It didn't seem like I'd slept very long when someone shook me. I woke up wide awake, thinking it must be dad, but there was torchlight, and it was Pierre's face that looked down at me. I could see he was worried about something, and that really wakened me.
"What is it?" I asked, sitting up.
"Guillaume, my son, came home, and I woke up. He told me the magistrates are looking for a foreigner, and from the description, I am sure it is you. All the guards will be watching for you, so you must be well away from here before daylight. Also, there are men watching the road. You are supposed to be very dangerous, and are to be turned over to the young Baron Roland de Falais, whom you are said to have robbed.
"No one believes the baron, but he is a man of influence with the duke. He was a champion in the duke's great victory at Hastings, and the duke is a man whose good will is important to the town, so it will be as the baron wishes.
"My son is asleep now, but you must leave at once." Then he added, "The rain has almost stopped."
I got up and handed Pierre the cloak his wife had given me. "Are they watching the road around the town, too?"
He nodded. "I am sure they would watch that. Yes."
I knew then what I was going to do. "Look," I said, "the horse is not mine. I was being held hostage by Roland, and took it to escape. I leave it with you. You can keep it if it's safe to, or you can turn him out to wander until someone claims him as a stray. I'll travel by foot."
"By foot at night? It is not safe!"
"For me," I said, "nothing is safe. And thank you for your kindness." I crossed myself. "May the good god bless you."
He looked soberly at me and didn't say anything more as I said goodbye to Darry and left.
The rain had slackened a lot since I'd gone to bed, though the clouds kept it really, really dark. But it still made enough faint sound to reduce what a person could hear, which was both an advantage and a disadvantage. Meanwhile, the combination of weather and the late hour meant that hardly anyone would be out and around. If I saw anyone, I could be suspicious of them, and vice versa.
I could barely make out the town palisade about two hundred feet away, and oriented myself by it. The river would be to my right, and I turned that way. What I'd do was follow it toward the sea, which couldn't be too terribly far away. The chances were that dad would be along any time now, but if for some reason he didn't show up tonight, I'd hole up somewhere and wait for him.
I started picking my way eastward between the somewhat scattered buildings. You'd think I'd have been barked at by some of the local canids, or even harassed by them, but there didn't seem to be any. I wondered if there were enough hungry people around that canids got killed and eaten, or whether they were all indoors and just didn't notice me, quiet as I was.
It seemed to me that once I got well away from the town, I ought to be safe from the baron. Ten knights and sergeants wouldn't stretch very far—not even the sixteen he'd have if Arno was cooperating with him in this. And I didn't think he'd notify the other barons. They'd be curious about me if he did, and if one of them got me, Roland would probably never see me or my weapons again. Probably no one else would, either; Roland would have figured that out. And the town guards would only be watching for me around town.
To keep from getting too chilled, I started jogging. I went as light-footedly as I could, to avoid the sound of splashing, and continued to stay away from the road. It was hard to believe that men would be out in the open watching on a night like that, but it was no time to take needless chances. I kept my eyes open for sign of anyone at all.
If anyone challenged me, I'd be very obedient until they were close enough to stun. I didn't feel like I was in too much actual danger, with the weapons I had on my belt. But I wanted to stay free and get picked up by dad while still keeping it possible to make a deal with Roland. So I definitely didn't want to kill any of his men, although it occurred to me that he might easily forgive the loss of a man or two if it came down to grabbing some power.
It only took four or five minutes of jogging before I could see the river just ahead of me. The palisade was still in sight to my left, and from where I was, it seemed to go right down to the river. To go downstream past the town, I'd need to take to the water and swim past it.
Fine, I thought. I knew from experience that the water wasn't too cold. The combination of weapons, communicator, jumpsuit, and tunic wouldn't help my buoyancy any, but I was sure I could do it.
Then I stopped, suddenly, and lowered myself to the wet ground. Out on the water, not far from shore, I'd seen movement, something floating down the current. I watched it float past me, less than a hundred feet away, a small boat with men in it. It made my hair crawl. Somehow it seemed to me they weren't just casual boatmen, not just travelers caught out in the weather and returning late to town.
When I couldn't see them anymore, I went quietly to the bank, slid down it, and stepped into the water. Within three steps it was over my head, and I let the current take me, swimming on my side enough to move out farther from shore.
But not too far. Not too far to see what was going on along the riverside. The palisade didn't go quite to the river. It went down near the river, to the top of a river terrace that stood a few feet above the flood plain. Then it turned and went along the top of the terrace, maybe twenty feet back from the bank, enclosing the town on the side toward the river. I could understand that. Why build it on a flood plain?
Pretty much the whole riverbank there seemed to be built up with timbers to serve as a long wharf. Several low ships were tied up to it, none of them more than thirty or maybe forty feet long, I suppose. At least a couple of them had single masts that I could see dimly in the night. The current would take me by them about twenty feet out.
And I saw what the boatmen were up to. They had pulled up alongside one of the ships there, tying to her gunwale, and as I drifted toward them, I saw them climb over the side onto the ship. Thieves, I thought. It didn't make sense that they were sailors who belonged aboard her. They were there to rob the ship, I felt sure.
I don't remember deciding to do what I did next. It seems as if I just did it. Actually it's as if I watched myself doing it. I changed the direction of my stroke to take me in closer to the shore and the ship, at the same time assuring myself that everything would work out just fine. In half a minute I had hold of the skiff they'd come there in.
The skiff, about ten feet long, was tied to a big thole pin, which told me this ship could be rowed. The ship's side rose only about forty inches out of the water, and pulling myself up with the skiff's rope, I grabbed the gunwale.
I could hear voices talking in undertones—little more than whispers. It sounded as if they were on the other side of the ship, and toward the bow. Ever so quietly I untied the skiff and let myself slide back into the water. The current carried it away downstream, with me holding on to her rope. When they went to load their loot, they'd discover her gone, but by that time I'd be out of sight and out of reach. And they'd be stuck there. Served them right.
When I couldn't see the ships anymore, I worked myself back to the rear of the skiff and climbed aboard her there, where she wouldn't tip over with me. She had oars, shipped under the middle seat, and thole pins set in the gunwales to brace the oars for rowing. It was the perfect solution to going down the river.
And it felt good to row a boat again, the first time since I'd left Evdash. I'd just row along until dad came, staying close enough to the shore that I could get to it quickly when I saw him.
After an hour or so, though, I'd had more than enough rowing, and decided to just drift with the current. I was starting to get blisters. There was a paddle on board as well, and I just sat in the stern, using it as a tiller while I watched the darkness slide by. The rain had stopped, except for some drizzle off and on. When I'd get a little sleepy, or a little too chilly, I'd do pushups off the center seat to warm up and get wider awake.
Somehow it didn't seem safe to go to sleep on board, and I didn't want to go ashore yet. I felt safer out on the river, and if dad didn't pick me up tonight, then I wanted to get by as many towns and castles as possible before daylight. What I really preferred, if I didn't get picked up, was to get all the way to the sea.
Finally though, the first tinge of dawn began to gray the sky, and I could see a little farther. The river was wider here. In a few minutes, up ahead, I could make out the stone castle I'd noticed when we'd first seen the River Orne. I was almost to the sea.
It occurred to me then that it might not be too smart to go out to sea in a flat-bottomed skiff. As I got closer, I could see near the castle a village with a palisade, so I took the oars and rowed toward a woods on the opposite side of the river.
It was beginning to rain again as I pulled the skiff ashore. And I was really pretty tired. So I dragged it up to where the ground wasn't so muddy, turned it over, and crawled underneath. If I had to sleep cold, at least I wouldn't have the rain falling on me.
I'm not sure how long I slept—maybe three or four hours. It was voices that woke me. Not mom's and dad's speaking Evdashian, but men's speaking Norman.
"It's ours, all right," said one. "I told you I recognized it."
"See!" said a second. "I told you I tied it up good! There ain't no way it could have got up here by itself. Someone stole it, sure as hell!"
I should have realized what was going on, but I was still fuzzy-minded from sleep. Before I thought to reach for my stunner, the boat was turned over, they saw me lying there, and one of them jumped on me. I didn't struggle. All it would have earned me was a beating, or maybe a cut throat. Hand-foot art didn't occur to me at the moment, and it has its limits anyway. Particularly when you're on your back and there are three of them.
The guy who jerked me to my feet wasn't very big, but his strength had a fierceness to it. Another grabbed me from behind. One of them had pulled a long knife from a sheath and held it to my throat.
"Careful with that," said the one who seemed to be the leader. "The captain will want to talk to him. Hold it up to him, to make sure he behaves himself, but don't draw blood unless he struggles."
Silently I thanked the man, and promised myself I wouldn't struggle. I'd be very well behaved until I had a chance to do something effective and hopefully not too risky. Meanwhile, they paid no attention to my weapons; obviously, it never occurred to them what they were.
Two of them frog-marched me to the edge of the water, where there was a roundish sort of little boat, of leather stretched over a frame of saplings, with paddles in it. The other one dragged the skiff down. "We'll all ride the skiff," the leader said, "and tow the Breton coracle."
Anchored eighty feet offshore, I could see what looked to be the ship of the night before, the one I'd taken the skiff from. "Just a minute!" I said, staring at it. "How did that get here?" I was talking more to myself than to them.
"The Jeanette Louise?" the leader said. "We rowed her. How does a crew usually move a ship on a river?"
A crew! And these men were part of it. Aboard her I could see another twelve or fifteen men, and there might be more out of sight below the gunwales. It occurred to me that I had made a serious mistake the night before. "Wait," I said. "Last night I saw some men climb aboard that ship from this skiff. Was that you?"
"Aye, we were two of them, Charles and me."
"And you were whispering as if you were sneaking."
"We were whispering. It would be worth a fist in the face to wake our captain. Why do you ask these questions?"
"You'd never believe me," I said. I'd really blown it, I told myself. I'd jumped to a conclusion and gotten myself into a situation I'd never be able to talk my way out of. The man behind me twisted my arm higher behind my back as another pushed the skiff into the water. While two of them steadied it, the other one walked me to the bow and pushed me to my knees. The others pushed off the shore. One of them took the oars and began to row, while by now some thirty or so heads were watching from the little ship.
I wondered why it took so many men to row something no larger than that—thirty feet long at the most. Maybe, I thought, these weren't innocent merchant seamen after all.
We were there in less than a minute. Two of the men on the ship reached over the gunwales to yank me up by the arms and dump me sprawling on the deck. But it still wasn't time to go for my stunner, because two others grabbed me as soon as I'd landed, to jerk me back onto my feet. They turned me half around, and I found myself facing the captain. I was pretty sure that's who it was, because of the richer-looking, more colorfully dyed clothes he wore.
"A thief!" he said grinning at me, and rubbed his hands together. "Would you like to know how we handle such as you?"
"Sir." I answered. "You'll never find a better recruit than me if you live to be a hundred. There's not many with the nerve to steal the skiff off a ship like this one."
His eyebrows raised. "Oh?" He looked me over. "A recruit? You're big enough and to spare," he said, "and that's a fact. Where did you get those clothes?"
"Off the back of one who didn't need them any longer."
He pursed his lips and cupped his chin in one hand, his hard eyes searching mine. I gave him look for look.
"And how did you manage that? You carry no arms."
"I did then."
"What happened to them?"
"The guardsmen took them."
"The guardsmen. Hmm. I suppose you'll tell us now that you broke free from the guardsmen."
By that time the crew was standing around grinning. They weren't taking me seriously anymore—I was just a fool trying to bluff his way out of getting killed. The man holding my arms from behind had relaxed his grip a little. The man who'd held his knife to me earlier was just now climbing over the gunwale, the last aboard.
I struck the man behind me in the groin with a "spike hand" at the same instant I stomped hard on his instep, then spun with a "cleaver hand," knocking him to the deck. My stunner was in my fist before anyone reacted, and I swung it around with the stud depressed. Several men went down, including the captain, and several others staggered, but mostly they just stood, astonished. I knew at once what the problem was; I'd just used up the charge.
I didn't wait around to explain. And I didn't have a fresh charge, even if I'd had time to put it in. I took two quick steps, jumped, kicked off the top of the gunwale and dove into the river. I swam underwater quite a way, which wasn't as far as I should have, and surfaced, kicking and stroking hard for shore. I heard yelling behind me, and after a few seconds saw an arrow strike the water right next to me. I dove again, and this time didn't come up until the bottom shoaled beneath me by the shore. I burst splashing out of the water and raced, gasping for air, across the narrow beach into the woods. Behind the first big tree I stopped and looked back, heaving and shaking.
I could hardly believe I'd gotten there without arrows in my back. I suppose there'd been no bows strung, and it had taken a minute before more than one or two men had thought to go for them. Now there were several men in the skiff, one rowing and one in the stern paddling hard.
I knew how to send them back: a shot into the bow from the blaster. If that didn't do it, I might have to shoot one of them. I raised the pistol in a firm two-handed grip, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing!
The only thing I could think of was that it had leaked. They were supposed to be waterproof, but somewhere, somehow, this one leaked.
I turned and began to jog through the trees. I still hadn't gotten my wind back from swimming under water, and I hadn't done any running to speak of since we'd left Evdash. But I was sixteen, and probably still a better runner than guys who only had a thirty-foot ship to walk and run on. At rowing, any of them could beat me without sweating, but in a foot race...
I looked back. The boat had landed, I could tell, because through the trees I glimpsed two guys running after me. I speeded up. Maybe some of them were pretty good runners after all. And I recalled now that, in boat racing at home, the oarsmen pushed hard with their legs on each stroke. It hadn't been my sport, but I could see that maybe their legs, and even their lungs, might be in pretty good shape after all.
Then, ahead of me, I saw through the trees an open field. I speeded up some more. If the guys behind me were carrying bows, I needed to be across the opening before they got to it, or at least as far ahead of them as possible.
I was very nearly sprinting when I came to the opening, and never looked back till I got to the forest on the other side. They were still coming, but those who were running across the field weren't carrying bows. They carried short swords in their hands—dangerous enough, but not at a hundred feet.
The ground began to climb here, but I kept running. I lost track of them then. Gasping and sweating, legs rubbery, I kept going, not running very fast any longer, but never stopping. In places it got kind of steep, and sometimes I had to scramble on all fours. I didn't know whether they were still after me, but what I had to do, it seemed to me, was keep going until I absolutely couldn't run another step. By then they should have given up and gone back.
I did, and they had. At least as far as I could tell they had. Maybe they'd given up when they couldn't catch glimpses of me anymore. Maybe they weren't able to track me.
After a few minutes collapsed on the ground, I sat up and looked around. I was on top of a plateau, in a tiny opening in the forest where bedrock came to the surface and there was almost no soil for trees to root in. The trees around it were small, and there was little undergrowth except for thin grass.
I was on a tableland, near the cliffs that went down to the beach. Even sitting there I could look out through the trees and see the gray sea, stretching to the edge of viewing. It had begun to rain again, a cooling rain that felt good on my sweaty body. And the sky looked as if it might start raining hard at any time.
My mind began to work again. With a sky like that, dad could fly. And certainly Bubba must have reached him by now. They'd be somewhere up there looking for me. I needed to find an opening big enough for them to land in.
After another minute I got up and began to walk. I didn't know what the best direction was, but I knew that sometimes the soil is thinnest near the edge of cliffs. So I kept walking along near the edge. After a little while I came to a narrow ravine, cliff-sided, not much more than a crevice. Looking over the edge, I could see a tiny brook down in the bottom, probably courtesy of the wet summer.
I turned and followed the edge southward until I came to the head of the ravine. It was steep, but not as rugged as the one I'd found as a possible hiding place for the cutter, so I started picking my way downward. After some climbing and scrambling, I came to a pool of clear water and got down on my knees to drink. I really swilled it down; I'd sweated out a lot of water being chased.
Not many minutes later I reached the beach, but I didn't go out on it. Instead, I stayed in the mouth of the ravine, beneath the cover of some scrubby trees there. I knew if I lay down, I'd go to sleep, and I remembered what had happened the last time I went to sleep. But then I told myself that it was dumb to feel that way. Just because I'd gotten into trouble one time didn't make it dangerous ever to sleep again.
So I lay down and closed my eyes. When I opened them the next time, Bubba was standing beside me, grinning.