"No."

"Walk directly behind me." Leading the horses, they picked their way back to where they'd left their belongings. "You can stay with them," she said as she tied them to a tree. "Keep them calm. I'll be back shortly."

She returned some minutes later with pilfered oats inside a saddle-cloth. "That'll keep the two of them happy," she said, as the horses snorted and jostled to get at the grain. "I'm going to scout around for tackle and supplies. You can come with me this time. I think I know where their storage area is, but I'll need help to carry the saddles."

The men had constructed a three-sided shelter for their supplies and saddlery, using strung-up canvas for a roof and roughly cut poles and brush for walls. A corner of the canvas had worked itself loose and flailed in the wind; she jumped every time it cracked against itself.

A lighted lamp hanging from a pole made rummaging easier, but being illuminated like a whore on display did not alleviate her anxiety. She was scared halfway to apoplexy.

Confound it, what did I do to deserve this?

Food for them, oats for the horses, horse tack... She began pulling out odd items of food, tossing them higgledy-piggledy into her pack, then grabbed up several saddlebags and stuffed them with oats.

"Someone's coming!"

Peregrine grabbed her by the arm, pulling her down to the ground even as he hissed the warning. She fell awkwardly, spilling her load. The canvas thrashed and whipped in the wind. She ducked down between sacks and saddles, Peregrine crouching beside her. He still held her arm in a tight grip, and placed his other hand over his mouth warning her not to speak.

Time crawled by. At first she could hear nothing except the wind and the canvas against the background roar of river water, then someone swore, so close she thought he was going to tread on her. Peregrine's clamped hold tightened. She desperately wanted him to let go because with him clinging like a limpet she couldn't reach her sword.

"Leak on you, you slubbering piece of a whore's petticoat!"

A man stepped into the light. She expected him to be looking at her, but he wasn't. He was staring at the flapping canvas. "Poxy greenhorns who can't tie a knot to save their lives!" he muttered, his voice heavy with sleep.

He reached up, grabbed the loose rope and tied the canvas down. She could have touched his boot, but he didn't look her way.

When he walked away, she and Peregrine both exhaled at the same time. She grinned at him, her relief exquisite. They continued to lie side by side until he nodded that all was safe again. She gathered up the equipment she had selected, then slung a saddlebag, bridle and reins across each of the saddles.

"Think you can carry one of these?" she asked.

In answer he picked up the pile. She shouldered her pack and picked up the other. "Let's go," she said.

Perie watched, fidgeting, while Gerelda saddled and bridled the horses and distributed their belongings as best she could between the saddle bags. "I'll dispose of those two guards," she told him matter-of-factly. "You are to count to one hundred, and then follow with the horses. Do you think you can do that?"

"I suppose so." In truth, he was nervous around horses. They were so much larger than Tucker.

"No supposing, Perie. This is for real. Can you do it?"

"Yes. Yes, course I can."

"Good. Where are the two men now? I can't even see them; the moon's gone behind a cloud."

"They're still sitting down. On the far side of the bridge, I reckon, facing downstream."

"Good. Let's hope they stay that way. You've been a tremendous help, Perie. I'm grateful. If anyone raises the alarm, we mount up and ride like all A'Va's devils are on our heels. We cross that bridge, guards or no guards. Understand? Hang on tight and just let your horse follow mine."

He nodded.

She hesitated, then added, "If you have to do it alone, then do so. In a fight, at the end, you are only responsible for yourself. Understand?"

He nodded, knowing she was also saying that if he lagged behind, she'd leave him. That was the way it had to be and he did understand.

Sometimes there wasn't an easy choice.

He stood between the two horses, holding them the way she'd showed him, and watched her go. Well wrapped in her cloak to hide her lack of a lancer uniform, she kept to the side of the track. Overhead, a three-quarter moon broke through the gauze of cloud cover.

Every now and then, when clouds hid the moon, she disappeared into the darkness as if she had been erased. That felt odd; he'd grown used to knowing exactly where the lancers were and what they were doing every minute of every day. They had no privacy from him, ever. His awareness of Gerelda was much more dependent on sight and smell, on his normal senses.

He switched his attention to the two guards. He couldn't see or hear them either, but he didn't need to; they were solid shapes to him. Pitch-men, oozing their thick evil. It was difficult for him to even think of them as men. They weren't, not really. They'd been contaminated, their humanity rotting from within leaving only the appearance of men as a shell, a covering, to the smutch. They still sat side by side, occasionally looking towards the other side of the river.

They don't expect trouble from this side, he thought. Good.

He felt no compassion for them.

They didn't see her coming.

They weren't talking to each other; they weren't doing anything except sitting there. The logs of the bridge had been spread with river sand to provide an even surface, and her footfall would have been muffled, even without the roar of water.

If they'd been sentries in any unit of soldiers she controlled, she would have been rabid in her anger at their complacency. Instead, she was grateful. She dropped her cloak from her shoulders.

The closest man caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He started to turn as she swung at him with a two-handed stroke to the neck. The blow jarred her from wrist to shoulder, but she'd judged it correctly. The edge of the blade caught him across the throat.

Blood spurted in a black shower. He tried to draw breath but his gasping mouth made no sound. He fell sideways. She raised a boot and nudged his body forward so it slipped off the bridge into the rushing torrent below.

The second man scrambled to his feet, panicked, fumbling for his sword. She lunged at him, hoping to kill him before he could gather his wits. Unable to draw a weapon in time, he dived at her. He was a large man and desperate, and he hit her just above the knees with the force of his shoulder.

She lost her footing and came down flat on her back, hard. He'd tangled himself in his own cloak and for a moment each of them scrabbled to stand before the other could. She beat him to it by a sliver, and she now clutched a handful of the sand in her fist, snatched up from the bridge surface. He ought to have yelled for help; instead he drew his sword. She used that moment to throw the sand into his face. When he jerked back with his eyes closed, she lunged with all her weight behind the thrust. His blind parry missed and her blade went through the inadequate padding of his jack into his midriff. It ripped his stomach open as he fell. His intestines tumbled out on to the boards of the bridge as he collapsed, the weight of his body jerking her sword out of her hand. He began to scream. She stomped on his throat. The screams abruptly halted, but he didn't stop moving. His limbs jerked, his hands twitched.

Another sound behind her sent her spinning around into a crouch, but it was only Peregrine. He'd arrived with their mounts and one of them, spooked by the smell of blood and guts, was shying and pulling back. She left her sword where it was and scrambled to help him before the reins were pulled out of his hand. He had the sense to leave it to her and released his hold to lead the other horse away before it, too, was spooked.

For several minutes she battled the terrified animal while it tried to pull her arms out of their sockets as she murmured reassurance that it probably couldn't hear over the sound of the water. At last she had it standing still, trembling, and she was able to stroke its neck and whisper calming nonsense into its ear.

All the while she stared at the camp, watching for any sounds of alarm, but there was nothing. Evidently the scream of the injured man had been drowned over the roar of the river.

Once the horse had settled, Peregrine, without saying a word, handed her the reins of the second mount and walked over to the dying man. He bent to extract her blade from the bloody mess of flesh and intestines, then wiped it clean on the lancer's cloak. Before he straightened again, he casually rolled the still twitching body into the water and tossed his bloodied cloak after him. She swallowed back her nausea.

Picking up her cloak, Perie brought it back to her with her sword. "I don't think anyone could have heard the scream," he told her calmly. "No one's coming."

"Up you get, into the saddle. We're getting out of here."

He scrambled inelegantly up on to the more imperturbable of the two horses, and she took the time to adjust the stirrups for him. Once she was mounted herself, she flicked the horse into a brisk walk and thought back over the result of their evening's work. Two horses and tack stolen, two men missing, a whole lot of blood and gore on the bridge. She could have done with some rain to clean up the evidence, but the clouds were clearing, Va rot it. She didn't know what the lancers would make of it all, but she hoped their reaction would be for the first group to blame the second.

With a little luck and Va's grace, by the time the lancers realised something was amiss, she and Peregrine would have a substantial lead.

She turned in the saddle to check on him. "I'm relying on you," she said. "You tell me if you sense those bastards following us."

"I will."

"When it's light enough, we'll go faster. Try not to fall off."

"Youyou could leave me behind. I mean, you have to warn the Pontifect, that's what you said-"

"Yes, I did. But I think we need you and your witchery, lad. I'm not sentimental, I just think you're more of a help than a hindrance. I'm going to get you in one piece all the way to Vavala. You are going to meet Pontifect Fritillary Reedling."

And I wonder what she'll think of a lad not yet twelve, who can pull a sword out of a man's guts without blinking?

11.

The Antagonists

Fritillary Reedling woke from a confused dream about a storm, to the reality of someone banging on her bedroom door. She sat bolt upright, shocked. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had thought something was urgent enough to wake her in the middle of the night. And it was the middle of the night. She'd left her window unshuttered, and moonlight glowed softly through a night mist.

"Who's that?" she asked as she slipped her feet to the floor and reached for her woollen wrap.

"Secretary Barden."

Ridiculous question. The old man was the only other person with a key to her apartments. Even so, her heart was beating too fast as she crossed the floor, so she took a moment to calm herself before she opened the door.

Two people stood in the anteroom behind Barden, one a boy of about twelve or so. It took Fritillary a moment to recognise the woman with him. Shabbily dressed in muddy clothes, her hair uncombed, her face smudged, she smelled of sweat, stables and dirt.

Sweet Va. "Proctor Brantheld."

"Your reverence."

Barden was already hobbling around the anteroom lighting the candles. He was dressed in a voluminous nightgown, a floppy nightcap with a tassel and heavy woollen socks. He looked ridiculous, but she found nothing to laugh at in the expression on his face. She switched her attention to the lad hesitating in the middle of the room. She didn't know him, but a glance told her he was dirty, scared and tired enough to collapse any moment. The bubble of fear inside her chest grew larger and more painful.

"So," she asked evenly. "Do I have time to get dressed before the execution?"

"Only if you hurry," Gerelda said, her tone indicating that she was not entirely joking.

She turned to her secretary. "Barden, take this lad, whoever he is, out of here, give him a meal, or a bath, or a bedin whatever order is appropriate to his needsand leave Gerelda and me to talk while I dress. And send someone up with a hot drink and a meal."

Without another word, Barden beckoned to the lad and they headed out of her apartment. Fritillary stepped back into her bedroom, crossed to her washstand, bathed her face, patted it dry.

By the time she was dressed and had returned to the anteroom, it was to find Gerelda had unbuckled her sword and collapsed into the room's most comfortable chair.

"So, what's this all about, Gerelda?"

"You were the one who told me to return in a hurry."

"I don't remember saying wake me in the middle of the night."

"All right. I'll come back in the morning."

She gave a soft laugh. "Ah, Gerelda, there is no one quite like you. To business. That boy is far too young to have a witchery, but he does. What's happened?"

"I have a lot to tell you, but for now just this: the discovery that made me ask Barden to wake you. As I was coming down the valley into Vavala earlier yesterday, I heard whispers of men in Wildmadder Wood, and Periethat's the boy: Peregrine Claryhe said he could sense folk there wearing the black smudge that shrine keepers talk about. That's his witchery."

"Ah. The one they call A'Va's mark."

"Yes. He can taste it on the air, he says. I followed his lead and sure enough, we found several hundred lancers camped out in the hills above the city. All of them wear grey coats. The ones there that we overheard speaking had Staravale accents."

Fritillary pulled her wrap tighter around her shoulders. "Several hundred? That's hardly an army. There are over a thousand guards here who are charged with the protection of the Pontificate."

"With no experience of war. The most any of them has ever done is probably discipline a drunken muleteer, or catch a cut-purse lad. These men in the Vavala hills were a disciplined bunch, alert and hardened. They have horses and lances. By the way, they were not the only lancers we had the misfortune to encounter either, but they appeared to be the best trained."

Fritillary listened, appalled, as Gerelda went on to describe all that had happened to Peregrine and herself since she'd left Twite. "I believe those earlier men were new recruits, assembling for training. Not so the group we found yesterday. They might be here to kill you. I'm betting Valerian Fox is up to his nasty nose in all this."

"Did you know he's here in Vavala?"

"He is? Doing what?"

"Seeing me. I have an appointment with our beloved Prime tomorrow morning, at his request."

"Oh!" Gerelda gaped. "Did you already know about these lancers in the hills outside of the city?"

"The local shrine keeper sent word. Fox, of course, is not openly associated with them. They wear no insignia. I suspect he will deny any connection, if asked."

Gerelda's expression darkened into a glower. "You should consider assassinating Prime Fox."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow. "What do you think King Edwayn would have to say about that? And no, I am not going to send a company of arquebus musketeers to battle these lancers, either. Va-faith does not condone killing, or war. For a lawyer, you can be worryingly bloodthirsty. I cannot even accuse Fox, because I don't have a shred of evidence that he's involved in anything nefarious."

"I thought Saker Rampion found evidence when he searched Faith House in Throssel."

"Sketchy at best. Enough for me, true, but not enough for the King. At worst, whatever proof there was, Fox surely disposed of when he realised Saker had been there. I can't attack Fox openly. He was appointed by, and is still supported by, King Edwayn."

"The Prime is poison, and you must not keep that appointment."

"Must not?" It was her turn to glower, but Gerelda did not take the hint.

"Send him away without an audience. He obviously wants you to know about those lancers sitting on your doorstep. He wants to intimidate you into giving him that audience, or into making concessionssomething!"

"Gerelda Brantheld, you are my agent for legal matters, not my political adviser, let alone my military one. What kind of a Pontifect would I be if I fled like a rabbit when a fox knocks at my door, especially when he happens to be the Ardronese Prime? I could not maintain any credibility if I behaved in such a craven fashion."

"Why does he come backed by soldiers?" Gerelda was waving her arms, and the smell of sweat and dirt wafted more strongly around the room. "They are a bare ten miles from the city walls. Tomorrow they could well be closer. You may be dead come afternoon."

"If Fox wants to usurp the post of Pontifect, I'd prefer he started his reign with my public murder than with my abdication of duty. He'd at least look guilty of something."