The Swan Kingdom (13 page)

Through watering eyes I saw that the two carriages were stopped in the shelter of a small coppice. The only light was from the gibbous moon tangled in the tossing branches of the trees. Well-wrapped humps near by were the coachmen and grooms. Isolde and Rother must be in the other carriage. Tethered alongside were the eight horses, slumbering happily.

“Perfect,” I croaked softly, as a plan formed in my mind. My throat protested painfully at the activity, and I swallowed a cough.

Slowly – for I not only desired stealth but also knew that any quick movement would send me toppling – I shut the carriage door and moved to the back of the second carriage, where my enemies slept, and where the provisions had been stored. With stiff fingers I clasped the cloak at my neck and went to work on the leather straps of the carriage hold. I fumbled and struggled, not even daring to swear under my breath. Finally the straps gave way, and I opened the hold to find a large packing basket on top. I quickly checked the contents: packages wrapped in oil paper and linen and some padded jars. With some more rooting about I found two leather sacks that were filled with extra bedding. As my cloak snapped and billowed behind me, I pulled most of the blankets out to make room and then packed the food bundles from the basket into them, leaving two spare blankets inside to pad the jars and to provide warmth if I needed it later.

With trembling hands I eased the lid down; but before I could refasten the straps the gale slid in and ripped them from my grasp.

The wooden lid flew up and smashed hard into the back of the carriage, making a hollow boom that could be heard even over the scream of the wind. Terrified, I grabbed for it, but it flapped up and hit the carriage once more before I could shove it down and secure it. The instant it was buckled I flung myself and my bundles down into the undergrowth next to the carriage, out of sight of the door, ignoring the painful bite of a thorny branch against my arm. I made myself as small and still as I could, and held my breath.

There was a slight movement from the carriage, the frame shifting on its wheels as the inhabitants stirred. Then, with a sinking heart, I made out the echo of the door banging back on its hinges. Someone was coming out.

Go back in! Go away! Go away!
I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood. The wind dropped for a moment and I heard a snatch of conversation.

“…back to sleep.” Isolde’s voice, husky and low.

“I heard something, I tell you.” Rother, sounding both nervous and annoyed.

“Then at least close the door—”

The wind rose again and whipped the rest of the words away.

I strained my ears against the rush and wail of the weather, tension turning my muscles to stone as I waited for the shout of horror that would tell me they had checked my carriage and found it empty – the raised voices that would rouse the coachmen and grooms to search for me. They couldn’t miss me here, and I couldn’t possibly run fast enough to escape them. If they checked the carriage, I was done for.

Oh, please, please,
please…

A long while later I heard the faint thud of Isolde and Rother’s door closing, and saw the carriage resettle. My breath escaped in a rasp of relief. Then it occurred to me that Rother might still be outside, and I stiffened again, waiting in dread for him to appear round the side of the carriage. Several more horrible minutes passed, but Rother did not come. Finally I realized that he must have obeyed Isolde, and gone back to sleep without checking. I slumped to the ground, almost boneless with the release of tension, thanking the Ancestors for the inhospitable chill of the night, and the laziness of Zella’s servants.

After a few seconds I picked myself up and, after extricating myself with some difficulty from the thorny bush, crept back round the carriage, skirting the sleeping servants widely on my way to the tethered horses. As I approached, one of the horses opened a mild brown eye and whickered quietly. The others came awake and began to shift; one stamped a hoof experimentally.

“Now, now,” I whispered, laying my free hand on the nearest mount’s warm hide. It calmed immediately at my touch as I sent it messages of reassurance and quiet. Horses are natural herd creatures; such animals, when together, almost share a consciousness. It was easy to reach them all, convey my status as a friend – a dominant one – who needed help to get away. Of course, human words cannot really express such communication, but the horses understood me and acceded to my wish cheerfully enough. They stood, unresisting, as I untied them and then, with an effort that was almost beyond me, managed to seize a handful of mane and heave myself up onto the nearest one’s back.

Bit and bridle would have made a worrying amount of noise, but I couldn’t help missing them all the same. I’d never been more than passable at riding bareback, and the need to hold the bulging leather sacks securely between my knees and elbows while clutching the mane made it more awkward still. I clamped my knees to the horse’s flanks and leaned over its neck as much as I could. Luckily she was a placid mare, and did nothing more than flick an ear at my clumsiness.

Let’s go now,
I thought to the horse.
Slowly, please, as quiet as possible.

The horse moved into a slow walk, turning away from the trees. Behind me the other horses were scattering, some moving through the coppice and others heading in the opposite direction to me. They would make it as difficult as possible for the coachmen to catch them.
Thank you!
I called to them. My horse avoided the carriages carefully as I tucked my cloak around my thighs to keep it from flapping behind me.

As we rounded the edge of the coppice, fields opened; to my left the dark blot of a forest climbed a hill and continued along a high ridge. I nudged the mare towards it with my knees. The woods would conceal any tracks and hide me in the daylight if Zella’s people tried to look for me on foot. I could also forage for food and find shelter.

I suppose, considering everything, my escape from Rother and Isolde was surprisingly easy. To make up for it, the rest of that night was, well, nightmarish. The wind continued to rise, until it dinned at my ears and almost pushed me from the mare’s back. Even after we entered the shelter of the woods, things did not improve. Branches lashed at me and made the horse, sensible as she was, shy and even attempt to rear now and again. I sent all the soothing thoughts to her that I dared, but it was difficult to reassure her when I could hardly think straight myself. The enchanted sleep I had enjoyed seemed to have sapped more energy than if I had spent the week ploughing fields, and my burst of terror-induced energy soon drained away in the unrelenting discomfort and chill of the night. We never moved above a walk as we went through the trees, but since we kept to a steady pace and never stopped, we made good progress. I took some distant pleasure in that, though after a while it all began to blur together into one long, aching torment.

My thighs began to rub and blister with saddle sores. My face grew sticky and disgusting with blood from cuts inflicted by the sloughing branches and blown dirt, and my lips cracked open and bled too. I still did not dare stop. I couldn’t risk losing the advantage of my head start; and I also had the worrying suspicion that if I got off the horse, I would not be able to get back on. I hung on grimly to her neck, my body shuddering with a horrible combination of cold and fear and fatigue. My hands grew numb in their death grip on the mare’s mane; even if I had wanted to let go and wrestle open a bag for food or water, I didn’t think I could move my fingers. The wind gradually died down, but by then I was so tired I hardly noticed.

When the first sickly colour of dawn began to penetrate the shadows of the trees, I stirred weakly on the mare’s back and attempted to sit up. A mistake. We were going under a low branch at the time and it hit me smack on the shoulder, knocking me neatly off the horse. I landed in a muddy hollow full of leaf mould and rotting vegetation, the breath forced from my lungs with the impact. At another time such a fall might have done me serious damage, but by then I was so limp with exhaustion that I merely gained some more bruises. I lay there on my back for a long time, staring dazedly up at the black tracery of leaf and bough silhouetted against the sky. Then the mare, having belatedly discovered I wasn’t with her, came back to see what I was doing. She lowered her homely muzzle over me – she was a dapple grey, I could now see – and snorted enquiringly, dripping horse slobber on my chest until I lifted my hand and feebly pushed her nose away.

It took a terrifying amount of energy to force myself into an upright position. I sat there, panting in the mud, while I tried to will myself awake. My head was so light that I was afraid it might actually drift up off my shoulders. After a minute I planted a hand on the crumbly forest floor and sent out a weak tendril of awareness through my skin to gather some strength from the land. It was very difficult, and not just because I’d been knocked silly. The enaid was so thin here that I could barely feel it wash around my fingers. I was still in Midland, I realized. Somehow I had expected it to be the Kingdom, though I did not know how long I had been a prisoner. But it was strange; I thought Midland’s strength had been growing stronger while I was with Eirian. Apparently that recovery hadn’t yet reached this place.

Still, the land shared with me what it had. My back straightened as a little spurt of energy travelled up my fingers into my bloodstream.

The new strength gave me enough clarity of mind to realize that I could not keep going like this. Maintaining my head start would be no good if I perished from starvation, thirst or sheer exhaustion before Zella’s people even found me. Besides, I had no idea if I was travelling in the right direction – I might be heading further into Midland with each step, and away from the Circle of Ancestors, my destination. My vision had saved me. Now I must follow its directions.

With the mare – I really had to think of a name for her – contentedly stripping new leaves off nearby plants, I grubbed around until I found the leather sacks, which had fallen with me.

I opened one, and reached in to pull out a random package. Unwrapping it, I found a wedge of crumbly white cheese. Another rummage produced hard biscuits, and a jar of the shredded pickled vegetables that my aunt’s cook had made in bulk. The smell of these items made me so hungry that I almost retched. I had no knife. Hurriedly I pulled out one of the spare blankets and spread it on my lap – my skirt was too dirty to consider letting food touch it – then crumbled the cheese onto it. I spread the pickled vegetables onto the hard biscuits with my fingers and crunched them down, glad for strong teeth. Thankfully there was a flagon of wine in the first pack too, which I gulped gratefully. It had been watered, so I didn’t worry too much about drinking half of it in one go. I felt I could have gobbled up the contents of both bags, but it was only a few moments before my shrunken stomach protested. I nearly started retching again when I tried to force down more.

Still, the food and drink gave me a little precious energy. After a few more minutes of sitting peacefully, I felt so much better that I became aware of the filth that coated my face. The blood and dirt had now clotted horribly. I was pretty grubby all over. I didn’t know how long I had lain in the grip of Zella’s working, but I felt as if I hadn’t bathed in a week. A new thought occurred to me, and I cringed when I understood that someone must have tended me like child, for there was no urine – or anything worse – on my clothing. Ugh. I hastily shoved that thought away; I simply could not cope with it.

I pulled myself upright using one of the nearby trees and walked around a little. My legs were stiff and sore, and my bottom ached fiercely from the long night’s riding, but I ignored the discomfort, because I knew that as soon as I could, I was going to have to get back up on Mare’s back and start all over again.

A small way from the hollow where I had fallen, there was a tiny spring, no more than a trickle, bubbling out from a mound of rocks. The water was teeth-clenchingly cold, but I made the best use of it that I could, rinsing my face and hands and the blisters on my inner thighs of blood. I found some splitroot and crushed it, slathering the juice on my cuts and blisters. It would stop them from going bad.

Finally I unbound my disgusting hair and tried to clean it with my fingers and the spring water. When I had finished I wanted to bind it up again – a combination of practicality and habit – but I had lost most of the pins and only the grease and tangles had held it up that long. Wet and fairly clean, I couldn’t control the rebellious curls, so I plaited it, tying the end with a ragged bit off the bottom of my petticoat. It was almost long enough to sit on, and made an unpleasant dampness against my back, but there was nothing I could do about it. I looked down at the heavy fabric of my dark green gown. Its once elegant lines were crushed and torn, and it was smeared with drying dirt, streaks of blood and a coat of grey hairs from Mare. My cloak was a little better, but altogether I doubted I made a very respectable picture. Still, my raggedy appearance might prove an advantage if I was careful.

The images from my dream flashed into my mind again. I had to reach the Circle of Ancestors. My dream had left me with a deep sense of urgency that I did not question. To do that, I was going to have to find people, whether within this forest or in the fields beyond, and ask their help. Once inside the Kingdom I was sure I could find my way by navigating the flows of enaid, but here in Midland I was lost. In my new guise as an unremarkable, if grubby, peasant girl, hopefully I could glide beneath the notice of thieves and any agent that Zella might send after me.

I made my way back to Mare, who had settled down for a brief nap, her eyes half shut and one leg slack. She looked quite unkempt herself, dirt- and dust-streaked as she was. I couldn’t brush her properly or untangle her mane and tail, but I made an effort to rub her down with the spare blanket I had already ruined, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She was still shabby and begrimed when I finished, but again, this was probably for the best. I slung the now much-misused blanket over her back and led her to a fallen tree which I thought would made a good mounting block.