“Mark my arrows. Yes, sir.”
“Don’t waste that iron. Good arrows cost money. Even in battle I never left an arrow if I could help it. Make sure you mark those arrows, boy. And—and don’t be so serious. You have fine teeth, you should show them every now and then. The girls, the girls like to laugh. I could always make them laugh.” Tor began to pat at his chest and hips, searching for something. “Where is it? Where did I . . . where’s my robe?”
Anticipating, Arthur placed his mother’s handkerchief with the embroidered purple flowers into his father’s hand, and Tor put it to his nose, drawing in a deep breath that gave him great satisfaction.
“She smells like morning. And cherries. Is she here? Is Eleanor . . . ?”
One of Arthur’s aunts had taken fever that morning, and his mother had ridden half a day to look after her sister. She had not yet returned. “Not yet, milord.”
“She can’t see me like this.” Sir Tor tried to rise. Arthur gently pressed him back to the pillow.
“Dear Eleanor,” Sir Tor sighed, “why does that girl make me wait so?”
“Soon, Father, soon.”
Arthur remembered his father’s hand in his own and remembered how he’d held it until the tremors stopped and his father drifted away. Now he tucked the handkerchief into the pocket of his jerkin. As a peace offering, he tossed a wedge of hard cheese to Nimue.
She ignored it.
“You need to eat,” he reminded her.
“It’s stolen.”
“What does it matter where it came from? No one will miss it. Look at you, you look sick. When did you eat last? Two days? Three?”
“I don’t remember.”
“We still have three days’ riding to reach the Minotaur Mountains. Shall I feed you then?”
“Try it and I’ll stomp you.” Nimue found a bundle of scrolls tied together with string. She cut the string and read one of them aloud: “ ‘One hundred gold coins for the death or capture of the Wolf-Blood Witch, who, in agency with the Devil, has transformed herself into animal shapes and drunk the blood of infants and slaughtered women and children in their beds.’ ” On each scroll a comical sketch of a monster with bat wings and curling horns had been drawn. Nimue snorted and allowed the papers to scatter on the rocks.
Arthur walked over and sat beside her. Nimue stiffened. He picked up one of the pages and managed a light chuckle. “What did you expect them to say? ‘Oh, we should mention this maid of sixteen single-handedly skewered an entire division of our best fighters’?”
Nimue humphed. Arthur took the opportunity to cut off a piece of the hard cheese, and offered it to her lips. “I warned you that I would feed you.”
Nimue looked sharply into Arthur’s eyes. She swung her fist up but Arthur caught it and pressed the cheese into her hand. He then guided the food to her lips. She yielded, opening her mouth slightly, taking the cheese. She chewed, wincing as she swallowed. There were purple handprints on her neck from the paladin’s attack.
“Why aren’t you furious with me?” Nimue asked.
Why aren’t you, Arthur? he wondered. Because she’s mad. Because she’s braver than I am. Arthur handed her a skin of wine, which she swallowed in deep gulps. He shrugged. “Fear of reprisal, I suppose.”
Nimue choked a little on her wine at this. She glared at him. He gave her another slice of cheese, which she took more eagerly.
She’s like a wild animal. Yet so beautiful. Nothing painted or put-on about her. But then he looked over at the pond and the floating red robes. A bloody catastrophe. No witnesses, at least. A cold comfort. They would have to ride fast and far. Nothing and no one would be safe for hundreds of miles. Especially if Nimue kept chopping off hands and murdering Red Paladins.
He tried to reason with her. “I don’t know if madness drives you, or voices, but I know one thing: there is little reward for courage in this world. And if you go on like this, you will simply burn like a sky fire and be ashes before the dawn. Is that what you want?”
Nimue took another gulp of wine, not answering, a hint of rose returning to her thin cheeks. She pulled out another batch of scrolls, but this set was different. The parchment was of finer quality, as was the ribbon that bound them. Each scroll had a wax seal: a cross against a two-headed eagle.
“That’s Carden’s seal.”
Nimue broke the seal on one of the scrolls and unrolled it. It was a hand-drawn map with certain villages noted with an X. Nimue read them: “Four Rivers, Wick’s End, the Hollow, Crow Hill. All Fey Folk villages.”
Next to each village was a list of names. Nimue read those, too. “These must be elders. Clan chiefs.” Nimue tore open another scroll and read it quickly. It was another set of lists, but Nimue could not divine its purpose. She handed it to Arthur. “What do you make of this one?”
Arthur couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He thought about saying anything but the truth, but he knew Nimue would work it out for herself before too long. “These are Red Paladin divisions. You can see their unit numbers correspond to the X’s on the map.” Arthur pointed to numbers by the village names.
“These are his next targets,” Nimue whispered. “We know his mind.” She turned to Arthur, eyes brimming with hope.
It was just as Arthur feared. “You have no intention of running, do you?”
The road to the Minotaur Mountains was a long and steady climb through dense forests of late November reds and golds. This had been Nimue’s favorite time of year, when the colors turned on the ancient barrow and the geese fled the river with shrill cries, ready to fly on an arrow point to the southern lakes. There would be dances at the stone circle, and Mary would fire up her pot, cooking rabbit in almond sauce, followed by honey cakes washed down with bitter ale.
Brisk western winds carried chimney smoke for miles, but traffic was thin.
They rode two horses now rather than overburdening Egypt. Arthur had selected the best of the sad, bony lot the paladins had ridden, a sloe-eyed mare with a coat the color of dirty snow. Nimue couldn’t help but despise the nag, innocent and doltish as it was, imagining the blood that stained its hooves, the screams for mercy it had heard. She also resented that Arthur rode ahead of her at least three horse lengths. Though she’d fallen from Egypt’s saddle—twice—she missed the comfort of being close to him.
She’d grown used to his smell, a mix of earth and grasses, sweat and something near to cinnamon but more exotic, that she attributed to his bedroll, which had seen many journeys. She’d also memorized the back of his head, the waves of brown hair that lapped over the hood of his tunic and the copper glints it would reveal in the late afternoon sun.
Nimue’s thoughts drifted. What would it be like to kiss him? What would his arms feel like wrapped around me?
She suddenly and unexpectedly missed Pym so hard her chest hurt. She could see her dear friend’s pursed lips and flashing eyes, her please don’t get us into trouble look. They could break into hysterics over jokes never spoken.
It took one look at her fingernails, rusty with blood, to realize she would never be that girl again, and that her thoughts of autumn romance were as childish as one of Pym’s laughing fits.