Fool’s Assassin

The wailing woman was Shun. She was bareheaded and her gown was torn from one shoulder. She stood before the angry man on his horse and wailed like a mourner. No words, no sobbing, just a high-pitched keening. The fog man was not far from her, and the plump woman seemed to be trying to ask her questions. I could not help her in any way. Much as I disliked Shun, I still would have helped her if I could, because she belonged to me, in the same way the black cat did or the goose children did. They were all the folk of Withywoods, and in the absence of my father and Nettle they were my folk. My folk, huddled and bleating in terror.

A moment before, I had been a child fleeing danger. Something changed in me. I would reach the stables, and with Perseverance I would ride for help. I needed to get there quickly, before he needlessly exposed himself by riding a horse back toward the manor where he thought I was hiding. The fear that had been crippling me melted away and became a wolf-fierceness. I crouched and the next time the woman asked Shun a question, I ran, keeping low and following Perseverance’s trail in hopes of leaving less evidence of my passage.

I reached the corner of the stable and whisked around it and crouched, breathing hard. What next, what next? Go to the back door, I decided, where the stable boys trundled out the barrows of dirty straw. That would be where Perseverance would come out with the horses. It was the door farthest from the house.

My path took me past the cote where our messenger birds had been kept. Had been. Feathers and bodies, their necks wrenched and tossed to the ground inside their fly-pen. No time to stare at all those small deaths. It was coming to me that whoever these people were, they were completely ruthless and this attack had been planned. No birds had flown to say we were being attacked. The invaders had killed them first.

When I reached the stable doors, I peered around them. A sickening sight met my eyes. Had the raiders come here first, as they had with the birds? Horses shifted uneasily in their stalls, for the smell of blood reached even my poor nose. I was grateful they had not taken the time to kill the horses. Possibly they had not wanted to risk the sound. Someone sprawled in the passageway between the stalls. He wore Withywoods colors. He was one of ours, facedown and unmoving. One of mine. I tightened my throat against a sob. No time to mourn. If anyone was to survive, Perseverance and I had to ride for help. We were my people’s last hope. I was not sure how many folk there were in little Withy village but there would be messenger birds there and someone would gallop for the King’s Patrol.

I was finding my nerve to step past the body when I heard a sound and looked up to see Perseverance coming my way. He was mounted bareback on a sturdy bay but had taken the time to saddle and bridle Priss for me. Tears were streaming down his cheeks but his jaw was a hard mannish jut from his boy’s face. He gasped when he saw me, and I quickly let the big hood of the cloak fall back from my face. “It’s me!” I whispered.

Anger flashed in his eyes. “I told you to stay where you were!”

He slid down from his horse, muffled his nostrils, and led him past the body. He gave me the reins to hold and when back for Priss, doing the same to get her past. When he stood beside me, he seized me around the waist and without ceremony flung me up on my horse. I scrabbled into place, gathering my cloak in handfuls and stuffing it once more down the front of my jerkin. I didn’t want it flapping and spooking Priss. I was already dreading a hard ride.

He did not trust me with Priss’s reins but kept them as he mounted his own horse. He looked at me over his shoulder and spoke quietly. “We’re leaving at a gallop,” he warned me. “It’s our only chance. We ride at full speed and we do not stop. Not for anything. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“If someone stands before us, I will ride him down. And you will stay on Priss and follow. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And this time, you obey me!” he added fiercely.

I had no time to respond to that for, with a sudden lurch, we were in motion. We went out the back doors of the stable and across the open sward, keeping the stable between us and the house, heading at a gallop toward the long winding carriageway. The unbroken and drifted snow beneath the leafless trees slowed us but perhaps muffled somewhat the sound of our passage. It was not enough. As we moved from the cover of the stable and into the open, I heard a startled shout. Strange, how a wordless shout can still be in a foreign tongue. Perseverance did something, and our horses suddenly increased their pace, stretching their legs out and running as I’d never ridden before.