Page 9 of Peregrine's Call
The sound of hooves interrupted her brooding. Robin leaned forward to get a better view of the road. The clear ring of iron meant a well-shod horse, and the particular volume and frequency of the ringing suggested a heavy animal, moving at good pace, followed by another animal. And the sound was coming from Cleobury.
Then she saw him. Octavian, riding his favorite traveling horse, leading another pack animal behind him on a long rope. Her breath caught. It was now or never. Return to Cleobury and safety? Or follow Octavian north toward the Ardenwood, where untold dangers waited?
She glanced back, thinking of the warmth and comfort of the manor she’d left. A lady would return there.
Robin waited until Octavian passed beyond her view, and then turned her own horse north, following him.
Chapter 4
For three long, cold daysOctavian rode northward. The first part of the way was through the Long Forest, which he knew well because he’d traveled this part of the country many times in service to Lord Denis, or to help his fellow knights for one reason or another. He stayed the first night at the home of a local nobleman who asked after the de Vere family and then about the news from London. Octavian ended up staying awake far too late talking with his host, but hospitality and comfort would be hard to come by later on, and he learned to value such gifts when they were offered.
He rode out later than he should have the next day and urged his horse faster to make up for lost time. The land became hilly, the path sometimes narrowing to a thin wedge between much taller ridges. Tav stayed alert, thinking how perfect such places were for an ambush. However, no attack came. Indeed, Tav felt almost alone. Occasionally, a shepherd would hail him from a distant slope, or he’d pass a wagon or rider hurrying from a farm to a nearby village. But this late in the year, few people traveled unless they had no choice.
I have a choice, Tav told himself. He chose to serve Lord Denis. And if he didn’t want to travel, he certainly could tell Denis he wanted a different assignment. Denis didn’t send Tav out into the cold November to punish him. Yet, as a cold wind rose through the half-barren trees, it felt a bit like a punishment.
He nudged his horse slightly, urging him to a different pace. As he did so, he listened carefully. There it was! Some faint echo of hoofbeats—but not an echo, because the rhythm was wrong.
Someone was following him.
Tav was almost certain of it for a moment, but then doubt crept in again. These hills were deceptive, and sounds could tumble from one hillside to another, or be carried down a stream for miles. Perhaps the sound was just the echoes of his own horses’ hooves, distorted by the landscape.
He turned his head very slightly, hoping to catch sight of someone, anyone, who might prove his suspicions correct. Nothing. The browns and greys of the late autumn hid little, and yet he saw nothing. No other rider, no scout or spy.
Tav patted his horse’s neck. The creature was getting nervous, picking up on Tav’s own tension. “Calm down,” he murmured in French.
The horse nickered softly, and resumed its normal pace. Tav kept an ear open for strange noises, but he heard nothing else for the rest of the day.
As dusk approached, he started to look for a place to make camp, there being not a hint of a village or farm in this part of the Long Forest. He rode off the trail to find a suitable spot. He wanted some shelter from inclement weather, and access to water, and some privacy from the road in case unfriendly people came by. He found a place with both water and privacy, though little protection from the elements. He’d simply have to pray that no rain or snow fell tonight.
After gathering what firewood he could find, he set up his meager camp. The fire smoked horribly due to the sodden state of the logs and branches he’d found, but it was better than nothing. His horses grazed on the few grasses that still grew during the cold autumn. The creatures seemed indifferent to the weather, so Tav suffered alone.
It would be a cold, lonely night for him. He ate and then unrolled his blanket as close to the fire as he dared. He was tired from a long day of riding, but sleep was difficult. He imagined footsteps and whispered words, as if a group of thieves planned to attack him and steal the horses. Whenever he woke, he threw another log on the fire, so at least he got a bit of warmth from his restlessness.
The morning came with no sunshine, just a grey layer of clouds. It seemed a little warmer than yesterday. As he proceeded north along the main road, he met a few other travelers, and spent another cold night in the woods.
The next day, he crossed into the Ardenwood proper, though no signs marked the border. The Ardenwood was a vast tract of land, not all forest, despite the name. Tav had ridden through it on this road before, and he remembered open meadows as well as ridges of low mountains as one looked west toward Wales. But no matter what the actual landscape, the Ardenwood was essentially wild, and therefore dangerous.
“Bad things happen there, sir knight,” one man told him as they crossed paths. He was a merchant taking a last shipment of leather hides southward. “Thieves live in the woods there, and stranger things too. Monsters, some say. What takes you north? I’ll pay you well to escort my wagons to Hereford.”
“I am on my lord’s business,” Octavian said. “So north I must go.”
“Good luck to you, then. Keep your sword ready.”
The merchant was the last person he saw on the road that day, though he kept hearing the teasing, troubling sounds of other hoofbeats in the distance. Never for long, and never clearly enough to be sure. It was just enough to set him on edge.
He pressed on, through rougher country where the trees grew ever closer to the road, almost erasing the path in places. Tav grumbled to himself, as the road wound around steep cliffs.
Perhaps it was time to return home. To Aleppo, where he’d been born, or Jerusalem, where he’d spent his adolescence. “At least it will be warm there,” he muttered as he reached the end of the detour.
Suddenly, he caught the rustle of dried leaves to his right, giving him a moment of warning as several figures sprang out from the underbrush.
“Get him!” one yelled. “Knock him down, and don’t harm the horse he rides!”
Bandits. Tav pulled his sword free from its scabbard. They must be desperate, to attack an armed and mounted knight.
He angled his horse to better confront the two bandits coming directly for him. One held a long spear with a sharpened metal tip, which made him the prime threat to Tav. He focused on the spearman, parrying the thrusts of the spear with his longsword. The spearman was fairly skilled—perhaps he’d once served in an army—but Tav was able to deflect the most dangerous attacks.
Seizing an opportunity, Tav swung his sword to hit the shaft of the spear in a way that brought it closer to him. Dropping the reins for a precious moment, he grabbed the spear in his free hand and snatched it upward, out the other man’s grasp. Then he spun it around and hurled it directly at the man, catching him in the shoulder.
