair is relying on me."
An astonished Erik watched as she ran into the torture chamber, siezed a pair of tongs intended for another, nastier purpose and with a "Thor guide me," knelt out of sight by the door. There was a tearing sound. A few moments later, she was fiddling with the door again. It swung open. "Run. Follow me," she said, dropping the torturer's tongs with a clang. It was a miracle that such a little thing could have lifted them, let alone levered open a grating with them.
Manfred picked them up as he staggered out. Heavy iron things, they must have weighed thirty pounds. They'd been intended for torturing something large. "Close the cell door," she ordered. They followed her to the open stone door. Up the passage was fire and, unless Manfred's eyes deceived him, a troll hanging by one foot, yelling and struggling. "Up the stair. This way." She hauled at them to go the opposite direction, to the stairs where the mockers had stood, just as the troll-warder managed to break free and fall with a crash to the floor of the passage. They hadn't been quick enough. He'd seen them. With a roar he charged after his escaping prisoners.
Manfred hit him with all his strength—which was considerable—with thirty pounds of long-handled iron tongs. He bent the tongs to a forty-five degree angle on the troll's head, and dropped them from his stung hands.
The troll looked puzzled. And then slowly swayed and fell over.
"Cair wants him inside the dungeon, and the door locked," said their rescuer. She was already dragging at five hundred pounds of inert troll—a shrimp hauling a whale. "Come on."
Manfred grinned and grabbed troll feet. "I thought you said she was a mousy little thing, Erik?"
"That was you," said Erik, hauling the other side. "And where is Cair, Princess?"
WOOOMPH!
A huge explosion drowned the end of his last word.
At a brisk trot, out of a fog of steam, came Cair. Steam and pandemonium seemed to be filling the air. He grabbed the troll's arm and helped to haul it the last few yards. Signy locked the door, and Cair reached into a bundle tied behind his back. "You'll run faster with these." He pulled out two pairs of boots. "See if you can get your feet into them. I stole all of them trying to find a pair big enough for you, Prince."
He cocked his head, listening. "And then we must move. We're running behind."
Manfred struggled with the boots and swollen feet. "No good, I'm afraid I won't be running at all."
"Up on my back," said Erik.
Manfred blinked. "Don't be crazy, Erik."
"Do it, Manfred," commanded Erik, "or I'll slug you and have Cair tie you there. I am sworn to defend you."
"I do have horses arranged," said Cair. "We just have to get you there. Up on his back, Prince Manfred. Rather on his back than mine."
Manfred did as he was bid. "Well, I'm lighter than I used to be," he said from his piggyback perch, grinning despite the situation.
"Not enough," panted Erik.
"We can walk once we are in the outer ring," said Cair.
"Hope it's close," grunted Erik.
It was. "I feel sorry for your horse," said Erik, setting Manfred down. "I always have, but now I . . ." Pant. "Understand it at a whole new level."
"Talk later," said Cair, beckoning them onward impatiently. "We have to get to the horses. One is a good eighteen hands at the shoulder."
They made as good a speed as possible with Manfred limping manfully up the passage. Cair led. He carried one of the crude lamps in one hand and a bottle with a wick in the other. Having had one experience with the man's homemade grenades, Manfred didn't feel he needed to meet up with them again.
"What did you do back there?" asked Erik.
"Dropped an explosive down into the water-heating system," said Cair. "They're on a hot spring and they use the steam for raising the hilltop. It won't go up anymore. Not for a long time anyway."
"He's quite mad, you know," said Manfred conversationally, to Signy.
"He's not!" she said defensively. "He's a very, very good thrall. How can you say that when he came all this way with you to get me? I didn't know that it was you in particular that he was going to rescue, or I would have told him to leave you. I'm not a witch!"
"Hush. Patrol coming this way," said Cair. "Use the key to open the door there, Princess."
Signy hastily did, and they ducked inside. It was simply a storeroom, and they waited in silence until the trolls had passed.
"With any luck they might still think it was a natural disaster," said Cair. "That's why I wanted it to look as if you might still be in your cells and in your cage, Princess. Come. This way."
He led them on into a stable. And their first encounter with a human. Cair held up a hand, saving the thrall from Erik. "Helgi. You can either come with us or I will tie you up. We're going back to the lands of men."
The thrall looked at them in terror. "Go. Me? No. Hel . . ."
Erik had his hand over the man's mouth. "You have rope?"
Cair produced some thick twine from a pocket, and they bound the wide-eyed thrall, and gagged him. "I would have thought that you'd have killed him," said Erik.
"Likewise," said Cair, digging in the hay. "Saddle up, gentlemen. Halters on the extra steeds. We're taking all of them." He turned to the bound thrall. "Best I do hit you, Helgi. Then you can say that you tried to give the alarm," and he hit him with neatly calculated force.
He handed Erik a roll of material. "Bandage the prince's feet."
Erik shook his head in amazement. "You think of everything, don't you?"
"I try," said Cair. "Life is like a complex game of chess. You can't guess quite all the moves. You will find cloaks and weapons, with the saddlebags. I have a bow for you, Princess."
A few minutes later they were leading the horses down the passage to the small portal.
And at the stone door things finally came adrift.
There was no keyhole for Cair's key-to-all-things.
"She said a word to make it close," offered Manfred, trying to remember. "Ah. Fjalarr . . . something."
"Fjalarr fleggr," supplied Erik.
"A password, probably," said Cair looking around, tapping the wall suspiciously.
"Fjalarr fleggr just means 'hide trolls,'" said Signy. "Maybe you just have to tell it what to do."
Erik shrugged. Said, "Open door."
Nothing happened.
"Maybe you have to say 'door open,' or some other way," offered Signy. "I wish it would," she said anxiously.
And the stone door creaked open.
They stared at it. Manfred recovered his wits first. "Right. Into the saddle and ride," he said, cheerfully.
Erik held up a hand. "There is bound to be a watchman . . . We got rid of the stone-troll, but there is bound to be something else."
"Right," said Cair. "I will have a look . . ."
"Let me," said Erik. "I, uh, know what to look for this time." He peered out of the doorway. "There is a troll sitting a few yards off," he said, quietly. "I'll distract him, the rest of you ride. At least it is nothing like the stone-troll."
"I'll just block the pursuit for a bit," said Cair. He produced a large clay container, which had a candle attached to the wick. The wick to the clay bomb had been inserted part way down the candle, providing a crude timer. He lit it from the lamp, and placed on the stone door lintel.
Erik looked suspiciously at it. "Let's go, gentlemen, lady. I don't trust that device. I'd rather risk a troll."
They were all mounted, and Cair leaned over so that he could reach the lamp. "I intend to toss this grenade at the troll," he said "Your horses may panic. Hold tight. On the count of three. One and two and three . . ."
And then they were out on the hill slope, urging the horses to run while the watch-troll stirred into bellowing wakefulness. Cair flung his hissing and fizzing grenade.
And then there was no need to urge the horses at all. It was a good thing that all of them were better than average riders.
He rode exceptionally well for a thrall, thought Signy. Not as well as the other two—the tall angular blond Icelandic Ritter rode as if he were an extension of the horse, and the big Frankish one had plainly spent a great deal of time in the saddle. But her thrall had a seat that a fair number of Norse nobility—and most of her half-brother's bodyguard—would have envied. He also, to her shock, had belted on a sword. A trusted thrall might get permitted a belt-knife. Indeed, she'd offered him hers, and there was no question that he'd earned it. But a sword? A fair number of people at the court would have killed him then and there, and Hel take the consequences. But, she had to admit to herself, right now she was glad to have him with her, although the sword was an affront. The Franks she'd freed had been among those who had accused her of stealing the arm-ring of Telemark. True, they were all in the same leaky boat right now.
She pulled her horse in next to Cair. "I have to ask. Who gave you permission to carry steel, Cair?"
For an instant he looked startled. Then he smiled. "It's merely a disguise, Princess. Franks have no respect for someone who doesn't carry one."
"Oh? Their thralls carry edged steel?"
"In war they even allow their serfs to fight," he explained. "A great man needs many people to die with him. Ask the Ritters. Of course I'll throw it away if you wish me to."
She looked at the two knights. Well, it was well known that the Franks were degenerate. "Very well. But you'll have to take it off when we get back among civilized people again."
He smiled. "I look forward to the day when I am among civilized people again."
Somehow she got the feeling he was laughing. He had a bad habit of doing so.
Some hours later they halted at a stream to let the horses drink. "Are they still behind us, Erik?" asked Manfred, tiredly.
Erik peered. He was worried, firstly by the situation and secondly that Manfred should sound tired. The boy had stamina. "I can't see clearly. I think so. This light doesn't make it any easier."
"There are still seventeen of them," said Signy, peering into the murky distance.
Manfred rolled his eyes and grimaced. "Don't they ever give up?"
"Not easily, anyhow," said Erik, grimly.
Cair dismounted. "We have enough of a lead to rest for a few minutes and discuss strategy. To my shame I have planned little but getting us away from that place."
"The frightening thing is I think he really means it," said Manfred. "Help me down here, Erik. I don't want to land on these feet of mine."
Erik helped him down, and Manfred began to unwind his bandages. His feet were indeed a mess. Cut, swollen, purple in places, red and yellow in others. Several of the wounds had begun to go septic and were oozing.
Signy took one look at them, and said, "Cair, do we have time to boil water?"
Cair shook his head. "No, Princess. We need to lose the pursuit first."
"Then have you got any alcohol?" she asked, stepping over to the stream and picking broad leaves, crushing them as she spoke.
Cair dug into a pack. "It was among the things I relieved those fake bears of, Princess." He hauled out a small metal flask. Opened it, and smelled it. Caraway and raw alcohol assaulted everyone's nostrils.
"Good," said Signy. "I will need it for his feet."
"I'd rather put it inside me than outside," said Manfred reaching hopefully. Signy took the flask instead, giving him a dirty look. "You are getting enough poisons in your system," she said sternly. "Look." She pointed to a red line of inflammation creeping up his leg. "You are getting blood poisoning from this. I will need clean cloths, Cair."
Erik noticed that Cair was smiling as he dug in a saddle bag. The edge of the fake thrall's worry had at least been eased. Erik was having to reassess his opinions of the man. He had, after all, rescued them. And he'd treated the thrall in the stable gently—relatively speaking. Still, something about him made Erik's bodyguard instincts prickle. "How did you get all this gear from the björnhednar, Cair?" he asked, casually.
Cair grinned evilly, as he handed a piece of fabric to the princess. "They were drunk and I locked them into the sauna. I wedged the inner door and locked the outer one. Good solid doors. When—or if—they get out, they won't be doing anything for a long time."
Saunas were very popular in Iceland. Some even made use of steam from natural vents. "I . . . don't think I want you as an enemy, Cair," said Erik, blanching.
"What are you doing, woman?" asked Manfred warily, and not without reason. She had slipped a very workmanlike dagger from her sleeve, and was wiping it with alcohol.
"I need to open those cuts up, and clean them out. This will hurt," she said with perfect equanimity. "Keep still."
Manfred looked warily at the knife. "Uh. Can't you just use magic?"
Signy pointed the knife at him. "I am not a witch. I wish I could do any magic! Do you think that I would need my thrall to come and rescue me if I was a witch? You're a fool. I would have used magic to drive you all away, if I had had any. I would have made you into a mouse for insulting me. I wish we'd left you for the troll-queen to give to Jagellion. Now hold still. Try and behave like a man."
"She's the best horse-doctor at Kingshall, Prince Manfred," said Cair, his lips twitching.
She looked up at him. "Maybe you'd better cut, Cair." She frowned fiercely at Manfred. "He may be a thrall, but he has good steady hands. He sees better than I do. And I trust him with my horses." It was apparent from her tone that no higher compliment could be paid.
Erik mulled over this outburst as Cair opened several infected cuts as neatly as any surgeon, or the Emperor's new carving steward, de Massibugo. Signy washed them out with the caraway-scented firewater, and then put the crumpled coltsfoot leaves on Manfred's feet. "We will have to rebandage them with the same bandages, Princess," said Cair. Obviously that would not have been acceptable for one of her horses.
She wrinkled her nose and squinted at them. Shrugged. "It will just have to do, Cair. We'll boil and wash them at the first chance we get. I want to see if I can find some black snakeroot to bathe those feet in, too."
Cair was a proficient bandager, as well as his other accomplishments. Erik noted that the delay had let the pursuing trolls get closer. And she was right. There were seventeen of them.
Manfred stood up gingerly. He bowed to her as she cleaned her knife and slipped it back into her sleeve-sheath with un-princess-like proficiency. "Princess. I owe you my thanks," he said formally, and respectfully. "They feel, well, not too good, but better than they did before. My gratitude to you and your man. I apologize for some of my remarks. You've shamed me. I said things in jest that weren't funny. We thought you were a quiet woman. A mouse. I was wrong." He smiled. "You'll pardon my saying so, but you're more like a lion than a mouse. You might have wanted to leave us behind, but I'd rather have a physician and courageous lady like you with us than half a dozen knights. I was mistaken. I apologize."
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.
"Well, at least you are thinking. I wondered if you could," said Erik. "Breaking through a flank is always risky, though."
"As I learned off Naples," said Cair, wryly. "Sometimes it is better to come back through the middle."
The next two days on the run proved that the worst fears of the fugitives were correct. There were now some eighty foes harrying them and they were definitely trying to head them off from the forest that was now visible on the horizon. They'd managed to cut some lances for Manfred and Erik, but Cair had contrived himself a troll club—a heavy chunk of basalt bound into a four-foot pole. "If Manfred can club one unconscious, but Erik cannot effectively stab one, I'll leave knocking them over to you knights and settle for hitting them on the head. Preferably from behind."
Manfred had taken a good look at the "club." "Well, I like it—but I think I'll make me something heavier. What I'd like is something more like a miner's mattock."
"That looks like the perfect piece of basalt for the job." Cair had pointed out a long triangular piece, among the fragments they'd stopped next to, It weighed perhaps twelve pounds, three times the size of his own rock. "For someone of your more delicate build, eh?"
Manfred weighed in one hand. Nodded. "Give me a hand with binding it, will you? I tried doing this when I was a gossoon. Thought I'd make me a stone axe. It was a dismal failure."
Cair had cheerfully helped him bind it with neat lashings. Erik was struck by how quick and precise the man was with his hands. If he'd been an assassin, he'd missed a good career as a jeweler, or perhaps a silversmith. But if he was an assassin, he was a well-born one, even if he did not ride like a knight.
By the end of the second day they'd lost one of the led horses in a close encounter, and it looked as if the trolls were going to succeed in encircling them. It seemed that the trolls could go without rest a lot longer than either horses or humans could. Their food for the horses was getting low too. It had grown steadily colder as they'd fled. Little patches of snow lay in the lee edges of rocks, and the larger tussocks here.
"They're going to close on us soon," said Erik, tiredly. "We'll have to try to push out of the gap."
"I suspect that's what they want us to do," said Cair. Erik had found days on the run together had given him more respect for the man. He wasn't nearly as good a rider as Manfred or Signy, who almost seemed to will her horses to obey and adore her. By ordinary standards he was a fair rider, but in this group he was the weakest. However, he made no allowances for this, replacing skill with determination. The only thing in which he exceeded that determination was in straight, pragmatic common sense—and the cunning of . . . well, it was more than a fox. More like a lynx. Erik waited for him to offer his idea. Cair was looking back, plainly thinking.
The land had risen in some low folds with the hills running down toward the forest, with some trees extending from the valleys. They were on a ridge, and could see the files of trolls on either side. "I think we need to go back down there, and then make for the higher hills." The forest lay to their right, and the hills to the left.
"How?" asked Erik, thoughtfully. "Night-proper doesn't seem to fall here. I'd say that what we need is some sort of cover, mist, darkness . . ."
"What about smoke?" suggested Signy.
Erik and Cair found themselves nodding in unison. They'd been cursing the cold wind that took their scent back to the trolls. "It's the best we can achieve, I suppose. It won't be a hot enough fire to kill them. Let's send it back on them and follow behind it. They'll assume we're running on, and will presumably try to get ahead."
Soon the flames were licking at uprooted dead bushes, and Erik was proving what a master horseman he actually was, riding with a burning brand while controlling a restive, rolling-eyed horse well enough to lean down and touch fire to the dry grass. Only Signy felt even vaguely capable of trying it on the other side. Manfred held the horses—to spare his feet—while Cair lit fires on foot. It was not the kind of fire steppe or prairie folk use for herding game; it was far too inclined to go out, and much more smoky. But with brands to relight it and with the wind spurring it into occasional towers of flame in little patches of dry birch, they chased fire before them, back onto the center of the line of troll pursuit, with heavy smoke.
And then it all went wrong.
The first Cair knew of it was a flurry of snowflakes against his bare neck. The sky had been heavy and gray. Now—specifically where they were—it was snowing. Big wet flakes. Blizzardlike. "Hell's teeth. Nothing will burn in this," yelled Manfred.
"It'll just have to do as cover instead," said Erik.
It was doing a better job than the smoke would have. They rode on, keeping together as the stuff drifted down thick and fast. They had barely a mile to cover before they expected to encounter the skirmish line, but Cair thought that they'd be bogged down in the snow before then. He knew little of snow, except that he was sure he didn't like it. Erik and Signy knew snow well, however. "This isn't natural," said the Icelander.
"Bakrauf," said Signy. "She can control weather with her magic."
Cair shivered. "I don't know about magic, but at least it should hide us from the trolls."
"Not likely, friend," said Erik grimly. "They hunt by scent."
"And they love ice and snow," put in Signy.
"They're welcome to it," said Manfred.
As he said this they blundered into a little gully, full of birches, snow, and trolls.
The trolls were just as surprised as they were, but as they'd been riding virtually parallel with the gully, some of the trolls in it were effectively behind them.
"Ride," yelled Erik, spurring his horse, dropping the point of the makeshift lance. There wasn't a lot of time for his horse build momentum, but Erik still hit the troll on the shoulder, and spun and dropped it. The lance shivered and he tossed it aside. Manfred, just behind him, had a clear run.
Signy turned to yell at Cair. Her horse chose that moment to stumble. She was half turned when its right fore struck some snow-hidden obstacle. Off balance, she was catapulted from the saddle.
"Erik!" bellowed Manfred, struggling to turn his horse. He dropped the rein of the led horses and the two of them rode back, to see Cair piling off his horse, running to Signy as she lay on the ground. He had her in his arms.
"She's stunned," he yelled. "Take her." Erik was there moments before Manfred . . . and two trolls. He hauled the landed-fish gasping princess up over the pommel, as Manfred hit one of the trolls with his lance. He didn't have Erik's momentum. The troll staggered but did not go down. Erik reached for his sword . . . and saw Cair slap the rump of his horse. Trolls frightened horses enough. An extra slap they did not need. "Take her away!" As he struggled to control his steed, Erik saw Manfred, his horse rearing, swing his makeshift troll club at the second of the trolls—which was making a grab at Cair.
The horse and the club came down together, as Cair dodged back and fell over a broken birch in the snow.
Manfred's club shattered. So did half the troll's skull.
And it fell like a great tree, onto the man on the ground.
Cair's last yell was, "Ride!"
He disappeared under what must have been at least a ton of troll.
Across the saddle bow, Signy gave a weak gasp and struggled. Erik held her fast and yelled, "Retreat! There are more of them coming."
Signy fought for breath. Fought for freedom. Found herself pinioned by a strong arm. She'd had all the breath knocked out of her by the fall. And hit her head on something too. Even her distant vision was blurred right now.
Cair hadn't so much dismounted after she'd fallen, as thrown himself off his horse and run unheeding past a troll to get to her. As she tried to draw breath and sit up, her thrall had seemed as tall as Vortenbras. He'd seemed even stronger than her hated half-brother when he had picked her up. She'd felt her fingers close instinctively on his jerkin. And then he thrust her away, upward, letting her be hauled over a pommel.
The horse whinnied and bucked, driving what little air she had in her lungs out again. As the horse turned, she saw Cair, with the sword she'd been shocked to see him carry, lunging at a troll five times his size, yelling at Erik to take her to safety. And Manfred, swinging that huge club, hit the troll. It was bending forward, snatching at Cair. The blow saved Cair . . .
And killed him.
She saw Cair stumble and go down, as the huge mass of troll slowly fell.
Desperately, she willed that he would somehow get free. He must. He must!
With a terrible, unreal seeming slowness, she saw how snow and broken tree fragments sprayed up around the fallen troll, as it landed on top of Cair. Somehow she managed to scream, although it sounded more like a pitiful mew.
She must have fainted, because when she next knew what was happening, she was sitting on a rock, with her head between her knees.
She sat up. Manfred, sword in hand was standing watchfully next to her. "Erik has gone after the rest of the horses. They ran when we did. We're going to have to ride. The trolls are behind us still."
Somehow she couldn't bring herself to care very much. Erik reappeared leading her own horse, Cair's, and one of the spare mounts. "Are you fit to mount up, Princess? They're coming fast."
Manfred tossed her up into the saddle, and, because she did not know what else to do, they rode, switchbacking up the steep hill.
Her mind kept recreating the scene where the troll fell on her loyal man.
Cair had kept a cool head through nearly everything life had ever thrown at him. Now, he panicked.
The broken saplings he'd fallen over had cracked and shattered as the weight of the troll descended onto them and then onto him, pressing him into a snow grave.
He was going to die, drowned, not in the sea, but in frozen water, trapped under the body of his foe.
She looked back at the files of trolls following them. The hills were deceptive, more like steps than hills, leading ever higher. They'd gained enough distance to be able to pause, to take stock.
"He was a good thrall," she said quietly.
Erik felt as if he was a geyser finally blowing. He hadn't realized how much it had been bothering him, and, he had to admit how guilty he felt about misjudging the man. He turned on her, his voice icy. "Princess Signy, you are very astute in some ways. You're good with simples, great with animals. But you don't know people very well, do you? Someone put a thrall-brand on that man. That doesn't make a man a thrall. Not that man, anyway. The only way he would ever have been a thrall was by choice. He chose to serve you. He also chose to die for you."
She was as white as a ghost—but sat stiff in the saddle. Her chin went up as he spoke. "What else could a good thrall do? He was my thrall. A thrall must follow."
Manfred turned in the saddle and looked at her. This was not Manfred the spoiled boy-knight, or the Manfred who had emerged from Venice, older and wiser. This was Manfred the prince who one day would give both judgment and justice. "No. That one was no follower, ever, Princess. I misjudged him. Erik misjudged him. And he let you misjudge him, because he believed that it would be easier for you. You were wrong about how he got here. He, on his own, went looking for you. And we followed him."
"He came looking for me, alone?" Now Signy looked taken aback. Erik realized that this was alien to her small Norse world. A thrall could not do that. Not without a freeman ordering it.
Erik nodded. "He said to me that you had lost everything, that at least you would have a loyal thrall. He chose that because he wanted you to be happy. Or at least not too unhappy. I think he loved you very much."
Now she had lost her earlier rigidity. Actually, she looked as if she might fall out of the saddle. But Erik was not in any mood to relent. Not when she said, "But I am a princess of the Royal House of Telemark. He was a thrall."
Erik looked at her in silence for a long moment before he spoke. "Princess," he said, "if you were captured on Viking and held for ransom, how many ducats do you think that your captors would ask for your release? What blot-price for a royal princess?"
She shrugged. "Perhaps a hundred thousand ducats."
Erik smiled wryly. "An acceptable ransom. Now ask Manfred what his uncle would have paid for the head of Cair Aidin?"
Manfred gaped. "What! Is that who he was? A sailor from Lesbos! Huh. Talk about barefaced gall! No wonder he got away with blue murder! When did you figure this out, Erik?"
"At the last. That comment about Naples. That's exactly what he did when the Genovese and the Duke of Naples thought they had him on the run. Remember, the old Fox of Ferrara was lecturing you about it while we waited for Sforza. But I've been suspicious for a while. Can you imagine what a prize you were to him?"
Manfred shook his head incredulously. "Princess. Your thrall's head—not attached to his body—would have brought you a cool half a million ducats. And the same again from Venice. Lesser amounts from the Genovese, and I know Aquitaine had a price on his head, too. His brother Aruj might have paid even more for him, alive."
Signy looked puzzled and hurt. And doubtful too. "If he was a noble, then why did he not have his brother ransom him? Who is 'Cair Aidin' anyway?"
"One of the Redbeards," explained Manfred. When that plainly meant absolutely nothing to her he went on. "The brother-captains of the Barbary corsairs. And that is why he could not let himself be ransomed. The Empire and every nation which owns ships on the Mediterranean would pay for the most notorious pirate and raider of the western Mediterranean, dead."
"You mean he was a raider chieftain?" She looked stunned.
Of course such a man would be much respected by the Norse, Erik realized. "I suppose so," he said. "He and his brother also effectively ruled an area the size of about half of all the Norse kingdoms in North Africa."
Signy shook her head again. "But he allowed himself to be branded as a thrall! He worked in my stable."
Manfred pulled a wry face. "He worked in Bakrauf's stable, too. And look what he did to her. She couldn't hold him prisoner. If he worked in your stable—he stayed by choice."
"He was always very good to the horses," she said in a small voice.
Erik suddenly realized that in her odd, terribly limited world, that was as high a praise as she had ever given anyone. Perhaps, as she ever could.
She continued in that odd little wooden voice. "He always said kind things to me. He made me believe that I could do things. My stepmother always made me believe I couldn't." Her chin quivered. "He made me laugh."
This childlike princess had always been emotionally deprived of any real affection, or praise. No wonder she looked so gauche when Manfred had thanked her. "He was a good man," said Manfred awkwardly.
"No, he wasn't," said Erik, regretting his earlier harshness. This child-princess could hardly help her upbringing. At least he understood it. With his own background he had a far better idea of what this Norse ice-maiden would value. "They called him the Lynx of the Sea. I've heard any number of stories. He'd trick his foes, out-think them, arrive when he was not expected. He was the greatest of raiders. The cleverest and best. But the only person he ever was 'good' for, was you, Princess. Remember him with honor."
"You will tell me all the stories," she said turning to Erik, fiercely. "I will find the greatest skalds to have him made immortal. Tell me his whole name again."
"Cair Aidin."
"I had been hoping I could avoid you discovering that, Erik Hakkonsen," said the man himself, hauling his weight up onto the ledge.
"Cair! But we thought you were dead!" exclaimed Manfred, the only one of them not too stunned to speak.
"You were mistaken, but only just." He grinned crookedly. "Just as well, eh? The Emperor will actually want to see my head before he pays for it."
He looked at Signy, who was sitting as if frozen on her horse, looking straight ahead. "What is wrong, Princess?" he asked, gently.
"You're dead. I saw you die. This is just your fulgyr. I will not look at it."
"No, I'm alive, truly, Princess." Cair grinned. "You never gave your thrall permission to die."
Her reaction was to bury her head in her hands.
"Hell's teeth," said Manfred, peering over the rock lip. "Look, the trolls are on their way up here. But I still want to know: how did you get away this time, Cair?"
Cair mounted his horse. "I'll tell you as we ride," he said. "I'm very glad to see you have my horse for me. I abandoned one of the spares back down there when I saw that I could save a lot of time by coming straight up the rock band. Besides I'd never have gotten the horse past them. Fortunately for me, you were very visible from below."
Looking back, it was apparent that the entire force that had set off to raid the kobolds was now hot on their heels. This trail had no side branches or possible escapes on it. If it didn't open up—and it showed no sign of doing so—the trolls would capture them soon. The end seemed very near, short of any more miracles. It didn't stop Signy both refusing to look Cair in the eye, and yet constantly checking to see that he was in the saddle, while he explained.
"The troll fell on top of me, all right. Had we been on rock or even sand, I'd have been as flat as a grease spot. But there was a thick snow drift in the gully. The troll pushed me flat into it."
He laughed. "To think I should be grateful for snow. The troll was a lot wider than I was. A lot wider and a lot bigger—and snow must have supported more of its weight than it did of mine.I must admit that I panicked. One lungful of air wasn't going to get me out. I was scrabbling when I hit a tree branch. Skinned my hand—but the branch wiggled. I pulled it. It hit me in the face . . . and there was a hole. I could breathe and I could hear. And what I could hear was enough to make me lie still and breathe. Bakrauf caught up with the ones that had nearly caught us, and she was spitting nails. All I had to do was wait in the snow and dig my way out once they had passed. I found one of the horses and set off after the trolls, and you. And then I saw a way of climbing straight up and avoiding the trolls and getting to you. Very unheroic," he said matter-of-factly.
Erik couldn't believe it. Nothing short of magic and heroism could have got Cair Aidin out of that one. Erik had little doubt both had been called into account.
* * *j
The trail had become narrower and steeper. They'd ended up dismounting on sections of it which were little more than a scramble up a rock slide. Yet it was obvious, despite this, that the trail was a well-traveled one and that the trolls were pressing hard to catch them. The trail was hemmed with cliffs, and to continue on was the only option.
Eventually the trail did arrive at an end point—a hundred-yard-long valley ending against a sheer rock wall of gray-black basalt. It was several hundred feet high, smooth and sheer, and stretched above the rim of the valley as far as the eye could see in either direction. It didn't look climbable . . . It looked as if even birds might turn around and go the other way.
"And now?" asked Manfred
"The trail leads somewhere."
"I suppose we may as well follow it."
The trail did lead somewhere. It led to the rock wall. It stopped there, as there was nowhere further to go. The trolls were coming on now at a flat run.
"All right. Let's at least go down fighting," said Manfred, drawing his sword.
Erik did likewise.
"I lost mine," said Cair
Signy said nothing. She just held her knife out to him.
"I take it with pride, Princess."
She bit her lip and nodded. Took her bow and set an arrow to the string. Picked a mark.
And the rush halted. And then . . .
"They're backing off," said Signy incredulously. "I don't believe it!"
"I can only think of one possible reason," said Erik, grimly, looking at the basalt cliffs. He'd swear that a part of it had moved . . . it was almost as if an eye had blinked. But if Erik hadn't been looking just there, just then, he would never have seen it. Whatever it was that lay sleeping inside that rock, you surely didn't ever want it to wake up.
Then Erik realized that they were also being watched by a small man, leaning against the cliff. He was swarthy skinned and with a black curly head of hair and a large beard, almost as broad as his wide chest. The look of unholy amusement in his dark eyes was alarming, to put it mildly.
So what had made the trolls back off? The eye in the endless line of serpentine basalt cliff—or this dwarf?
"Three humans and a throwback halfling," drawled the dwarf. "My. What a fascinating gift." He cocked his head inquiringly. "Or are you perhaps not a gift from the troll-people?"
"No," said Cair. "We're just passing through."
The black dwarf seemed to find that very funny. Behind him a black stone doorway swung open.