Try as he might, he could not catch up. The mare was just no match for the sorrel, especially bearing Ylo’s weight. The two horses smoked across the hayfield with Eshiala steadily drawing out in front. Faintly Ylo heard little Maya’s howls over the thunder of hooves. The next hedge was coming up ahead, and Eshiala had obviously seen the gate in it. It wasn’t a gate, though, just a gap blocked by a wicker hurdle. She put the sorrel straight at it and soared like a bird. Then she was gone.
Ylo’s heart turned over. Gods, woman! Think of our child! Think of badger holes. Don’t think of badger holes.
Then he was coming at the hurdle and gathering the mare for the jump. From the way her ears flattened, he guessed she’d had no training in jumping, but she took his orders and cleared it like a veteran. They came down in unripe grain and Eshiala was farther in the lead than ever.
Utter insanity! Didn’t the woman know she was pregnant!? He looked back, but saw only the hedge, which was already fast receding into the distance. Here he was on the crest of the divide. He could see nothing in any direction but corn below and blue sky above, plus more hedges. This time there was no gap ahead. Eshiala did not seem to have realized that. She was still kicking for more speed, humped over to hold her child tight, holding the reins with one hand.
When he’d first met her, she’d seemed just a delicate wildflower wilting in the sultry hothouse of the court. He had soon discovered that she was a wild animal caught in a cruel and intricate trap, and had adjusted his plans accordingly. Before he could make his move, the collapse of the old order had thrown her into terrible danger, but it had also released her from her captivity. Since then she had shown no fear that he had been able to see. Even after he had rescued her from Yewdark, the flower had not been ready for the picking, nor the trophy for the wall. She had made him wait for his reward until she was ready to grant it. Then she had given herself without stint.
Were Shandie to return from the dead, he would not recognize this new Eshiala, this confident, courageous concupiscent woman. Her palace terrors had been forced upon her because her inappropriate marriage had compelled her to be something she was not. She had been required to feign affection for a man she had not loved, a man incapable of loving her as anything except a mythical ideal. No one could be brave in the face of the unknown or the inexplicable, and Eshiala would rather face armored legions than a gaggle of corseted dowagers. Against danger she could understand, she was valiant as any battle-hardened warrior.
And she was riding the pants off him! He would never have expected the gelding to put out for her like this. Still, in her condition this was rank insanity. He would catch up with her at the hedge and tell her so.
She was riding straight at the hedge.
By the Powers, woman! Stop! It’s too high. You don’t know what’s on the other side, or how wide it is. The horse will balk and throw the pair of you straight into the thorns. Make that all three of them! The wind blew cold on his sweat. He wanted to scream at her and the distance was too great, and he might distract her anyway. The hedge was a windbreak, full of trees, and Eshiala had chosen a gap between trees but the thorns and shrubbery were higher there, taller than a man. The horse would refuse . . .
The horse didn’t. It showed momentarily in the gap against the sky and then Ylo was riding alone through the corn. And he couldn’t tell if his love was alive or dead on the far side.
Well, if she could do it, he could. He patted the roan’s neck. “Did I mention that I am an extremely skilled horseman?” He got no reply. He risked one last glance around and saw no pursuit yet. The hedge loomed over him.
He thought of Star, his first pony, and how Big Brother Yshan had set up a knee-high hurdle and dared him to try his fist jump. He had done it and lived and had never truly feared a jump since—until this one. A blind jump with an untried horse too small for his weight. Even jail seemed good, suddenly.
He took the poor roan over it by brute force, and aged about ten years. They went through the top in a blizzard of thorny branches. She stumbled on landing and recovered, then he felt the sickening jerk of a limp in her right foreleg. Bloody blasphemy!
Well-cropped pasture sloped down into another valley. Eshiala was halfway across, angling to the left with cattle stampeding out of her path. She was aiming for a gate in the north boundary.
Beyond this field lay more fields, no cover in sight, very few buildings. Water glinted in the valley bottom, but beyond the river—forest! Suddenly there was hope. The silvery chain of the stream divided the valley into vastly different halves. This side was all cultivated and pastured. The far slope seemed like uninhabited wilderness, stretching for leagues. If the fugitives could cross the river, they could hide from anything but dogs. They might starve to death, but someone must live in that forest. Charcoal burners or game wardens-such men could be bribed with much less gold than still jangled at Ylo’s saddle.
Eshiala was almost at the gap, another hurdle. Remember you are jumping him downhill, love! There was no field beyond it, just a narrow lane and another hedge. She could jump, but did she have room to land? Why did she not just wait for him to come and move the hurdle? He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the gelding was gone and must be presumed safely over and heading to the right, downhill. Oh, bravely, bravely done! That sorrel was a steeplechaser born. They would have a clear run down the lane to the river. Just don’t drop Maya now, darling!
The roan was slowing, limping harder. All Ylo’s training in horsemanship screamed at him to let her stop before he killed her. His father’s ghost pounded on him. Yshan and Yyan, long-dead brothers, howled in his ears. He kicked and kicked, urging the mare onward toward that exit.
Again he took a quick glance back, and there were three horsemen in the pasture with him. A fourth came over the hedge even as he looked, then down and down, crumpling and rolling in disaster on the grass. One less-but that didn’t matter. Three would be enough. He had a sword, but he couldn’t fight three.
Gate coming up. The roan was too lame to jump. He wasn’t going to make the river on a lame horse.
4
“For gods’ sake, Kadie!” Inos said, hugging her frantic daughter. ”Thaile’s only gone away for a few minutes. Stop making such a scene!”
She transfixed her husband with a penetrating green stare.
Rap said, “Huh?” and “Oh, yes. Well, I was thinking of going for a swim. Anyone else fancy a swim? No? Be back shortly, then.”
He strode off across the glade. Women!
Kadie’s problem must be even worse than he had realized if she became hysterical every time her heroine left her for a moment. She was still only a child and he was her father, so he eavesdropped, knowing that Inos would expect him to, or at least would have no objection. As he pushed through the scrub and poplar saplings, his eyes and ears were back at the cabin—in a manner of speaking.
“Now come and sit here with me,” Inos was saying sternly. ”Your father doesn’t know the difference between a chair and a double bed. I’ve always wondered if he was color blind and now I’m sure of it. There. Well, we might as well lie back.” They stretched out side by side on the cushions. Kadie had not stopped whimpering and weeping on her mother’s shoulder.
“Mph!” Inos said crossly. “Perhaps a good slap was what you needed. What sort of princessy behavior is this?”
Rap came to the edge of the bank and slithered down in a shower of pebbles. The tide was out, exposing a wide expanse of white sand punctuated with slimy rocks. Wind stirred his hair. He began to trudge seaward and returned his mind to the conversation.
“Family is family,” Inos was saying, “and friends are friends. Good friends are more precious than fine jewels, and greatly to be treasured. But you never own your friends. They’re not pets. They have their lives to lead, too.”
Reaching damper sand, he paused to strip and put his clothes in a heap. Cool salty wind caressed his hide. The entire bay was empty as far as he could see. Perhaps in the realworld Thume it was inhabited, but not in this one, the College Thume. He padded forward again, enjoying the wetness under his feet.