Guy Kay - Tigana

"Why thank you, merchant," the man said with lazy sarcasm. Slowly, sliding it along Baerd's cheek like an evil caress, he drew back his sword. "And since you have given us these barrels, you will surely not begrudge us the horse and cart that carry them?"

"Take the cart as well," Baerd heard himself saying. He felt suddenly as if he had left his body. As if he were floating above this scene, looking down.

And it was as from that high, detached vantage point that he seemed to see the Barbadians move to claim their wagon. They attached the cart-horse to the traces again. One of them, younger than the others, slung their packs and food out onto the ground. He looked shyly back at Catriana, a little abashed, then he mounted quickly up on the seat and clucked at the horse, and the cart rolled slowly away to where the tail of the Barbadian column was moving along the road. The five other men, leading his horse, followed after him. They were laughing, the easy, spilling laughter of men among each other, sure of their place and of the shape of their lives. Baerd glanced over at his bow again. He was fairly certain he could kill all six of them, starting with the leader, before anyone could intervene.

He didn't move. None of them moved until the last of the column was out of sight, their cart rumbling after it. Baerd turned then and looked at Catriana. She was trembling, but he knew her well enough to know it was as much with anger as with fear.

"I'm sorry," he said, reaching up a hand to touch her arm.

"I could kill you Baerd for giving me such a fright."

"I know," he said. "And I would deserve to be dead. I underestimated them."

"Could have been worse," Sandre said prosaically.

"Oh, somewhat," Catriana said tartly. "We could all be lying dead here now."

"That would indeed have been worse," Sandre agreed gravely. It took her a moment to realize he was teasing her. She surprised herself by laughing, a little wildly.

Sandre, his darkened face sober, said something quite unexpected then. "You have no idea," he murmured, "how dearly I wish you were of my blood. My daughter, granddaughter. Will you allow me to take pride in what you are?"

She was so surprised she could think of nothing to say. A moment later, deeply moved, she went forward and kissed him on the cheek. He put his long, bony arms around her and held her to his chest for a moment, carefully, as if she was fragile, or very precious, or both. She couldn't remember the last time someone had held her that way.

He stepped back, clearing his throat awkwardly. She saw that Baerd's expression was unwontedly soft, looking at the two of them.

"This is all extremely lovely," she said, deliberately dry. "Shall we spend the day here telling each other what splendid people we think we are?"

Baerd grinned. "Not a bad idea, but not the very best. I think we'll have to double back to where we bought the ale. We need another cart and horse."

"Good. I could use a flask of ale," Sandre said. Catriana glanced quickly back at him, caught the wry look in his eye, and laughed. She knew what he was doing, but she would never have expected to be able to laugh so soon after seeing a sword against Baerd's face.

Baerd collected his bow and quiver from the grass. They shouldered their packs and made her ride the horse, nothing else, Sandre said, would look right. She wanted to argue but couldn't. And she was secretly grateful for the chance to ride; her knees were still weak.

It was very dusty along the road for a mile or two because of the army, and they kept to the grass beside it. Her horse startled a rabbit and before she could even register the fact, Baerd had notched an arrow and shot, and the animal was dead. They traded it a short while later at a farmhouse for a pitcher of ale and some bread and cheese and then went on.

Late in the day, by the time they had made their slow way back to the village, Catriana bad convinced herself that the incident had been unfortunate, but not really important after all.

Eight days later they were in Tregea town. They had seen no other soldiers in the intervening week, their path having taken them far off the major roads. They left the new cart and goods at their usual inn and walked down to the central market. It was late in the afternoon, a warm day for spring. Looking north between the buildings toward the docks, Catriana could see the masts of the first ships to come up the river after the winter. Sandre had stopped at a leather stall to have repairs done to the belt that held his sword. As she and Baerd moved through the crowded square, a Barbadian mercenary, older than most, moving with a limp, and probably drunk on spring wine, stumbled out of a tavern, saw her, and lurched over to grope clumsily at her breasts and between her legs.

She shrieked, more startled than anything else.

And a moment later wished with all her heart that she had not done so. Baerd, just ahead of her, wheeled, saw the man, and with the same deadly, reflexive speed that had killed the rabbit, flattened the Barbadian with a colossal blow to the side of his head.

And Catriana knew, knew in that moment with utter and absolute certainty, that he was striking out not just against a drunken reserve guard, but against the officer who had touched him with a sword by that grove in Certando a week before.

There was a sudden, frightened silence around them. And then an immediate babble of sound. They looked at each other for a blurred, flashing second.

"Run!" Baerd ordered harshly. "Meet tonight by the place where you came up from the river last winter. If I am not there go on by yourselves. You know the names. There are only a handful left. Eanna guard you all!"

Then he was gone, sprinting through the square the way they had come, as a cluster of mercenaries began fanning out quickly through the crowd toward them. The man on the ground had not moved. Catriana didn't wait to see if he would. She cut off the other way as fast as she could run. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sandre at the leather stall watching them, his face loose with shock. She was careful, desperately careful, not to look at him, not to run that way. That one of them, oh, Triad please be willing, one of them might make it from this place alive and free, with the names known and the dream still carried toward Midsummers's fires.

She darted down a crowded street and then sharply left at the first crossing into the warren of twisting lanes that made up the oldest quarter of Tregea near the river. Over her head the second stories of houses leaned crazily out towards each other, and what filtered through of the sunlight was completely blocked in places by the enclosed bridges that connected that ramshackle buildings on either side of the street.

She looked back and saw four of the mercenaries following her, pounding loudly down the lane. One of them shouted a command to halt. If any of them had a bow, Catriana thought, she was quite likely to die in the next few seconds. Dodging from side to side she cut to her right down an alleyway and then quickly right again at the first crossing, doubling back the way she had come.

There were three names on Baerd's list here in Tregea, and she knew where two of them might be found, but there was no way she could go to them for succor, not with the Barbadians so close behind. She would have to lose the pursuit herself, if she could, and leave it to Sandre to make the contact. Or Baerd, if he survived.

She ducked under the flapping ends of someone's wash hanging above the street, and knifed over to her left toward the water. There were people milling about in the lanes, glancing up with mild curiosity as she went by. Their glances would change in a moment, she knew, when the Barbadians rumbled through after her.

The streets were a hopelessly jumbled maze. She wasn't certain where she was, only that the river was north of her; at fleeting intervals she could glimpse the topmost masts of the ships. The waterfront would be dangerous though, much too open and exposed. She doubled back south again, her lungs sucking for air. Behind her, she heard a crashing sound and then a cacophony of irate shouts and curses.