In the Ruins
Scarred John dismounted to investigate. The presbyter lifted the golden disk. He fussed with it, moving one circle on top of another, turned a crooked bar on the back, sighted toward the eastern horizon, read—lips moving—from the back, then shook his head. After this, he fished in the pack he wore, withdrew a square of waxed canvas, wrapped the disk up inside, and returned it to the pouch.
“Are we lost, my lord?” asked Frigo.
“I hope so,” muttered Blessing.
“My lord! There is a stone under these brambles!” shouted John, withdrawing his spear from the mass of vines and thorns.
“We are not lost,” said Hugh. “We are exactly where I hoped to be. I only wish to know what day. According to my earlier calculations we should have lost three days in the passage. Yet I can’t be sure. So be it. From here we ride east.”
They nodded.
Hugh looked at her, nothing more. Anna shivered, not liking the weight of his gaze. He was capable of anything. Blessing hadn’t seen Elene murdered. Better, for now, not to mention it to the girl. It was hard to know how Blessing would react.
“Let me be precise,” Hugh continued, catching each man’s gaze to make sure he had their attention. “We will be pursued.”
“My lord,” said John, “if we’ve come so far as you say, how can any catch up to us?”
Theodore nodded. “Eleven in all, like the stones, my lord.”
Hugh’s gaze was like ice, yet his smile remained. “You are expendable, Anna. If you are marked, then you will be killed. You must hope that Antonia does not think of you at all when she sends her pursuers.” His gaze moved away from her. She was not, she saw, important enough to linger on. The red dazzle of dawn faded as the sun moved up into the sky, not visible as a disk but seen as a bluish glow behind a blanketing haze.
“Theodore? Do you understand your part?”
“I do, my lord,” said the man stoutly. “I will not fail you.”
“No,” he said, with a nod that made the archer sit up straighten “I believe you shall not.”
Beyond the standing stones lay a village, a substantial settlement with a score of roofs surrounded by a livestock palisade and a ditch. No guard manned the watchtower now. They rode across the earthen bridge that spanned the ditch and pulled up before closed gates.
John reached the top and balanced himself there on his belly as he scanned the village. His mouth opened. He jerked, as at a blow, and slipped backward. Anna shrieked, thinking he would fall, but he caught himself awkwardly and hand over hand rappelled down, hitched the rope off with a flip and a yank, and ran back. He didn’t reach them before he bent to one knee and retched, although he hadn’t much in his stomach to cough up.
“Move the men back, Captain,” said Hugh to Frigo. He took the reins from Liudbold and waited while the rest turned their horses and moved off.
“Plague,” said John when he came over with Lord Hugh. “Got the dogs, too, them that had eaten the dead folk left lying in the street. Good thing that gate is closed.”
“We must be cautious,” said Hugh. “Let’s leave this blighted place. Frigo, set your scouts. We can’t be sure we won’t stumble across bandits. We’ve few enough in our party that a smaller group taking us unaware could do great damage.”