Authors: Nancy Springer
“You cannot be serious!” protested the guard. Most of his fellows headed back toward the battlements, chattering excitedly. Hal only shrugged as Alan, done hauling on the portcullis, stepped to his side.
“Come see for yourself,” he barked, and moved toward the opening. Two guards, and Alan, followed.
But as they reached the outer arch, the fickle moon came out from behind her cloud and shone brightly on their faces. The guards jumped back and shouted an alarm. “Run, Hal!” cried Alan, whipping out his sword. But Hal had no intention of running, though he had no weapon. As a guard lunged at him, Hal slipped under his thrust and grasped his wrist, forcing the sword from his hand. Hal wrestled the man to the ground, picked up the dropped weapon and stunned him with the hilt. Alan had his man backed up against the wall, battling bravely but clumsily with his thick-bladed sword. As Hal watched, Alan's slender weapon worked its way through the guard's defense and stabbed him in the throat. He gurgled and fell.
Other guards were running toward them, shouting. Hal and Alan fled over the drawbridge toward the town. Some arrows followed them from the walls, and the guards pounded after them, but the fugitives ran faster. They gained the shelter of the houses and sped along the twisting streets, finally stopping in the shadows of an alley.
“Let us rid ourselves of this gear,” panted Alan. “It does us no good now, but marks us."
His voice was tight. Hal touched his hand inquiringly.
“By the Moon Mother, I had to kill him!” Alan burst out. “I had never killed a man, Hal.... Can you understand?"
“I understand,” said Hal with new respect. It was a rare man, in those savage times, who did not take life lightly.
“Keep that sword,” Alan added grimly.
Hal tucked the hacking sword through his belt, and they moved on. They ran softly in their deerskin boots through the tangled streets, choosing the darkest ways, heading toward the town gate even though they knew it would be closed. Twice they heard hoofbeats and crouched in the shadows until the riders had passed. At last they came near the gate. But as they approached the main street, they suddenly heard lordsmen, quite close, to their right. They started away, but then heard others approaching from the left and from behind. Too late they realized that they had been driven, like cattle, to be trapped against high walls. No shadow would now be left unsearched.
Alan bit his lip. “Come,” he said. “Quickly."
He led Hal through a crooked maze of back entries, stopping at last at a door near some barrels. To Hal's astonishment, he knocked softly. “Grandmother!” he called under his breath. “Margerie! I have need of you!"
Presently the door was opened by the elderly dame, carrying a rushlight and blinking sleepily. She hurried them into the house, cackling with consternation, bustling to get cold towels and salves for Hal's injured face. The house was tightly shuttered, as Alan had been careful to note. No light would show. The old lady gabbled away, brushing off explanations and showing no interest in the lordsmen who passed close by the house. Hal eyed her narrowly over a bowl of excellent soup. Something in the quality of his gaze touched her composure, and her flood of gossip faltered to a stop.
“You are no fool, though you pretend to be,” mused Hal admiringly. “I thank you greatly for your help."
“Almost anyone in this town would have done the same,” she retorted defiantly. “We bear small love for our proud lord and his men. Our sons feel their whips, and our daughters their lust. It will be a great blow to their insolence, and the jest of the town, if you and your brother escape."
Alan was grinning in wonder. “I'll warrant you knew what I was about all the time."
“I had a notion,” she acknowledged, smiling.
“But grandmother,” Alan added, “I have no brother."
“I would have sworn from the first that you were brothers!” she insisted.
The two looked at each other, smiled and shook their heads. Hal changed the subject. “Grandmother, we must be over the wall before dawn. You have helped us till now. Help us in this."
She frowned. “They will still be looking for you. But if you are to beat the dawn, I dare say you must go."
She gave them directions, and they gratefully took their leave. “It may be that you will meet us again, if we live,” Hal told the peculiar old woman. “Remember us, I pray you.” And he kissed her withered cheek. Then they went out again, into the shadows.
The moon was low as they slipped away. A certain house, Margerie had told them, built against the town wall, could be climbed, and the occupants would not raise the alarm. Her instructions helped them avoid their pursuers, but nearly doubled the distance. Though they moved quickly, it was almost dawn when they came to their destination.
They climbed rapidly but as quietly as they could on the heavily thatched roof. They knew that not a quarter of a mile away, at the town gates, the castle guards and lordsmen were gathered. By the time they reached the peak of the roof, the black sky had turned to gray. Hal stood on Alan's shoulders and pulled himself up onto the wall, then hoisted Alan up beside him. Keeping low, they hastily slipped over the outer edge and dropped to the grass twenty feet below.
They could not take time to catch their breath after the impact. They ran, panting, to the copse where, they hoped, the horses waited. No alarm followed them; the gray dusk of dawn had served to hide them from sight. Arun welcomed his master with a joyful snort, and Alfie had not so much as pulled his tether. Both youths thankfully took saddle.
“My sword,” said Hal. “It was in the blanketroll."
“I know,” Hal replied tensely. “They stuck it there when they were casting lots for it. But it's not there now."
Alan gaped. “It could not have fallen,” he protested at last, “or not without my hearing it.... I never thought to secure it, in my hurry."
Hal said no more. Silently the pair turned their horses and drifted away like ghosts in the morning fog. They picked their way with care, keeping woodland between themselves and Whitewater. But once they were out of sight of the town, they touched heels to their horses and galloped toward the Forest.
“Did you get your herbs?” Alan asked, suddenly remembering Corin.
Hal only shook his head, looking grim. But when they clattered into the camp, before the sun was well up, they found it deserted. Some hunks of raw meat sat in Hal's kettle near the ashes of the fire, and the deer bones lay strewn where Alan had left them. Nothing else was there.
“Where is the smith who was sick enough to die?” Alan wondered aloud.
“He and his son can't have gone far,” Hal said crossly. “Hide that offal—nay, I'll do it. Have a look around."
“Why?” Alan picked up the kettle. “We can't help them any more than we have already."
“Because the young rascal has my sword, Alan! Find them!"
But Corin and his father were nowhere nearby. Several circles told Alan that. He rejoined Hal, smarting inwardly because of the loss of the sword.
“There were traces near the ford,” he reported evenly.
“They've gone north then, as the boy said. All right, let us be after them.” Hal vaulted onto Arundel, but Alan stood still.
“Better to go westward, into the Forest,” he argued. “The lordsmen will be hot after us, and we'll be easy game on the open Waste."
Hal leaned on his saddle, staring at his comrade. “You are right,” he said softly, “but nevertheless I must go after my sword."
“How do you know that Corin has it?” Alan cried, furious because he suspected the boy himself. “Anyway, you have a weapon. You cannot go poking around, hunting that boy, when half the castle will be out after us! Are you mad?"
“Perhaps.” Hal smiled a crooked smile. “I have sometimes wondered. Even so, I must go north.” He turned away. “Are you coming?"
“Why not?” snapped Alan. With this new challenge, his mood had swung like a pendulum from frightened to reckless. Still, he spoke bitterly. “I have already courted death a dozen times since I last slept, for your sake. Once more is of small importance."
Hal keenly felt the justice of the reproach, and bit his lip to stop the stinging of his eyes. He stiffened his back and sent Arundel down the twisting path to the Ford of Romany. Alan and Alfie followed close behind. The horses edged their way across the treacherous ford, snorting, then plunged wide-eyed up the opposite bank.
Within a few furlongs, the Forest dwindled into patches of stunted trees, and then into true Waste, where only sparse grass and occasional bushes grew. There was poor tracking on this stony turf, and no sign of Corin and his father. Also, Alan had not overestimated the danger of pursuit. He and Hal had not been riding an hour before they were seen. With a shout, six patrollers were after them. But Arundel and Alfie were swift. They sped off toward the west, and by midday not a lordsman was in sight behind them.
Still, Hal and Alan did not dare to stop until they had reached the sheltering Forest. All day they galloped over the high, rocky plain and said no word. Alan, though not easily angered, was stubborn in his wrath. His face had gone as stony as the Waste, and Hal glanced at him and kept silence. Even when the blue-green mass of the Forest welcomed them in the distance, they gave no sign.
Chapter Four
They entered the Forest at last in the gray dusk, and camped near a rocky upland stream. Supper was cooked and eaten without a word. Evidently Hal was distressed, for he ate lightly, dropped things and poised at the fire. But Alan was not yet ready to break his punitive silence. Finally, Hal threw a stone into the fire and abruptly asked a peculiar question.
“Alan. Is your birthday on the first of May?"
Alan's jaw dropped, and he was startled into response. “Ay! But how in the world —"
Hal interrupted him. “So is mine. And I think we are the same age. Seventeen?"
Alan nodded. Hal spoke rapidly, with lowered eyes: “There are many things I should have told you when we first rode together, if you were to follow me.... I feared to cause you pain, but now you have followed me blindly, and it has made you angry. I had better show you something of myself, Alan."
As he finished he slipped off his tunic, and Alan cried out in shock. Hal's entire torso was covered with scars, mutilated into a texture like a tapestry of suffering. The marks of whips scored him, and brands from hot irons, and the white, unhealing lines of canes. If Alan had ever been vexed with him, he had forgotten it now. Without realizing he had moved, he was around the fire and kneeling before him, grasping those wounded shoulders. “Who did this to you?” he choked, in a tone between rage and despair. “Tell me, and I will kill him, I swear it!"
“Softly,” whispered Hal, much moved. “Softly, good friend. He is far beyond your reach, or mine."
Alan sat down, breathing hard. As his boiling blood cooled somewhat, he realized how he had assailed the wall of secrecy that had always surrounded Hal. He attempted to withdraw.
“I spoke hastily,” he began. But Hal stopped him with a smile.
“Of all men that walk the land, I love you best,” Hal stated, with dignity that allowed for no embarrassment. “I have known so since we met, and I do not wish to have any secrets from you.... But bear with me, for this is painful to me."
Hal slowly put on his tunic, lacing it tight before he continued. “I had better get the worst over with first. Those wounds you saw were given to me by order of my father."
“Your father!"
Hal nodded. “There is no great love between us,” he said wryly. “The man is a fiend.” He forced the words out, straining. “His name is Iscovar. And he sits on the throne of the Kingdom of Isle."
For Alan, it was as if the night sky had fallen in. Everything went black, pierced by flashes like falling stars. Involuntarily his whole body stiffened, and he drew back as if he had seen a serpent. His jaw clenched as he stared in horror at this gray-eyed youth whom he had thought to be his friend.
Hal cried out as if he were in physical pain. “Alan, do not look at me so! By my wounds, I would rather be the most pitiful beggar in all of Isle than the son of that man!” He covered his face with his hands and bowed his head, moaning like a child who has lost the only warmth he has ever known.
Alan went to him at once. No force of will or of men's bidding could have kept him away. Putting his arms around Hal, he spoke to him brokenly.
“I am all amazement and confusion. You should be my bitterest enemy. Yet I know you, what you are: the best man I have ever known, and the best friend. I do not know how it can be that such crop sprang from such seed. But it is so."
Gratefully, shakily, Hal touched his hand. They sat in silence, collecting their thoughts.
Alan had good cause to hate the name of Iscovar, King of Isle. In former times, folk said, Isle had been like a paradise. Every man served his own gods and tilled his own land, and the deer grazed up to the cottage doors. There were kings and chieftains, to be sure, but their warriors were their comrades, and then people were their kin. When they fought, it was the high, free strife of which the bards used to sing. But for the most part they kept the peace of the High King, who rode the land with his magical sword.