“Not far,” Geroen said briefly. “But too far, if we run into the wrong sort of trouble. Can you canter?” He gave Tan a close look. “Never mind! Even a trot would have you off in a trice, a blind crow at midnight could see that.”
Tan could hardly deny it. He wondered just where Istierinan might have got to, and with whom, and in command of what resources. And just what their chances were of finding out the answers to all those questions. Far too good, he feared.
Mienthe rode over. Even in the dark, anyone could see that she was tense, excited, worried, determined, very young, and, most of all, decidedly female. Why, why, why had Geroen brought her? If they did encounter any regular Linularinan soldiers, it would be blazingly obvious she was somebody important. The Linularinan authorities would have every reason to believe the Delta had deliberately sent her to lend formal authority to some nefarious purpose, and what would Bertaud say if they got his cousin taken up by enemy soldiers on the wrong side of the river?
But she was still self-possessed, and she still had the leather satchel over her shoulder, Tan was relieved to see. She said, to Tan but mostly addressing Geroen, “Tan, I’ll get up behind you.” Then, as the captain began to protest, “No, it only makes sense! I’m the only one here light enough to let the horse carry two at speed, and I can keep him from falling. Then we can make better time, and if you only have one horse to guard rather than two, won’t that simplify everything in case of, well, in case?”
It would, unquestionably. Though Tan also had an uncomfortable vision of the horse stumbling at some unforgiving moment, with both of them falling, to yield twice the disaster they’d otherwise face. Even so…
“Over you get, then,” Geroen said gruffly. Tan couldn’t tell whether he was also suffering from a too-vivid imagination. He sounded ill-tempered enough either way.
Mienthe slid across from her horse to Tan’s without even dismounting. She sat close behind him, her thighs bracing his, her small hands firm on his hips. He immediately felt much more secure in the saddle. The horse’s gait smoothed out as it, too, recognized the steadiness of its second rider. Under other circumstances, Tan would have enjoyed having the girl behind him. He tried to think of an appropriate quotation for this sort of situation—he knew there was one—but the agony radiating from his knee not only ruined his memory but also ensured, very decisively, that he’d be thinking no impure thoughts about Lord Bertaud’s cousin.
Geroen waved, and the horse lunged forward into a canter along a road they could only barely see; one had to just trust the horses knew where they were putting their feet. “It’s not far to the river,” Mienthe said to Tan. She didn’t quite shout, although nervous excitement made her speak much more loudly than necessary. That was as well, as Tan was tending to lose words and phrases among the waves of pain that beset him.
Tan was certain they would find a company of Linularinan soldiers between them and the river, yet they met no one. This astonished him, until he remembered Istierinan falling with an arrow in his back. They passed half a handful of travelers on the road, so they would be remembered, but Tan could not bring himself to care. They found no one waiting when they finally waded out of the marshes proper and into the mud at the river’s edge, which was his sole concern.
“There’s a ford?” Tan muttered when he’d realized they’d stopped. He squinted blearily out across the wide expanse of water. For all the sluggish current, the river looked deep here. The water looked like pewter in the dim light, stark angular silhouettes of cypress knees black against the slow-moving glimmer.
Then he watched incredulously as one clumsy but solid-looking rowboat and then another were drawn out of the hidden darkness behind the cypress knees. All that way along the road and then through the marshes, and they’d come out at the riverbank just where the rowboats had been hidden? His opinion of Geroen, already fairly solid, rose another notch.
And he was very, very glad there were boats. Though he was not entirely certain he would be able to make it down from this horse without collapsing into unconsciousness and then into the black swamp mud. Drowning in a foot of water! There would be a stupid death. Though, no, of course, he realized muzzily. Mienthe was right behind him. She would drag him out… A guardsman reached up to help Tan down, and he found he’d been right about at least one thing: Black unconsciousness was indeed waiting for him. The last thing he was aware of was Mienthe’s sharp exclamation of dismay as she snatched at his arm.
CHAPTER 4