Garth nodded and lowered his eyes to the flames, watching their light flicker over his hands. Over the past days he’d expected to hear the sound of pursuing troops with every breath he took; all of them, with the exception of Maximilian, who was consumed with his own troubles, jumped at every unexpected sound or the shadow of a bird rising from the undergrowth.
Ravenna smiled for him, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “Garth, we will be—”
A glimmer of light to the south and a brief crackle in the night halted her mid-sentence. Her eyes flashed to Vorstus then, with the others, she rose and stared where the light had briefly illuminated the night sky.
“What could it be?” Joseph asked Vorstus, and Garth bent down and shook Maximilian awake. The prince grunted and rolled over, rubbing sleep from his eyes; he got to his knees as he saw the concern on everyone’s faces.
“I don’t know,” Vorstus said quietly. “Perhaps we’d better—”
The light flashed again, brief and silvery, and Ravenna exhaled in relief. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s Venetia.”
Garth stared at her, then turned back to the night.
“Oh,” Maximilian said, and sat down with a tired thump. “The silver ball returns.”
Ravenna smiled at him. “Yes, Maximilian. The light returns.”
“Does she send news of Nona?” Joseph asked. Worry about his wife had kept him awake for hours over the past few nights; now both anxiety and lack of sleep had puffed grey pouches under his eyes.
“We’ll see,” Ravenna said gently. She was sure that her mother could have spirited Nona out of Narbon safely, but she didn’t want to raise Joseph and Garth’s hopes until she had definite word. And Venetia wouldn’t have risked the light for any other reason, would she?
The silvery light flared again, much closer, then again, and within moments it rushed over the crest of the nearest hill like a racing moon and danced down into Ravenna’s hands. She smiled, then murmured, clasping the ball close to her breast. It flared once, brilliantly, then once again, lighting the landscape about them to a radius of some fifty paces—Vorstus swore softly and spun about on his heel; how far had the sudden radiance been seen? If there were soldiers within half a league of them…
“Peace, Vorstus,” Ravenna said softly, and the ball she clasped to her breast dulled and appeared to flatten and then fade; the flesh of her face and neck absorbing the light. “No-one sees.”
“And Nona?”
Ravenna turned to Joseph, the silvery ball and light now completely gone. “She’s safe, Joseph,” the girl smiled, and both Joseph and Garth visibly relaxed, “although she does not much like the misty marsh and she yearns for her kitchen.”
Joseph took a deep breath. “I thank you, Ravenna. You and your mother.”
“There is nothing for you to worry about,” she replied, glad to have been able to help.
“Except for the prince,” Garth said, very low, and all turned to look at Maximilian.
He stared back at them, his eyes flat and almost black in this light, then he lay back down and pulled the blanket close about him. Without a word he rolled himself once again into an unapproachable ball.
Vorstus and Garth shared the watch that night, silently agreeing to let Joseph sleep unhindered, then woke the others several hours before dawn. Vorstus stoked the fire silently, brewing tea for them and sharing out the remainder of the bread and fruit that the ladies of Myrna had provided. They ate and drank wordlessly, Garth encouraging Maximilian to take a few mouthfuls from the mug he held reluctantly, then Vorstus kicked the dirt across the fire and helped Maximilian to his feet.
They set out as silently as they had risen, both their thoughts and the chill air discouraging conversation, and moved only as fast as Maximilian could walk; Ravenna rode one of the horses and led the other. Not for the first time both Garth and Joseph, each with an arm about the prince, cursed the fact that he refused to ride.
Yet their pace was not too slow. The pre-dawn air was crisp and still, and it seemed to bolster Maximilian’s steps. With Garth and Joseph’s aid he managed a fair pace, and within an hour of leaving the camp site both father and son noticed that Vorstus, ahead by some five or six paces, was walking with loose-limbed ease.
“Vorstus?” Joseph called, wondering, for only a few minutes ago the monk had been moving far more cautiously.
Vorstus halted and waited for the others to catch up. “We’re not far away now,” he grinned, his relief evident. “In another half an hour we’ll have the trees for cover. Take a deep breath…smell it?”
Pushed into their faces by a gentle easterly breeze, the air was redolent with the scent of sweet pine and the musk of oak and beech. Ravenna reined in the fidgeting horses and closed her eyes momentarily, letting the breeze wrap about her face. “It is a rich scent,” she said, “but has not the tang of the salty marshes.”
Maximilian straightened and lifted his head, his eyes feverish. “It is the forest,” he said, “and it is where my life ended.”
“Then it will also be where your life will resume,” Vorstus said tersely, and strode forwards.
They reached the line of trees just as the first tendrils of daylight gilded their crests with gold. Maximilian shuddered once, violently, as they passed into the shaded walks of the forest, and he kept his head down and his eyes riveted on the leaf litter of the forest floor. But Joseph and Garth—and Ravenna, who had dismounted so her bare feet could touch the damp ground—gazed about curiously. Few were permitted into the vast expanses of the royal forests, for they were the preserve of the royal family; only on the occasion of the great hunts, when virtually the entire court accompanied the king into the forest, did the shaded ways resound to the trample of hooves and the clamour of hounds.
But Vorstus led the way confidently; closely connected to the royal family, the monks of the Order of Persimius entered the forest whenever an heir needed to be marked, or when an heir staked his claim to the throne of Escator. Yet the order also maintained a house within the forest, and as he watched a surefooted Vorstus stride down an unmarked trail, Joseph wondered what else the mysterious monks did within the secret silence of the trees.
It was cooler beneath the forest canopy, and the air was damp. In these lower regions the trees were mostly ancient beech and oak, although deeper into the forest the ground rose into a series of razor-spired cliffs and ridges, and there conifers clung to the thin soil, their pine cones tumbling to the base of the ravines to snag at the gentle feet of passing deer and the ragged fur of snuffling bears. But here the way was relatively clear. The trees, some with girths of eight or nine paces, grew well apart to give their gnarled limbs space to spread out, and so little light filtered through their thick canopy that undergrowth was sparse and stunted.
As they walked Garth asked Vorstus about the forest. “How often does the king and the royal court come to hunt here, Vorstus?”
“Several times a year, Garth. Generally during the summer and autumn.”
Garth thought about that a moment. “The forests are the royal preserve, Vorstus, but is it only because of the hunting?”
Vorstus paused before he answered. “No. The kings claim the forest as their royal hunting preserve, true, but there is a deeper reason the kings prefer to keep the forest as lonely a place as possible.”
“A deeper reason?”
“You will no doubt understand soon enough, boy.”
Garth nodded. The forest—or something within the forest—obviously played a vital part in the process whereby a man laid claim to the throne. “Does anyone inhabit this forest?” he asked after a few minutes’ contemplation. He was panting a little, for he and his father were now supporting virtually Maximilian’s full weight.
Perhaps too sick to pay attention, the prince was ignoring the conversation about him.
Vorstus grinned over his shoulder. “Apart from the odd monk, Garth?” His grin broadened slightly at the “odd”. “A few woodsmen in the employ of the king, that’s all. They keep an eye on the game, and fell any trees which are so badly damaged during the spring and autumn storms that they might topple on any unwary hunting party that thunders by. I doubt that we shall see any.”
“And if we did?” Joseph asked.
Vorstus shrugged, slowing his gait a little as he saw how Joseph and Garth struggled with Maximilian. “They are used to the visits of the order, Joseph.”
Ravenna, following slightly behind the rest of the group, laughed at the monk’s words. “And how would you explain the rest of us, Vorstus? Surely the sight of us would send any woodsman scrambling to inform the king of the presence of unwanted visitors.”