his horse, he started off at a brisk trot. The rider ahead never heard him coming, or else cared not a whit if he were followed, because he never turned or even looked back the entire time that Maddyn was closing with him. Finally, when Maddyn was close enough to see that the entire back of the man’s shirt was thick with rusty-brown dried blood, the fellow paused his horse and sat slumped and weary, as if inviting Maddyn to have a clear strike at him and be done with it.
‘Here,’ Maddyn said. ‘What’s wrong?’
At that the rider did turn to look at him, and Maddyn swore aloud.
‘Aethan, by all the gods! What are you doing on the Gwaentaer road?’
‘And I could ask the same of you, Maddo.’ His voice, normally deep and full of humour, was rasped with old pain. ‘Or have you come to fetch me to the Otherlands?’
Maddyn stared for a moment, then remembered that everyone in Cantrae thought him dead.
‘Oh, here, I’m as much alive as you are. How were you wounded?’
‘I’m not. I’ve been flogged.’
‘Ah, horsedung and a pile of it! Can you ride any farther?’
Aethan considered this for a long moment. He was normally a handsome man, with even features, dark hair just touched with grey at the temples, and wide blue eyes that always seemed to be laughing at some jest, but now his face was twisted in pain, and his eyes were narrow and grim, as if perhaps he’d never laugh again.
‘I need a rest,’ he said at last. ‘Shall we sit awhile, or are you riding on and leaving me?’
‘What? Are you daft? Would I run out on a man I’ve known since I was a cub of fifteen?’
‘I don’t know any more what men will do and women neither.’
In a nearby meadow they found a pleasant copse of willows planted round a farmer’s duckpond, with the farmer nowhere in sight. Maddyn dismounted, then helped Aethan down and watered the horses while his friend sat numbly in the shade. As he worked, he was wondering over it all. Aethan was the last man in the kingdom that Maddyn would have expected to get himself shamed, flogged, and turned out of his warband. A favourite of his captain, Aethan had been a second-in-command of Gwerbret Tibryn’s own warband. He was one of those genuinely decent men so valuable to any good warband – the conciliator, everyone’s friend, the man who settled all those petty disputes bound to arise when a lot of men are packed into a barracks together. The gwerbret himself had on occasion asked Aethan’s advice on small matters dealing with the warband, but now here he was, with his shame written on his back in blood.
Once the horses were watered, Maddyn filled the waterskin with fresh drink and sat down next to Aethan, who took the skin from him with a twisted smile.
‘Outlawed we may be, but we still follow the rules of the troop, don’t we, Maddo? Horses first, then men.’
‘We need these mounts more than ever, with no lord to give us another.’
Aethan nodded and drank deep, then handed the skin back. ‘Well, it gladdens my heart that you weren’t killed in Lord Devyr’s last charge. I take it you found a farm or suchlike to hide in all winter.’
‘Somewhat like that. I was dying, actually, from a wound I took, when a local herbman found me.’
‘Gods! You’ve always had the luck, haven’t you?’
Maddyn merely shrugged and stoppered up the skin tight. For a moment they merely sat there in an uncomfortable silence and watched the fat grey ducks grubbing at the edge of the pond.
‘You hold your tongue cursed well for a bard,’ Aethan said abruptly. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about my shame?’
‘Say what you want and not a word more.’
Aethan considered, staring out at the far flat horizon.
‘Ah horseshit,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a tale fit for a bard to know, in a way. Do you remember our gwerbret’s sister, the Lady Merodda?’
‘Oh, and how could any man with blood in his veins forget her?’
‘He’d best try.’ Aethan’s voice turned hard and cold. ‘Her husband was killed in battle last summer, and so she came back to her brother in Dun Cantrae. And the captain made me her escort, to ride behind her whenever she went out.’ He was quiet, his mouth working, for a good couple of minutes. ‘And she took a fancy to me. Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, I should have said her nay – I blasted well knew it, even then – but ye gods, Maddo, I’m only made of flesh and blood, not steel, and she knows how to get what she wants from a man. I swear to you, I never would have said a word to her if she hadn’t spoken to me first.’
‘I believe you. You’ve never been a fool.’
‘Not before this winter, at least. I felt like I was ensorcelled. I’ve never loved a woman that way before, and cursed if I ever will again. I wanted her to ride off with me. Like a misbegotten horseshit fool, I thought she loved me enough to do it. But oh, it didn’t suit her ladyship, not by half.’ Again the long, pain-filled pause. ‘So she let it slip to her brother what had been happening between us, but oh, she was the innocent one, she was. And when His Grace took all the skin off my back three days ago, she was out in the ward to watch.’
Aethan dropped his face into his hands and wept like a child. For a moment Maddyn sat there frozen; then he reached out a timid hand and laid it on Aethan’s shoulder until at last he fell silent and wiped his face roughly on his sleeve.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on her.’ Aethan’s voice was a flat, dead whisper. ‘She did keep her brother from killing me.’ He stood up, and it was painful to watch him wince as he hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’ve rested enough. Let’s ride, Maddo. The farther I get from Cantrae the happier I’ll be.’
For four days Maddyn and Aethan rode west, asking cautious questions of the various farmers and pedlars that they met about the local lords and their warbands. Even though they sometimes heard of a man who might be desperate enough to take them in without asking questions, each time they decided that they were still too close to Cantrae to risk petitioning him. They realized, however, that they would have to find some place soon, because all around them the noble-born were beginning to muster their men for the summer’s fighting. With troops moving along the roads they were in a dangerous position. Maddyn had no desire to escape being hanged for an outlaw only to end up in a rope as a supposed spy.
Since Aethan’s back was far from healed, they rode slowly, stopping often to rest, either beside the road or in village taverns. They had, at least, no need to worry about coin; not only did Maddyn have Nevyn’s generous pouch, but Aethan’s old captain had managed to slip him money along with his gear when he’d been kicked out of Dun Cantrae. Apparently Maddyn wasn’t alone in thinking the gwerbret’s sentence harsh. During this slow progress west, Maddyn had plenty of time to watch and worry over his old friend. Since always before, Aethan had watched over him – he was, after all, some ten years Maddyn’s elder – Maddyn was deeply troubled to realize that Aethan needed him the way a child needs his father. The gwerbret might have spared his life, but he’d broken him all the same, this man who’d served him faithfully for over twenty years, by half beating him to death like a rat caught in a stable.
Always before Aethan had
