"If you don't mind my asking, Harald, what are we doing?"
"Heading north to one of the King's castles. Going to siege it."
Knute looked skeptical. He was the youngest cat in Harald's decade, but Egil wouldn't have chosen a fool. Harald continued, his voice louder.
"Don't think twenty decades can siege a castle? I've done it with two."
Heads turned, men looked at each other, started drifting over from the other fires. Harald stayed silent until they had settled.
"The Prince, Emperor that is, smashed us at Iffin ford; you know the story. Forty miles wrong side the border, but it was Henry's first war. A thousand, fifteen hundred heavies. Most of the rest of us got away, headed home. Five hundred cats, a thousand Ladies, four thousand heavies and change—and some of them not in the best of shape.
"Didn't look too bad till a rider came in with news. Empire had Markholt, last castle north, our side the border."
He stopped, waited for the expected question.
"The Empire sieged a big castle while they were fighting a war forty miles the other side of the border? How'd they do that?"
"Not steel. Gold. We all make mistakes. Castellan marched his garrison out, some excuse or other. Empire marched in. One man got away, got to us."
The cats were silent, waiting.
"Coming home in a hurry, big garrison sitting in Markholt, line of march, supply line too, flying the wrong colors. Figured I'd best do something. Got some friends. Two decades—no, I lie. Olaf had a wounded Lady to take care of, couldn't come. Two decades scant one. Headed south, still had remounts, lot faster than the army.
"Markholt's head of a valley, against a cliff. Downhill cleared a good bowshot, then woods. They hadn't heard about the battle yet. All they knew, we could have beaten the Prince and been coming to deal with them, all eight thousand of us. Gate closed, ramparts manned, ready to hold to the last man. What our side should have done.
"Scouted it out by daylight, through the woods. Come night we were ready. Been collecting wood. Time we were finished, forty campfires in the woods, all along the edge. Who knows how many behind? They didn't. A thousand men, easy. Could be more.
"Didn't get much sleep; forty campfires eat a lot of wood. Kept them going three nights. That got the army past, wounded to the next keep south, still ours. We headed for home. Figure I woke up somewhere around Cloud's Eye."
That brought a laugh. The story ended, the men dispersed. Harald turned back to Knute.
"Heading for Markholt. Thirty years is a long time. Don't figure anyone'll remember."
Two miles down valley from the castle, two riders, staring at the column of cats, Harald's pennon at their head. A brief exchange, one of them at a gallop back up to the castle. The other sat his horse and waited.
Harald turned to Knute. "Ride off west, message to our main force. Two miles should do it. You'll find us sieging the castle when you get back."
Knute gave a brief puzzled look. His face cleared. He rode off grinning.
Harald rode up towards the rider.
"Can you take word to the castellan of Markholt?"
The man nodded.
"Tell him he is under siege. Your King has taken the Lady Commander of the Order, my friend these thirty years past, by treachery, holds her still, makes war on her sisters. When I guested with him, his people sought my life. When I departed, much against his will, they hunted me across the Kingdom. My patience is at an end."
The man gave one more long look at the massed column, turned, rode back to the castle.
Half an hour later the castellan watched as the column of cats came into sight around the final bend, flowed up the valley road to the wide clearing around the castle, turned left along the edge of the cleared area and into the woods. They rode in a narrow column of twos, but there were a lot of them. He watched until finally the flow stopped and the lights of campfires began to appear among the trees, then turned to the captain beside him.
"How many?"
"Five hundred easy, maybe a thousand. Half the damn host. It's real."
The castellan thought a moment before replying.
"If we have to fight cats, this is the place to do it. They can build stuff, but there's no siege train, nothing they can't carry on horseback."
"He won't try to storm us; Harald doesn't waste men. We aren't what he's here for."
The castellan looked curiously at the other man, waited.
"He wants the King. Not sure I . . ." He stopped, looked around. "Harald summons us to siege, we send word. The King comes to lift the siege. Not your problem or mine."
The castellan nodded agreement, took one more look at the fires—there were more now—then started down the tower staircase.
The next afternoon the cats were again on the move, out the beaten path through the woods to the road just out of sight of the castle—a route most of them had already ridden four or five times. They left behind stacks of gathered firewood and two octaves of the Order, with instructions to keep fires going until the castle ran out of patience or they ran out of wood. Harald reached the next royal castle south a day later and summoned it too to siege. The next day he left another small group behind to tend fires, with scouts south to warn them if a relief force approached, and rode west into the plain.
In camp that evening, sitting with Egil, Harald ran over the possibilities.
"If they had birds—and they should—His Majesty got word from Markholt three days ago, Grayholt yesterday. His people, Eston levies, central provinces. Messengers to Stephen, Brand. Might think he could get four thousand men up north. My guess he's on the way. Waits too long, looks weak, who knows who might come in?"
"If he thinks you have the whole host, part of the Order too?"
"Might sit. Either way, calls what he has north. South Keep, twenty decades, that's a lot. He'll pull half, easy. On the road now if he has a bird for them. Up the east edge while we're going down the west. Even that far south the plain's fifty miles across. Cara's scouts between us. A decade out on our left, just in case."
Egil thought a moment. "Province people? Have to see us coming south."
"Straight to their lord, considers his conscience, counts swords, repairs his walls. Nobody in the South is coming after a force this size—not without calling up levies first. Message to the King, but it has to catch him. Rider. Pigeons can't find an army."
The two fell silent.
With two horses for each man, the cats made good time. Nine days after they left Grayholt they pitched camp on a grassy hill at the south end of the plain. A day later Caralla joined them with two tataves and part of a third—a hundred and fifty Ladies. While horses grazed and their riders rested, Harald, Egil and Caralla made their plans. Caralla was the first to speak:
"She's still there; Mari saw her three days back."
"Garrison?"
"Six decades, maybe seven. Rest marched out nine, ten days ago."
Harald looked at Egil. "Birds. Both ways."
Egil thought a moment. "Where do you think he is?"
"Back home. Hot, tired, mad. Royal army too."
Caralla looked at him, put it in words: "Angry is stupid."
Harald nodded.
While the others rested, traded news and gossip, Harald rode south into the woods nearby to hunt mushrooms. When he found what he wanted—nightbells favored the damp underside of dead trees—he used a stick to break them off, as gently as he could, into a pan. The pan, with water, went over a small fire. While it heated Harald went off in search of game.
By the time he got back the fire was mostly out, the liquid cool. He tied the mare to a tree some distance away, took a leather water bottle from his saddlebag, propped it upright against a stump next to the fire. The liquid from the pan went, with care, into the water bottle, the remains of the mushrooms into a hole scraped in the soft dirt. He found a buried coal, used it to light a candle, dripped wax around the stopper for a better seal. Returned to camp, the sealed bottle went to Caralla. The next day the combined force moved out.
Noon meal, the great hall of the keep crowded with men. Fresh venison, bought from hunters working the woods outside the village. Bored soldiers. A new barrel of beer. Old rumors.
"And I say it's a revolt by the northerners. Why else pull a hundred men north fast as they can go? Next the levies, north against south like in the old stories."
Carl shook his head. "And the Emperor eats us for dinner. The lords aren't that stupid."
"It's the Order. His Majesty finally figured out you don't fight soldiers with trash, decided to do it right."
There was a crash. Looking up, Carl saw one of the men crumpled, another standing over him with a broken pitcher and an odd expression.
"A snake. It's crawling on him."
He knew Helgi was crazy, but not that crazy. Carl took another drink of beer. Somewhere behind him, at the other end of the hall, someone was saying something in a high voice. Things were finally getting interesting.
Outside, the gatehouse guards recognized the wagon, swung the gate wide. One of them called out to the driver: "Got much today? One deer don't go far."
On the wall above, a sentry clutched at an arrow, crumpled. The wagon lurched against the open gate, stopped; the two oxen pulling it, somehow free, set off for the castle yard on an unsuccessful search for grass. The wagon's driver raised a bow, put an arrow through one of the men at the gate. Caralla, clear of the cloth that had disguised her as a dead deer, came out of the back of the wagon at a run, hit one guard with her shoulder, spun past into the tower doorway; the little room was empty. A guard came after her, heading for the winch and the beam that would release the portcullis—at least one man in the castle who knew his job. She struck at his shield with all her strength—once inside the small room, her longer weapon was a fatal handicap. He stepped back instead of forward.
It was his last mistake. All other noise was drowned in thunder as the column of cats came in the gate, split right and left around the inside of the castle wall, shooting as they rode. The last of the guards on the rampart died. The second column of cats, Harald at their head, came through the gate, up the stone ramp, into the great hall.
The hall was chaos—guardsmen unconscious on the floor, guardsmen fighting each other, guardsmen dying under the arrows of the mounted cats crowded into one end of the hall, a few beginning to throw down their arms. At the far end a captain was trying and failing to hold a knot of guards together in front of the door, shields up against a rain of arrows. Tall, blond hair showing under the edge of a steel cap. Harald drew and released; the arrow slammed into the closing door. The man was gone.
Off his horse onto the bench, down the length of the table dodging plates and pitchers, shoulder to the door and through it, Caralla at his heels. Running footsteps echoing down the stone stairway. Harald let Caralla pass him on the second spiral, his breath burning in his throat. At the top of the third the door was open. A short hall, at the end a door. Two guards. The captain said something to them, went through. They spread out and moved to block Caralla.
Harald shot the halberd man through the throat. The other swung. Caralla glanced the blow, struck back, circled. He turned to face her. Harald put two arrows in his back and stepped past the falling body into the room, nocking a third.
A tall woman, gray haired, already on her feet, reaching down with her right hand to the chain that linked it to the floor. The captain, his sword out, swung at her. Harald drew, looking for a clear shot.
Leonora moved first. She sidestepped the rush, pulling tight a second chain that ran from ankle to floor; the captain went over it. The wrist chain, somehow freed from the ground, swung in a blurring circle. He moved once and was still.
Just to be sure, Harald shot him through the body.
"Castle ours, still fighting. Cara, the door."
Freeing a dagger from the dead captain's belt, Harald slid the blade under the iron staple that chained Leonora to the floor, driving it in with his mace. He grabbed the dagger's handle with both hands, looked up. Leaning down, she wrapped her joined hands around his. One heave and the staple came free. They joined Caralla at the door. The hallway was empty.
From the sounds up the stairway, the fighting was over. Harald led them up, not down the stairs. He was looking for something.
A considerable way north, most of a day later:
"Your Majesty. A bird just came in."
The King took the thin paper, read the message written in tiny letters. His face lit up. Twice Harald had used them against him; now it was his turn. The southern provinces were loyal, birds for Southdale and Goldfell in the tower. And . . .
He turned to Philip. "Would Harald know we have birds in South Keep?"
The old man thought a minute.
"Doubt it. Here to the Vales was his worry, the rest of it ours."
The King sent a boy running for his captain. With luck, this time . . .
And either way, at least it would be over.
A day's ride short of South Keep the royal army, swelled by hasty levies, met the first sign of an enemy. Off the road to the right, well out of arrowshot, a small cluster of mounted Ladies. Ahead, where the road ran along the woods, a smaller cluster of cats. The King spoke to the captain at his right side, the captain signaled. Gradually the army slowed to a halt. The King turned to his captain.
"Scouts? Catch them now, surprise later."
The captain nodded, stopped. Above the cats, the wind took the pennon on a lance point, blew it straight.
"That's Harald."
"What?"
"Next to his pennon man, gray horse."
"Gods." The King thought a moment, his face fierce.
The figure on the gray horse raised his bow, drew, shot. The King lifted his shield, saw no sign where the arrow had gone. Southdale, riding at his left, spoke.
"Not even Harald can pick us off at four hundred yards, Majesty."
The King turned to him.
"Take the levies, lift the siege of South Keep. You'll want the infantry from Eston; they're behind us on the road." The provincial lord nodded. The King turned to his captain.
"Send Mark and his men after them"—a gesture right—"he has light cavalry to run them down, heavies to break them if they stand."
"He can't take on the whole Order, Majesty."
"The Order's a day south of here besieging South Keep. If he does run into trouble he can fall back on Southdale and the main force. We take the rest of your company and go after Harald."
"Harald has a lot of tricks, Majesty."
"He can't be very tricky with fifteen men. His army, what there is of it, is at South Keep. He's been fighting me with bluffs for a month. This is the last. Just remember—we want a prisoner, not a corpse."
An hour later the King had seen no reason to change his mind. The cats, charged by twenty times their numbers, had shot a few arrows, then fallen back into the trees. The King's captain spread his men to block any move back to the road and followed them. Occasional arrows through the trees were evidence that they were still there; the valley walls beginning to rise on either side of them would slow any attempt to break out of the trap.
The valley narrowed, the royal force thinned to a column moving through the trees and up. Ahead sunlight. They broke out of the woods, surged forward, stopped. Somewhere behind them something fell with an echoing crash.
The valley ahead was blocked by a wall of rocks and dirt a man's height and more. Above it massed spears, a line of archers. Right and left the steep slope of the valley wall was scattered with cats on foot, bows ready. At the King's left, horsemen surged forward, swords out, fell under a rain of arrows. The King turned in his saddle, arms spread.
"Hold."
A man on foot, forcing his way through the packed horses to the captain's side.
"It's blocked; they've brought down a big tree behind us, maybe more."
Looking up, the King saw Harald's pennon, Harald himself at the center of the wall, a tall Lady beside him. The King hesitated a moment, moved forward, yelled up at him.
"If I yield, will you let my men go?"
"Dismount, arms and armor on the horses. We take the horses down to the plain, let them go; when we are gone, your men follow on foot."
The King turned to his captain.
"Andrew is in the castle; tell him I'll make the best terms I am able, send word when I can."
He swung his horse sideways against the earth wall, drew his sword, held it hilt out. Harald leaned down, took it, thrust it into the earth beside him, reached a hand down. The King caught the hand, one foot on the saddle, the other against the earth wall, scrambled upwards.
At the top of the wall he stood, looked at Harald, the tall gray-haired woman beside him, froze. The blood left his face.
"You're dead. You've been dead for a year."
Harald broke the silence, took her hand.
"I can assure Your Majesty that the Lady Commander is with us in the flesh."
The King tore his eyes from Leonora's face, looked wildly around. Stopped. Looked back at her. Hesitated. Spoke slowly.
"My lady, I have wronged you past excuse. You have fair claim to my life."
Leonora nodded. Nobody spoke. Below them the horsemen had dismounted and begun, under the watchful eyes of their captain and the archers above, to take off their armor and pack it onto the horses.
An hour into the plain, the King riding with Harald, silent. A short column of riders crested a ridge. As they drew near he recognized the dress of the Order. Harald stopped his men, waited. The newcomers fell into line; their leader rode up to where Harald sat his horse, the King on one side, the Lady Commander behind them. Her eyes widened. Harald spoke first.
"No problems?"
"Like a charm. Over the ridge, sharp right. Then they were busy jumping ropes—or not. We kept going. Probably still chasing us south."
"Someone you should meet."
She moved forward; the mare turned, backed, leaving the Lady facing the King, Harald on one side of her, Leonora on the other.
"Your Majesty, may I introduce the Lady Caralla?"
The King looked up. A tall Lady, mail covered with dust.
"Our daughter."
The King drew a long breath.
Harald spoke again.
"Before beginning a feud, count kin."