silver daggers watched, open-mouthed with amazement, a barge man began wrapping the skulls with bits of leather, humming as he worked and stepping back now and again for a good look at his handicraft.
‘At night and from a distance they look a good bit like. cows,’ Budyc remarked as he joined them. ‘Enough to convince the passers-by that we’re a perfectly ordinary line of barges.’
‘All right, good sir,’ Caradoc snapped. ‘Just what is all this?’
‘Know how the smelter-masters weigh out raw iron up north? They say they have so many bulls’ worth of weight – the measure’s actually as much iron as you could trade a bull for back in the Dawntime, or so the guildmaster tells me. So that’s what we’ve got – a load of bulls, and barrels of the darkest ale in the kingdom.’
With a bark of laughter, Maddyn got the point of the joke and the journey both, but Owaen merely looked baffled.
‘Iron, lad,’ Maddyn told him. ‘They’re carrying smuggled iron down to Dun Cerrmor, and I’ll wager they’re getting a good bit more for it than a bull in trade.’
‘You could say that.’ Budyc preened a little. ‘But we’re not making some splendid profit, mind. Think about it – we have to hire wagons for the dry parts of the journey, barges for the wet, and the country folk’s silence, and then guards like you for the border crossing – it’s worth our while, but only just, lads, only just. Then count in the danger. Why do you think we hired you? The Cantrae men’ll stop us if they can, and they won’t be making an honourable prisoner out of the likes of me. If it weren’t helping to save Cerrmor, I doubt me if I’d make these runs.’
‘Tell me somewhat,’ Caradoc said. ‘Think there’s going to be much left of Cerrmor to save by the end of the summer?’
‘I don’t know.’ Budyc’s eyes turned dark. ‘We’re living on hope alone now that the king’s dead. Hope and omens – every cursed day you hear someone prattling about the True King coming to claim the throne, and the city still believes it, well, for the most part, anyway, but I ask you, captain – how much longer can we hold out? The regent’s a great man, and if it weren’t for him we’d have all surrendered to Cantrae by now, but even so, he’s just a regent. Too bad he’s so blasted honourable – if he’d marry the king’s daughter and give her a son, we’d all cheer him as king soon enough.’
‘And he won’t do it?’
‘He won’t, and he says he never will, unless someone brings him irrefutable proof that the True King’s dead and never coming to claim his own.’
‘Interesting, that kind of denial. Is he putting it about that he’d pay well for that kind of proof, like?’
For a moment Budyc stared; then he swore, glaring disgust at Caradoc.
‘I take your ugly meaning, but never would Tieryn Elyc stoop so low, you –’ He caught himself just in time. ‘My apologies, captain. You’re not a Cerrmor man, and you can think whatever you like.’
‘Oh, I was a Cerrmor man once, and I knew Elyc, you see, and thought well enough of him. I just wondered, like, what being elevated to a high place all of a sudden had done to him. One day he was just a lord with a smallish demesne; the next, practically a king. Some men can take that, some can’t.’
‘True spoken, but Elyc’s still got his feet on the ground. It’s a good thing, too.’ Budyc’s face turned wan. ‘Like I say, who knows how long the people can live on hope?’
It was well into the next morning before their strange caravan set out for the south. Although the stream was just deep enough to float heavy cargo, the current couldn’t push it very fast and so for the first stage of the journey the bargemen had their mules harnessed and pulling hard. Even so, the pace was dangerously slow. As the silver daggers let their horses amble along at their own pace, the line spread out into a ragged excuse for order along the streambank. Out of sheer impatience, Branoic thought he just might go mad before they reached Cerrmor.
‘Ye gods, you look like you’ve bitten into a Bardek citron!’Aethan said. ‘What’s making you so sour?’
‘What’s it to you? Go bugger a mule!’
‘Br-bran, he’s right,’ Maryn stammered. ‘Somewhat’s aching your heart.’
Since he couldn’t bring himself to insult the young king, Branoic merely shrugged, wishing that he did indeed know what was bothering him so badly. Maryn thought for a minute, his eyebrows furrowing as he struggled to pick words.
‘Leave it and him be, lad.’ Aethan forestalled him. ‘I don’t take any offence. Branno, look – it’s this cursed foul journey, never knowing if there’s an ambuscade behind every bush or suchlike. I feel like I’ve got brigga full of burrs myself.’
‘Well, my apologies. You were right enough about me being sour. I wish we could travel faster.’
‘We will, we will. If I understand rightly, this stream widens into a proper river a few miles from here.’
Although Aethan was right about the stream widening, it was nearly sunset before they reached water that was significantly faster-flowing. That night Caradoc posted a double ring of guards round the camp, and in the morning when they rode out, he sent point-men far ahead of them on both sides of the stream and rotated squads of ten men apiece on rear-guard and in the van. Over the next three days, as they inched their way south, going from stream to stream and from sheltering stand of trees to concealing thicket, caution became routine. With every prudent delay, even if it was only a brief wait to change point-men, Branoic’s bad temper swelled like the black clouds of a summer storm.
That Owaen decided to harass him helped not at all. Maybe the lieutenant just needed something to pass the time, but it seemed to Branoic that every time he turned round Owaen was there to point out that his gear wasn’t properly polished or his horse well enough groomed, that he slouched too much in the saddle or else sat too straight, that he looked sour as weasel-piss or told too many stupid jokes. Since he was determined to win himself a silver dagger, Branoic gritted his teeth and said nothing to anyone. The last thing he wanted was to be known as a whiner. On the fourth night, when they were setting up camp in a bend of the river, Branoic went over to one of the barges to draw provisions and came across Owaen talking to Maddyn. Since Owaen’s back was to him, and a lot of men were bustling around, the lieutenant never heard Branoic come up behind him.
‘I’m not badgering him, curse you! He’s just not measuring up,’ Owaen snapped. ‘What’s our little Branno been doing, running snivelling to you and saying I’ve been persecuting him or suchlike?’
Branoic grabbed him by the shoulder, hauled him round, and punched him under the chin as hard as he could, all in one smooth motion. Owaen quite literally left his feet and flipped back to fall like a half-empty sack of grain into the grass. Swearing under his breath Maddyn ran over and knelt down beside him just as the captain came rushing up and half-a-dozen silver daggers crowded round to see the show. Branoic stood there rubbing his smarting knuckles and wanting to die or perhaps turn to air and drift away. He was sure that he was going to be flogged at best and turned out of the troop to starve at worst. When he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder he spun round to find Nevyn, and much to his utter surprise, the old man was smiling – just a little, and in a wry sort of way, but smiling nonetheless.
‘Arrogant little bastard, isn’t he?’ Nevyn remarked. ‘But you need to learn to control that temper, lad.’
