A Cast of Stones Read online

  A rustle of leaves broke his concentration. He floundered, his stick weaving frantic circles in the air. A man dressed in black regarded him from beyond the stretch of mossy rock, a short bow held in one hand. Not a twitch, not a blink of emotion disturbed the pale mask of a face under hair so light it looked almost silver. He reached back over his shoulder and an arrow of blackest hue appeared in his hand. Errol wrenched his gaze away, jumped for the ledge just ahead.

  His feet slipped. Errol curled as he fell and gasped as new cuts joined old scars. The impact jarred his teeth, and he growled curses against the pain.

  Sprawled across the stone, he angled away from his pursuer so the rock, his pitiful excuse for protection, shielded him as much as possible. He took a deep breath, darted a look back, and then smiled at his good fortune. The man in black was actually trying to follow him. It would be impossible to get off a decent shot standing on the treacherous stone.

  Errol slithered around on his belly, reached for his staff when a whine like an animal’s scream sounded behind him. An arrow arced overhead, then disappeared among the rocks and water beyond.

  He grinned at his pursuer. “I’ve never heard an arrow make that sound before. You’ll find the footing difficult for decent shooting. Why not go back and save yourself the trouble?”

  The man in black stopped, considered him in silence, and slowly dropped to his knees. Then he nocked another arrow.

  With a shock of realization, Errol leapt for the first shelf of stone, half missed, and slammed into it with his chest. His feet thrashed and slipped across the moss-covered rocks as he tried to thrust the rest of his body up the ledge. Fear filled him, wailed through his blood and bones. He scrabbled at the ledge with his hands and feet. Move. He had to move!

  The scream of the arrow grew until it filled his hearing. He screwed his eyes shut and pushed against the stones. His feet slipped, and he slid toward the scream. He squeezed his eyes shut, waited a fraction of a heartbeat that stretched to agony.

  Behind him the bandit cursed.

  A line of fire cut his shoulder before the arrow struck inches from his face. The impact cut the scream and a splinter of stone gashed his cheek. He put his arms under his belly and wiggled the rest of the way onto the outcropping, rolled behind a piece of jutting limestone, and ran to the far edge.

  No bandit crossed the Cripples. A sprained ankle meant capture and the gallows. And they didn’t use short bows. Errol’s mouth went dry. Bandits were a murderous bunch, but they always tried to talk their victims into giving up. It rarely worked, but they always tried. Every now and then they even let one of the few who surrendered live to entice others to do the same.

  The man in black hadn’t tried to talk him into surrendering. Errol’s feet came to the edge of the shelf as his thoughts brought him to an inescapable conclusion: The man hunting him was no bandit.

  Errol twitched the sack strapped to his shoulders, and a picture of the nuntius flashed through his mind. Letters, he’d said, the most important in half a century. Important enough to kill for? Errol’s heart hammered against his ribs. He looked over the next section of moss-slicked rock. If his hunter gained the shelf before Errol made it to the second outcropping, his aim, already too good by half, would find its mark.

  Terror curled its way through his chest. The stranger moved across the Cripples with inhuman skill. Errol shuddered, considered surrender—giving up the letters, the half crown, everything. He shook his head, discarded the idea. The man wanted him dead.

  Errol vaulted into the air, ignored the yammering from the part of his mind where he kept his common sense, and forced himself to keep his eyes open. He landed, tried to roll, slipped sideways, and crashed headfirst.

  Spots swam in his vision, and he fought to keep darkness at bay. He crabbed sideways toward the next ledge. His ankle throbbed in time with his heart as he hobbled onto the ledge. A crunch of footsteps from behind warned him, and he threw himself flat. An arrow whined in disappointment overhead, pulling the breath from his lungs as it went.

  This wasn’t working. The next ledge lay less than half the distance across the Cripples, and already the man in black had managed to bleed and hobble him. At this rate he’d be lame in minutes.

  Then he’d be dead.

  The Cripples spanned the river in a wide arch before ending at a broad, shallow ford. To the right lay a sheer forty-foot drop into a pool fed by runoff that extended all the way to the far bank of the gorge. Water from winter melt spilled over the falls, splashing and churning in a series of whirlpools. Only an idiot would dare those icy depths—or someone desperate to live. The water’s chill would leech the warmth from his body in minutes. If his hunter trapped him, forced him to stay in the pool, he would die.

  Errol ducked behind a plinth of rock and ran for the far edge of the ledge, his mind racing. If he tried to make the security of each shelf in succession, the mossy pits would slow him, leaving him helpless. If he dared the chill waters of the pool, he’d be lucky to make the far side fifty paces away. Even if he survived, the letter to Pater Martin would be ruined, and with it his chances of keeping his gold.

  He should have known not to get involved with the nuntius. “Stupid churchman.”

  A glance behind told him all he needed to know. The assassin on his trail moved from the first ledge and stepped with goatlike skill across the rocks. The man didn’t even have the decency to slip every now and then.

  Errol moved from the security of the second shelf in a crouch, hoping to stay hidden long enough to make the ledge above the pool. The mossy coating seemed to writhe under his feet, conspiring to pitch him headlong onto the rocks. He balanced his weight, his hands groping for a staff he no longer held, and shuffled by inches toward his goal.

  The space between his shoulder blades itched, and he tensed against the expected impact of an arrow—as if by tightening the muscles in his back he could keep it from killing him. With ten feet to go, he looked back to see the man in black climb onto the ledge he’d just left. In seconds, the man would nock another arrow. In seconds more, Errol would die.

  Throwing himself into a flailing run, he made for the pool. A patch of green betrayed him, and he fell. He spun as the ground rushed up to meet him. When he rose, he found himself looking his would-be killer in the eyes. The man nodded. Then he reached back over his shoulder.

  With a yell, Errol scrambled to his feet, took two steps and jumped to his right, soaring over the icy water that waited for him so far below. An arrow ripped through the air where he’d been, screaming as it passed his ear and flew out of sight to the far side of the pool.

  Errol fell, amazed at the long, long time it took to meet the water.

  The impact hit him like a blow to his stomach, forced the air from his lungs. Cold pierced him and light faded. Needles of pain stabbed him everywhere as he struggled to stay submerged, frog-kicking in desperation toward the far end of the pool. He opened his eyes to the sting of the water, but saw only blurred ocher outlines.

  He reached and pulled for the far side of the pool, his strokes frantic with cold. Fire burned through his lungs with the need to surface. The man in black surely stood at the edge of the pool by now, bow drawn and waiting.

  Errol swam until spots danced in his vision, his body begging for air. With a pair of strokes he surfaced like a fish breaking water, darted a glance behind before sucking air into his tortured lungs and diving again, away from the figure in black.

  The sounds of his efforts and splashing filled his ears. He forced his trembling arms forward, jerked them back to his sides. Only the current against his face told him he advanced. Violent chills rippled the water as his body fought to stay warm. His shaking limbs lurched in a parody of his usual stroke. Bolts of pain shot through his calves and thighs. His legs refused to move. They hung from his torso, dragged him down. He reached out, struck mud. One shaking hand at a time, he pulled himself forward.

  At last he broke the surface. His hands clawed forward
until they brushed against rough bark. They clutched the thin trunk, locking around it as if it were his last hope. Water drained from his ears, and he listened for his attacker. Nothing.

  Errol’s body convulsed with cold as he clutched the sapling, straining to move, turn his head, anything. His muscles refused to obey. His hands clenched the tree, refused to let go.

  Above and behind him the wail of an arrow began. He willed himself to let go, roll over, but spasms pinned him to the spot, left him helpless. The arrow’s scream grew, its pitch rising until its keening filled his hearing.

  Errol sobbed, tried once more to move, and failed.

  He clenched his eyes against the blow.

  2

  SACRAMENT

  THE IMPACT slammed him against the ground. He clung to the tree, waiting for a tearing pain that never came. He slid sideways, tried to roll and couldn’t. When he slipped the sack’s straps from his shoulders, he discovered the reason he still breathed. The assassin’s arrow had lodged itself squarely in the center. Looking back and up at the ledge over the pool, he saw nothing. The man in black was gone.

  He grasped the arrow with both hands and worked it up and down until the thick leather released it. With it tucked under one arm, he hurried away from the pool making for Pater Martin’s cabin.

  As he climbed higher into the ridge he assessed himself. His head hurt where he’d banged it against the rocks, and his cheek still oozed blood. Cuts and scrapes covered his midsection and . . .

  He gave up. The exercise was pointless. If he needed help, it would be found at the priest’s cabin. Pater Martin or his servant would know what to do. With one last glance behind, Errol forced himself to a shambling run through the woods.

  Hours later, the sting of sweat marking each injury, Errol entered the clearing where Martin resided and paused. Humidity clung to him like a heavy cloak.

  Martin sat beneath the giant oak that sheltered his cottage, his bulk sprawled across a crude ladder-backed chair. Errol looked away and coughed as he entered the shade of the tree from the priest’s left. Martin sat nearly naked, his cassock nowhere in sight. He wore a plain linen under tunic hitched up in the moist air until it barely covered his thighs. At Errol’s cough, the priest looked up from the book he held in one huge hand and gave a raucous laugh. Errol blushed and kept his eyes on his feet.

  Martin loomed larger than life. Errol had never known the man before his hair silvered, but his eyebrows, dark as ebony, showed the color those loose curls would have been in his youth. A strong nose thrust forward aggressively from wide, high cheekbones over a mouth that was thin and full by turns depending on the state of its owner’s thoughts. The deep dimple in his chin, rather than lending the face any expected charm, solidified the impression of dogged determination that Errol always felt whenever he came to visit Martin’s secluded cottage. Yet for all the power that emanated from Martin’s eyes, face, or bulk, he always greeted Errol with warmth.

  “Come now, Errol.” Martin called to him across the grassy space. “My under tunic satisfies the demands of modesty, and we are created in the image of Deas, after all.” He slapped his paunch and looked Errol up and down in mock jealousy. “However, I seem to have been gifted with substantially more image than you.” He pointed to the bulky sack slung from Errol’s shoulder with a hand that would have looked more at home dangling from a blacksmith’s wrist. “You have the sacraments?”

  Errol stepped from the shade to stand before Martin. “Yes, Pater, and letters as well, but I’m afraid it’s all ruined.” Errol’s voice sounded strange to his ears, as if he had forgotten its timbre during his struggle in the gorge.

  Martin’s smile transformed to a scowl as he took in Errol’s appearance. The old priest’s gaze trickled from Errol’s crown, paused at his scraped hands, and finished at his bleeding feet.

  “Come, boy. Let’s go inside. Only a fool could fail to see you have a story to tell. And I would not have it said I kept an injured man on his feet.” He levered his bulk from the chair, placed a hand on Errol’s shoulder, and guided him into the small cabin.

  Errol sat at a small table at Martin’s bidding. He tucked the attacker’s arrow and his soggy leather pack under the broad oak bench while the priest went to a cupboard and rummaged through an assortment of bottles and earthenware containers. “This will take a few moments, lad, to prepare. Suppose you tell me what brings you here.” His voice became stern. “Leave nothing out.”

  Errol told of his encounter with the nuntius and the man’s offer.

  Martin turned at the mention of the price, his face wreathed with disbelief. “One of the crows offered to pay you a gold crown? Surely not. Churchmen hate parting with money. It’s against their religion. I should know.”

  Errol dug the coin from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Here’s the half of it.”

  Martin’s eyebrows made fair to climb up his forehead, and he moved across the cabin to pick up the coin and examine it.

  “I’ll have to give it back,” Errol said. “I’m sure the message is ruined.”

  Martin eyed Errol’s battered legs. “Boy, if any man’s ever earned a crown for delivering a message, you have. Keep the coin, and demand the rest. I’ll vouch for you to the churchman, if needed.” He retreated to the cupboard and returned with a thick salve that smelled heavily of lemongrass, lamb’s ear, and soulsease.

  Cupping Errol’s face in a beefy hand, he smeared the salve over the cut on his cheek. “Take your shirt off, lad.”

  When Errol did so, Martin whistled. “I think the churchman may owe you another crown. You know the gorge better than any man alive. How did you come to this state?”

  Errol winced. The salve felt cool and hot at the same time, and it stung. “A man tracked me from the overhang where bandits hide. I tried to shake him by crossing the Cripples, but he was nearly as fast across the rocks as me. Every time I made for a ledge, he tried to put an arrow in me.”

  Martin scowled, his brows knitting together over the deep brown of his eyes. “It’s rare to find a bandit possessed of such determination.”

  Errol shook his head, and strands of brown hair fluttered in front of his eyes. “I don’t think he was a bandit, Pater. Bandits don’t cross the Cripples, at least not to chase down the likes of me.” He reached under the table, grabbed the short black arrow, and laid it in front of the priest. “And I’ve never seen a bandit or anyone else shoot one of these.”

  The priest reached out to run one considering finger along the arrow, starting at the point, moving down the shaft to end at the midnight fletching. “Tell me, boy. How fares everyone in the village?”

  Errol shrugged. “Fine. Cruk threw me out of the inn again.”

  Martin nodded without seeming to hear him. “Hmm. And Liam? Is he well?”

  “Yes, Pater.”

  The cabin grew still. At last Martin turned from the arrow and began daubing salve into the cuts on Errol’s legs and feet.

  Martin’s gaze met his. “You should rest.”

  Nothing else was said, but Errol knew what he had seen in Martin’s eyes at the sight of the arrow—recognition.

  Errol descended into a slumber filled with dreams of stone and water. A face, pale and racked with pain, floated across his vision. He thrust himself from the memory, forced himself to wake.

  He stirred to the sound of voices. His dream faded as the plain surroundings of Martin’s cabin came into focus. Shadows stretched and lengthened outside. It would be dark soon.

  At the table, Martin and his servant, Luis, regarded the contents of Errol’s pack. Martin hefted the skin of wine. “At least the wine survived the boy’s adventure.” He nudged a folded package of waxed paper. “What think you, Luis? Can the bread be salvaged?”

  Luis nodded and by way of answer took that portion of the sacrament over to the fireplace. Unfolding the paper, he laid the thin wafers with care on a metal grill and rested it on the hearth. Then he added pieces of kindling to the bed of coals unt
il a small fire blazed. Resting his hands just above the bread, he tested the warmth. Satisfied, he turned and gave Martin a small nod, holding up one finger. “I think it will dry soon. What of the boy?”

  Seeing Martin turn to face his pallet, Errol closed his eyes. A momentary pang of guilt coursed through him, but he dismissed it with a mental shrug. If he could learn the identity of his attacker by feigning sleep, then so be it.

  “He sleeps,” Martin said. “If I’d had to cross the gorge with someone shooting arrows at me, I’d sleep for a month.”

  Luis snorted. “Yes, as would I, but we’re no longer young. Errol lies at the dawn of his prime.”

  “Prime? The boy hasn’t had much chance at a prime. Look at him. He’s a handsbreadth shorter than Liam and thin as a wafer. A young man his age should not be so lean.” Martin paused in his assessment. “Yet as he has come of age there is something about his visage, the high cheekbones and the dimples that appear when he smiles, that almost reminds me of someone.”

  A silence ensued, and Errol longed to open his eyes, to question Martin about the resemblance, but he could feel the two men gazing at him and wanted to hear more of what they might say, so he concentrated on keeping his breathing regular.

  “He smiles rarely enough,” Luis said.

  “The boy has no reason.” After a brief pause, Martin continued, “It’s time for us to return.”

  Errol opened his eyes the barest fraction. Acceptance marked Luis’s face. Martin’s wore regret.

  Luis lifted his shoulders a fraction, dropped them. “It’s been five years, Martin. I’m surprised the king lasted this long.”

  The priest beat one hand on his thigh. “We’re not ready, Luis. Why did I delay in coming here? I waited nearly a year after you cast for the village, telling myself there was no rush.”