CHAPTER EIGHT

Pemmel expected the journey to Istin to take the best part of four days, and he set out in a cheerful, confident mood, the operation to get the beggar woman and her dead child into the royal compound, and Chaldez, his nurse and Lewvin out of it, having gone without a hitch.
As he had anticipated, there had been no difficulty finding a dead child; it was in the arms of its mother, a beggar, who was sitting outside the gates of the royal compound. She was clutching a small, ragged bundle in her arms, and she wept as she rocked her body back and forth distractedly.
Pemmel dismounted from his horse and spoke to her briefly. She told him that her child had died that morning. Pemmel asked her if she would like money to buy food for herself and a decent burial for her infant, and she held out a claw of a hand expectantly. But he told her she would have to earn it; he then brought her into the compound.
There was nothing unusual about a beggar being brought into the compound by a member of the household to be fed and clothed; such acts of charity were done to gain favour with the goddess Lahanaha, giver of good fortune.
Pemmel took her to his own quarters, which were in a long building opposite the great hall, and sent for Lewvin. He gave the woman some bread and meat and instructed Lewvin to clean her up and put her into some decent clothes.
Lewvin donated some of her own, and although it was beyond a wash and change of clothes to transform the wretched woman, she did look very much more presentable. Then Pemmel, carrying her child's body in a bundle of furs, led her quickly across to the great hall, and Lewvin took them by a back way into Shansi's chamber, and from there to the nursery where they were met by the wet nurse. The Queen had instructed her to obey Lewvin in all things, and at Lewvin's signal she meekly departed. Chaldez was dosed with wine and wrapped loosely in the furs, and Pemmel carried him nonchalantly out of the great hall. Lewvin, meanwhile, gave the beggar woman a gold coin and the remainder of the wine, and told her to make herself comfortable and that if anyone questioned her, she was to say she was the wet nurse.
Pemmel carried his bundle through the compound to the perimeter gates. No one challenged him, and once beyond them he hurried to a house in the town which he had used for romantic liasons. He told the owner to look after the baby until his return.
Back in the compound he ordered two horses to be saddled up - his personal authority as second-in-command of the escort to Sembfrid being sufficient for such a command to be carried out without question - and shortly afterwards Lewvin met him by the stables. The prince's nurse, she told him, would meet them at a certain craftsman's stall in the town's market place.
Pemmel suddenly felt uneasy; it had not occurred to him before that the nurse might not be trustworthy. He asked "Are you sure she will be there? We are more in her hands than I care to be."
Lewvin said "She knows that we are saving the baby's life, and I know that the queen gave her two gold coins to make up for the inconvenience. She will be there, I am sure of it."
Pemmel and Lewvin left the compound together. It was now sometime after five, and if they were to leave Felewith before the city gates closed they had but a couple of hours in which to meet the nurse and collect their provisions for the journey.
It was easily done. Pemmel contrived a sling for Chaldez, who, with his nurse were mounted behind Lewvin on one horse; he rode the other.
The little group presented an unremarkable sight, and would have been taken for a moderately well-to-do family which had come to Felewith for the naming ceremony of a first-born and was now travelling back to its modest estate in the country near by. It was rather late, perhaps, to be on the road, but not especially noteworthy, and being high summer, several hours of daylight remained.
Despite the strain he had been under and the weariness that began to catch up with him, Pemmel was in high spirits. Things could not have gone smoother.
The sun sank out of sight but the grey light of dusk lingered on as an azure sky imperceptibly darkened; it was not yet black when the moon, nearly-full, lit a colourless landscape with its white, eerie light.
The party travelled on through the night, stopping only briefly for a light meal. Pemmel thought that they should eat again at day-break and then look for a sheltered place where they could rest up until about mid-day. If they then travelled until nightfall they would have covered nearly half the distance to Istin and safety, and could look for somewhere to spend the night.
The Tew Valley, along which the track they were taking passed, is sprinkled thinly with small, fortified farmsteads, hamlets and the occasional village. Beyond the populated strips on either side of the river lie an almost-unbroken forest, and as the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn, Pemmel turned his horse down a track which led off towards what looked in the that light to be a vast dark cloud blanketing the landscape.
The track veered away from the forest rim, and at this point they left it, riding over the fields until they were among the trees, and now a dense canopy of branches almost completely blocked out the brightening sky.
Farther on they came to a glade where they dismounted and eased their aching limbs. Pemmel constructed a crude shelter from fallen branches and dried leaves and settled Lewvin, the nurse and Chaldez beneath it. They ate somewhat sparingly and then tried to sleep.
Chaldez, of course, was wide awake and demanding attention. Lewvin slept through his crying; the nurse seemed to be undisturbed by it too. No doubt she was used to it, thought Pemmel ruefully as he searched uselessly for sleep.
He dozed off and on, and then found himself fully awake. He had been wondering, in his half sleep, about what had been happening in Felewith, and with a sudden cold certainty he knew that the palace must have discovered that the dead baby was not the prince.
When he had first put his idea to Shansi he had thought it a neat solution; and so, apparently, had she. Indeed, her enthusiasm for it had prevented him, he now realised, from examining it properly. Perhaps it had not been such a bad plan in theory, but it had depended for its success upon the substitute for Chaldez being a convincing one, and he broke into a cold sweat at the thought of the pathetic, skin-and-bone corpse which he had insinuated into the nursery. How could he have imagined it would have fooled anyone! And he had been so pleased with himself! The fact was, he had endangered them all. He cursed his stupidity. Clearly it was out of the question for them to travel in daylight now; search parties were probably scouring the kingdom even then.
He awoke Lewvin and told her of his fears, and that they must do the remainder of the journey by night.
She took the news badly and became morose.
They spent the following day where they were.
By evening it had started to drizzle; there would be no moon that night.
Getting out of the forest was a nightmare. It was a couple of hours before they reached the valley road and could continue their journey.
Just before mid-night they passed through a small town which stands at a bridge over a tributary of the Tew. One of the houses fronting the road had lighted rush torches behind its windows, and within a few moments of passing it, Pemmel heard shouts coming from its direction, and then the sounds of horses' hooves stomping on the paving stones of a courtyard. He called over his shoulder to Lewvin to hurry to the bridge. Her horse broke into a trot and he allowed it to pass him, then he jabbed his heels into the flanks of his own mount and followed close behind.
There was no doubt in his mind that a reception party had been waiting for them, and now they were sure to be taken because the nurse riding behind Lewvin would never be able to keep her seat in a gallop.
At the narrow hump-back bridge, Pemmel shouted to Lewvin to ride on and not wait for him. He crossed the bridge too, but at the far side, drew his sword, turned his horse and rode back so as to occupy the very middle, where it was at its narrowest and highest point.
The night had lightened slightly, the moon glowing faintly through a threadbare veil of clouds, and the horsemen galloping up to the bridge had warning of Pemmel's presence there before they encountered his sword. There were four of them, and they came to a ragged halt. Then one of them shouted out and asked if he was addressing Pemmel of the King's Guard. Pemmel said he was. The other called back that he and his fellows had orders to make him surrender the Prince Chaldez to them. Pemmel replied that they could but try, whereupon the leader of the contingent gave a shout and spurred his horse on to the bridge.
The animal's response was too sudden and for a moment its rider had to concentrate on keeping his seat. The other three saw Pemmel's sword slice the air in a deadly arc; heard the dull thud as it struck their comrade in the side below his up-lifted right arm. The sword descended again, catching the undefended shoulder a fearsome blow, severing the vein and shattering the bone. A cry pierced the night.
Pemmel shooed and shoved the riderless horse off the bridge and resumed his former stance.
Two of the remaining horsemen charged him, riding two abreast. They slashed wildly with their swords and seemed to be about to drive Pemmel off the bridge, but having given some ground under the pressure of their charge he gave no more.
From the bank all that could be seen in that dim light of the battle on the bridge was a confusion of shadowy shapes as the night’s silence was torn by the ring of clashing steel and the duller sounds of horses snorting and men grunting with exertion, and the thud and scuffled of horses' hooves on stone.
Suddenly there was a sharp cry, and it could be seen from the bank that only two figures were now at close quarters. The third was slumped forward upon the neck of his horse, and as the animal backed clumsily off the bridge he slipped by degrees out of the saddle.
The last of the four riders, who had not so far moved from the bank, now spurred his horse on to the bridge, but as he reached the two embattled figures Pemmel's thrusting sword stabbed his companion and then finished him off with a blow to the head. The newcomer slipped out of his saddle and ran.
Pemmel sat where he was, gasping. His arms, body and thighs were covered in blood from numerous cuts and gashes, but he felt only exhaustion and a terrible thirst. Moving as though lead weights were attached to every limb, he climbed out of his saddle and stumbled down the bank to where the stream ran cold and clear over gleaming pebbles.

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