LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Five

       The Elfwych Riding

      The immediate reaction of our greater gathering to the Old-man’s departure was not what you might have expected of a faithful grayne. Certainly, his personal bodyguard spurred their hobby-horses and, banners waving, followed quickly after him. His brothers too, Cloggie-Unthank and Fibra, took their guard and, each very aware of the other, began their Riding. Not so the Old-man’s trusted Council. Casually, they turned their prancing ponies aside and, without a look behind them, began their long ride home unattended. Their parading was done with, and their usefulness was at an end here. And if there were a few solitary riders among us common men who started after The Graynelord’s party, the majority deliberately stood up their hobbs and stayed their ground.

      There was one last ritual to be performed before we were ready to set out.

      In almost revered silence, groups of women, youths, and young girls began to appear among us. They walked quietly between the massed ranks of mounted hobby-horses, giving each man there a small present as they went, or so it seemed. Old Emma’s Notyet came to me. She held a young babbie in her arms (not mine, I hasten, nor hers) and he offered me up an empty leather pouch. Another man took a single spur from his wife, while yet another was given a sharpened dagger, and so on…These things were not given as keepsakes. Rather, they were tokens of encouragement, demand, and expectation. Their meaning was simple and clear:

      If we were to return home safely, we must none of us return home empty-handed.

      The leather pouch was given to me that I might fill it with coins or seeds or trinkets, or some other treasure procured upon the Riding. I took it without a single word passing between us. Notyet and I had already made our goodbyes. And if, as she turned away, she threw me half a kiss, I did not catch it, or return the other half. Though I did watch her closely as she took her leave; and for far longer than I might. A fully grown woman, there was nothing special about her, no obvious or distinctive mark. She was a weedling still, and did not stand out in a crowd. Less than average of height, weak of pallor, not well bred. There was a trace of silver and blue in the shadows cast across her skin, especially evident in the folds of skin on her hands, between her fingers and her toes, and unevenly around her eyes and mouth, but these were common touches. I am neither describing great beauty nor a freak of nature. I, and all my kin from Beggar Bard to babbie, carry many of the same traits. Upon Graynelore, we are each of us the sum of our collected ancestry. Notyet might have been described as endearing, but never pretty. Her ears were long and slightly high, slightly elevated, but there was no elfin point. She wore her coarse hair plainly. She brushed it back off her face, letting it hang loosely at her shoulder and down her back, as was the custom. Her clothes were simple and functional with no hint of conceit. She wore a long dress, made of several loosely cut pieces of cloth sewn lightly together: it found its own bodyline and allowed for easy movement, let her skin breathe.

      Do you think me self-indulgent? Or do I betray myself? Have my eyes lingered too long upon her? Would you have had me already in the frae? Have a care, my friend. Faced with death, who among men would not pause for a moment and risk a look back towards life?

      When, finally, the greater body of the Riding set out to follow after the Old-man, it was a cold road we travelled. We needed no clues, no scented trail. We knew well enough where we were going: Staward Peel. The Elfwych Stronghold, stood at the centre of the West March, within a great meander of the River Winding, and at the foot of the hills they called The Rise. It was a well-placed tower-house, and easily defended at full strength.

      Only, Staward Peel was not at full strength.

      Its tower was already broken and badly maintained. Its walls, once as thick and strong as any in all Graynelore, had been breached many times in recent conflicts, and more poorly mended upon each event. The Elfwych could not depend upon it for their defence. They were a grayne in trouble; a surname in decline. Whatever gathering forces they could bring to their aid, we knew they would want to make their fight out in the open and on the run. In almost every way their misfortune was our advantage. And where it was not, our sheer weight in numbers would easily make the difference. For every fourth man Stain Elfwych could fetch up The Graynelord could fetch up ten. There would still be a hard fight, and killings, of course – no surname upon Graynelore would have it any other way – but the purpose of the Riding would be served. Old-man Wishard would get exactly what he was after.

      I, Rogrig Wishard, had ridden the raider’s trail often enough. I knew what was expected of a Riding. Ours was not an army of rank and file. This raid was to be far less a considered attack than it was a free-for-all. We did not advance in the way of a single tutored cavalry. Rather, we straddled the fells and the moorlands: a series of loose rabbles. Close kin preferring to rely on close kin for their aid. The members of each house making their own way and in their own time. (And as often as not…with their own intentions and intended victims.) Sometimes long chains of men sprawled thinly across the fells, steadily making their way on their hobby-horses (only a very few a-foot). Sometimes a thick knot of fighting-men moved together as one body: finding their strength and their bravery in their tightly gathered number. This had ever been Cloggie-Unthank’s preference. Each house had its own particular fighting tactics and stuck to them rigidly. On the principle that, if something had worked once before, it was certain to work again. (Not always a sensible provision, I fear.)

      For certain, there was to be no single great and glorious battle. What was expected here was a scourging. A series of melees and skirmishes taken up wherever they happened, rough-shod Ridings, and individual combats stretched out upon the day.

      Without a doubt, there were men among us who liked this fighting business a little too much – aye, and on both sides – fighters who would give no quarter, killing to the last man or woman…or child. Then there were those who would openly buy or sell their lives with whatever means they could offer if their sword arm could not do it for them. Sometimes a handful of coin was enough, or the

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