‘Sorry. He looks younger than you, my lord. Um, I mean younger than both of us.’
‘Anyone treating him as if he’s twenty-three comes to grief. He knew my great-grandfather; he comes from the era when the Tanagers were on the throne . . . Yes, it makes me shudder too. As Phalarope once said, death defines humanity. If the Eszai aren’t human I wonder what they’ve become . . .’
‘Who’s Phalarope?’
I sighed. I wished this picayune picaroon had read something,
anything
; his ignorance cramped my style. ‘Phalarope was a philosopher. ’
He tapped one nugget on another. ‘I never thought I’d see an Eszai in the flesh . . . Once, when I was at school, my lord, a circus troupe drove by the yard. A train of wagons, one after another . . . I remember it well. They were yellow and blue, and an Eszai was painted all gaudily on the side of each one: the Strongman, the Swordsman, the Messenger. They were in the circus. Not the real Eszai, of course. Performers dressed up.’
‘The Castle
is
rather like a circus,’ I said.
‘Dame Goslin said if we behaved ourselves she’d take us to see them. So we were ’specially quiet all week and on Sunday she trooped us out to the big top - we got to sit high up, on the back row. But the “Eszai” weren’t very good, looking back. They were a bit crap. The Messenger was a trapeze artist. And check this out: it was a girl.’
I laughed.
‘A girl in jeans and a T-shirt. They got that right.’
‘And was she a good likeness?’
‘Perfect. Except her tits were much too big.’ Snipe chuckled and returned to weighing silver. Behind the money bags, he looked like the hunchback Gog out of
The Miser King
. ‘How much silver have we obtained this week?’ I asked.
‘Nearly seven kilos, my lord.’
‘Excellent.’
He poured some more fetid juniper-berry coffee. ‘I wish I could think of a way to make cat-eyes work faster. The sooner we leave this place the better.’
‘Ha - it won’t be long now! Send the profit from this batch to Francolin.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes. It’s the last he will receive from here. Next time it will be from the royal treasury.’
‘But, my lord—’
‘No buts.’
‘It’d be all right if these snow-brained ’danne actually
brought
silver half the time,’ he complained. ‘They’re too dumb to tell the difference between metal and any other shiny rock.’ In one hand he picked up a chunk of steely crystals chipped from granite and in the other a heavy block of cubes, which all adjoined each other. ‘She brought me magnetite instead of silver and iron pyrites instead of gold.’
‘Fool’s gold,’ I said.
‘Well, they
are
bloody fools. And she wanted bangles for it: “
Demre
bangles. Two.
Demre
.” They have bangles on the brain.’
‘Who brought it?’
‘How do I know? They all look the same. This one is bauxite, of no use whatsoever, and this . . .’ He lifted a small slab dusted with peacock-blue powder. ‘I asked for purple, meaning amethyst, but instead she brings me flowers of aragonite.’
‘It’s attractive.’
‘It’s worthless . . . except as a paperweight.’
A sudden movement outside caught my attention. Five brown goats stampeded from behind a snow-laden cabin at the fringe of the forest. I sighed. ‘Idiots, why don’t they just teth—’
A darting movement. Stopped. I squinted against the brightness of the snow. Now the goats veered towards the trees, away from something in their path, a shape white on white. A wolf? I wished for my bow.
‘Snipe—’
The shape moved, exploded into a sudden sprint after the goats. It was a savage, a Rhydanne all in white. Now I saw another flicker at the edge of my vision, a dash between huts.
I ran to the speaking tubes, flicked the cover off the connection to the roof and yelled to the sentries, ‘Savages! Can you see them?’
Muffled shouting, then, ‘I saw one!’
An arrow zipped past the window. I ran back to the niche and looked down to see an orange flight sticking out of a drift. Another savage was crouching in its lee, undoing the tethers of our llamas. Back to the tubes. ‘Is Jant with you?’ I yelled.
‘No, my lord.’
‘Is he flying over?’
‘No!’
‘Then bloody shoot them. All of them!’ Then the tube to the guardroom: ‘Everyone on the roof! With bows! Now!’
I jumped down, swirled on my coat and pulled my gloves from the pocket. Snipe swept the tapestry back and we ran up the stairs.
I emerged onto the top, light-headed. The freezing wind nearly tore my coat from my body. The two sentinels leant over the parapet, scanning the snow, seemingly at a loss. I took hold of it to brace myself and looked down. All was silent below, nothing to be seen but the swathe of snow between our curtain wall and the margin of the forest, along which settlers’ cabins were scattered. A clamour from the stairs and then Captain Crake was beside me, his archers stumbling up behind. ‘My lord—’
A crack of splintering wood blew on the wind. Two settlers pelted out of one of the more distant cabins and ran towards us, heading for the gate. A second later a savage appeared in their doorway and set off, long legs sweeping. He sent quick glances around as he dashed, so fast the settlers, running at full speed, looked sluggish.
‘There!’ I pointed. ‘There!’
A couple of archers drew but loosed wide. I made the mistake of letting my gaze follow the arrows - with my attention deflected for a second the white figure disappeared against the snow. I clenched my teeth in exasperation.
At the same time the captain cried, ‘I see one!’ Six bows flung heavy arrows hissing in the opposite direction. I whipped round, stared along their line of fire and saw sheep scattering, just the bottom of their feet kicking up against the whiteout. A savage drove them, hood raised and spear in hand. A slick of blood darkened the cabin door where he’d speared a sheep - no, two - and left them dying messily.
The wind skewed our arrows, thrust them into the ground, and the archers could hardly see to shoot. The next gust bunched up an eerie whistle, whisked it away. Another whistle answered from among the cabins and we saw a glint of silver in a snow-filled alley between them. ‘My god,’ said Snipe. ‘How many are there?’
‘It could be the same few.’
A second flight of arrows snicked into the snow well short of the thieving wretch and the archers drew again. The savage just dropped to the ground, lay still. Beside me Crake, looking down the length of his arrow, muttered, ‘Where is he?’
‘I can’t see him,’ said another, and lowered his bow.
The wind crashed around the tower and I turned away from ice grains flying off the parapet. When I looked back I couldn’t see him either. Spindrift snow chafed over the patch where he’d lain flat, filling in his footprints and those of the sheep he had spirited away. There was nothing save the smell of our lunch cooking ripping past on the wind.
Snipe broke the silence. ‘I see one! There, between the trees . . . He’s gone.’ The captain glared at him.
‘It was nothing,’ I snapped. ‘Keep searching.’
Two figures came racing out of the forest. One flitted into the shadow of a cabin and I heard him break the door with a well-aimed kick. He vanished inside and the settler’s whole family poured out, three little boys and a mother in a red skirt. The mother scooped up her smallest son and they fled to the next cabin. They hammered on the door, shouted till it opened, admitted them and slammed again.
Goats and sheep spilled out of the opened cabin onto the snow, some of them bleeding, all bleating, and the Rhydanne flashed after them. Long hair straggled from the sides of his hood and red-stained necklaces slapped the front of his parka. His barbaric regalia struck fear, then hatred, into my archers. He whacked the beasts with his spear butt and turned them towards the forest but a settler followed him out of the cabin, axe in hand, and set his foot on the trailing tether of the last goat. The savage turned to face him and the man brandished his axe. I felt proud.
The savage raised his spear, levelled it at the settler, then as I thought the brave man’s last minute had come, one of those barbarous whistles cleaved the air. The savage sidestepped faster than we could follow, shepherded the goats at a sprint towards the forest. The burly woodsman looked after him, bewildered, still with his foot on the rope and the goat bleating beside his leg.
The savage reached the trees, swung round to face us, ran a few paces and hurled his spear at the settler. It transfixed with chilling accuracy the goat, which fell dead. Snipe swore beside me.
Another raider dashed in from nowhere, pulled the spear out and used its point to slit the rope. They hunt in packs. No, in pairs. He flung the goat onto his shoulder and set off after the other, overtook him in the cover of the trees, and tossed the spear back to him. They both disappeared into the forest and again the gale swept up ice grains and hurled them straight at us, forcing tears from our eyes. The sky lowered minute by minute, darker with snow.
Out of sight around the corner of the parapet a dog was barking furiously. I crossed over and looked down to see the door of the largest barn swinging wide. Every time it banged shut I could see behind it. A savage was there, driving the last of the sheep into the forest. He evaded the dog as it snapped at his legs. It bounded higher and with an irritated motion he spun round and thrust his spear into its neck.
The dog collapsed and the plunderer ran on. He had strung settlers’ cups on a belt across his body. Cutlery in the cups rattled as he ran, and under one arm he bore off a haunch of smoked ham. He had stolen too much to carry, and dropped a trail of objects. His accomplice appeared and, crossing and re-crossing his trail, stooped to pick them up.
A young woman stood by the banging door of her ransacked cabin, looking in their direction, blonde hair streaming in the wind. Shivering visibly, she clasped a blanket around her and clutched a broom as if it were a mace.
Snipe joined me, his features screwed even more tightly together with fury. ‘Send someone out. The savages will rape her!’
Maybe. Who knows what they’ll do? Their instinct to chase is strong. I nodded, then looked beyond his shoulder to the captain. ‘Crake, split the men into five squads. Send one out to that lady; give two to me. One man in each squad to act as a spotter for the others. Pick targets; shoot in concert. Stop gaping and move as fast as they do!’
Two sets of five archers joined me at the parapet and searched the ground now etched with footprints. Another raider dashed from the trees, crouched in the cover of a drift. The spotter yelled, the archers drew, and waited. The settler had retreated inside her house and the black sheepdog was limping in a circle, emitting a ghastly whine and dropping blood on the snow. Like a dart the Rhydanne broke cover and dashed towards it. Ten arrowheads tracked him with confidence and the arrows whirred away. He threw up his arms and fell face down in the snow. The archers reloaded, satisfied, but the savage raised himself on one elbow and one knee and began crawling towards the forest, with three flights pinned in his shoulders.
My archers drew and loosed again, and again. They had the range now, and poured flight after flight into the savage as he writhed and twisted. He crawled on, shuddering as they hit and eventually lay still, with one arm extended and fingers clawed into the snow. Hardy breed, I thought. Takes a lot to kill them.
We waited, and the wind blew between my groups and those of the captain, who had shot briefly before falling silent. At length I called to him, ‘Do you see any more?’
‘We saw a pair, but we missed them.’
‘We got one. Only one.’
‘Congratulations, my lord.’
The two settlers who had been running towards the gatehouse, were inside the bailey. I crossed to the far parapet and looked down to see them puffing clouds of breath as they stared about. My reeve emerged from his house with some rugs, which he wrapped around the poor couple and ushered them inside.