Chapter 4 #6
“Depends,” I said. “That’s west. If we go west, it’s a long way to Heldenbach, but it’s the direction we want to go in, to get home.
If we go east, at some point we’ll reach Erritz.
Actually, it doesn’t matter a toss, because what we need to do is come across someone with horses and carts and onion soup.
At this time of year, there’s slightly more chance they’ll be coming from Heldenbach, going to Erritz, so we’ll run into them quicker if we go west. Left,” I translated.
“But really it’s as broad as it’s long.”
She gave me a foul look and turned left.
The back of her head and her shape walking away from me looked just like the Svangerd I’ve been in love with practically since I first met her.
People change, I told myself; or, even worse, they grow more like themselves, losing or overriding the extraneous qualities that allow you to kid yourself.
I considered what she’d been through in Choris; her faith tested to the limit, the death of the woman she respected most in the whole world, the lies I told her and the truths I didn’t tell her, until it was far too late.
I paid particular attention to something she’d said recently: don’t even think about running out on me, I need you.
That, I decided, was the kernel of the problem.
Unfortunately it was protected by a hard shell, and I had nothing to crack it open with except my teeth.
A whole day walking west, followed by a night in a ditch under the stars. If you can see the stars in Stacheldorn at that time of year, you know it’s going to be bitter cold. It was.
I woke up just before dawn and she wasn’t there.
Footprints in a heavy frost told me she’d gone on without me.
I scrambled to my feet, then stopped; something I couldn’t imagine myself doing only a few days earlier.
I could, I told myself, go east. But if I did that, either I’d starve or I’d hitch a lift, and if the lift was heading west, sooner or later we’d run into Svangerd – embarrassing, like the slave who ran away from his master in the dark and ended up going in a circle.
Also that horrible little voice was back, and this time it was saying, this is all your fault.
It says some pretty stupid things, but that, in my opinion, was its supreme achievement. Even so. West.
I followed her track in the frost and the broken puddle ice until it suddenly stopped.
I looked round. No sign of her. I looked round, three hundred and sixty degrees, but all I saw was a flash of early morning sun on something metal, about a mile away up the road.
That couldn’t be Svangerd. She hadn’t been carrying anything shiny.
“Over here.”
Clearly anxiety had made me sloppy. I’d overlooked a sheep-sized chunk of granite outcrop, large enough for someone small to crouch behind. It was the only cover for miles. Under normal circumstances I’d have noticed it straight away. “Why are you hiding behind a—?”
“Get down.”
She was behind the rock. There wasn’t anything like room enough for both of us. “Lie flat and don’t move,” she snapped at me.
“Why?”
“Be quiet.”
I lay flat. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s someone coming up the road. That’s good, We can ask them for help.”
“Shut up.” She turned her head and considered me. “That’s no fucking good,” she said. “All right, change of plan. Go and lie in the road. Try and look like you’re dying.”
“What for?”
“Now.”
I went and lay down in the road, thinking: this is very bad.
In the interests of veracity I was lying on my face, so I couldn’t see anything, but after a while I heard the rumble of heavy wheels, the crunch of hooves on frosty ground, and then voices, plural.
Fairly soon those good, kind people would notice a stranger in distress and stop to see if they could help him.
They’d be especially keen to help because the stranger was a monk.
There was no call for violence. All I had to do was act pathetic and I could have all the onion soup I could drink.
The voices were talking Aelian: salt traders, a long way from home.
Aelians don’t come out that far unless it’s a big deal, involving large quantities of salt and substantial sums of money.
Therefore it would be a large party – the traders themselves plus carters, loaders and up to a dozen armed guards.
With numbers like that they’d feel safe enough to indulge in roadside charity.
So why in God’s name was Svangerd crouching behind a rock, instead of kneeling beside me weeping piteously?
Not that she’d even need to do that. Aelian salt traders would be only too glad to give a lift to a couple of travelling monks even if they weren’t in any trouble. They’d be glad of the conversation.
I heard a scream, the sound of someone in sudden and unanticipated pain.
I scrambled up. While I was still on my knees I saw Svangerd standing on the box of a large cart.
She was stabbing a man with a sword. Behind her was a man with a poleaxe.
She obviously didn’t know he was there, and even if I yelled to her, there wasn’t time for her to do anything.
There was a biggish stone right next to my left foot.
I grabbed it and threw it in one movement.
Usually I’m a pretty rotten shot with a stone, but this time, probably because I didn’t have time to think or aim, I judged it perfectly.
The stone hit the poleaxe guy just above the ear.
He staggered, tripped over his own feet and just managed to regain his balance in time for Svangerd to stab him in the eye.
Very bad indeed, I thought, but a man on a horse had seen me throw the stone.
He spurred straight at me and lunged at me with a spear, which I just managed to avoid.
I think I only grabbed at the spear out of instinct, but I connected with it and held on.
The horseman wasn’t expecting me to do that.
He lost his balance and fell off the horse, landing on his head on the hard road.
I ducked behind the horse and fumbled for the dropped spear.
Apparently this was now my war, and the opportunity for a diplomatic solution had passed me by.
Nothing seemed to be happening. I peeped out over the horse’s back and saw Svangerd, with the sword in her hand, standing beside the cart, looking round. She spotted me. “There you are,” she said. “God, you’re useless.”
“I saved your life.”
She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s done now. Catch a couple of horses while I look for the money.”
The salt traders – nine of them in the party – were all dead.
The man I’d dragged from his horse had broken his neck.
Svangerd had killed the rest of them. I remember thinking: I always knew she was good at that sort of thing, but not that good, surely.
Maybe a few words of congratulation might be in order: well done, I always knew you had it in you.
That made me grin. Not always, just recently, since the library.
No pun intended. People affect to despise puns, but they were the lifeblood of classic Robur comedy for over a century, and I rather like them.
“Found it,” she called out, and I saw her standing over a dead man, holding up a large, heavy-looking linen bag.
“Hey, we were lucky,” she went on. “If they’d been coming the other way, all we’d have got would be a cartload of salt.
” She stopped and gazed at me. “Why haven’t you got the horses like I told you? ”
“We can’t do this,” I said.
“Don’t be stupid. Grab the horses. We need to get out of here fast.”
Two very nice horses, one grey mare and one chestnut gelding. She was right, we shouldn’t hang around a crime scene. People tend to jump to conclusions. I gave her the mare and kept the gelding. “Which way?” I asked.
“West,” she said. “We need to get home.”
She’s a better rider than I am, which is strange considering that I was raised on a farm where we used horses to get about all the time, while she didn’t learn to ride until after she joined the Order.
I guess she has a knack for it, among other things.
That meant that I had to struggle to keep up with her.
It’s not smart, going fast on a road like that, no matter how good the horse is.
I told her several times: slow down, you’ll run them lame.
We need to get home, she replied, before spurring ahead in a flurry of mud and small stones.
We’d filled our saddlebags with good things before we abandoned the cart, so the menu that night included Aelian rye bread, smoked sausage, hard white cheese and those small green Edgelaf apples that look like nothing at all but taste amazing.
“This,” she said at one point, “is better than onion bloody soup.” It was the only thing she’d said for over an hour. I didn’t reply.
When she’d finished eating she got up and walked out of the circle of firelight.
Nothing unusual there. When circumstances allow, she always likes to pee before she goes to sleep.
I counted to five under my breath, then followed her, walking as quietly as I could.
I saw her squatting, silhouetted against the dark blue sky. As she stood up, I swung.
As I think I may have mentioned already, it was Svangerd who taught me how to punch effectively.
I made a point of learning well, partly because it’s a useful thing to know how to do, partly to please her.
I meant to hit her on the side of the jaw, but it was dark and she started turning her head just as I launched my fist. As a result, I hit her square on the point of the chin.
The trouble with amateurs and terrified people is that a lot of the time they hit too hard. And I’m unusually big and strong, and it’s dangerously easy to forget that Svangerd is actually quite small and slight. You can break someone’s neck, hitting them on the chin, if you overdo it.
I dropped to my knees. I don’t think I was ever more scared in my life. I scrabbled about until I got hold of her wrist. No pulse.