“Of course,” R?dwulf said, “but he knew where I was.”
“Still, you could have shot him!” Istvan blurted.
R?dwulf’s eyes swiveled to study the Hungarian. “It was odd, to my mind, that the man allowed himself to come within my range.”
“Have you an explanation for this oddity?” Percival asked.
“I do,” R?dwulf said. “I think that he is unfamiliar with the characteristics of the Welsh longbow and the arrows that we use.”
“He thought he was safe,” Feronantus said.
R?dwulf nodded. “I could have disabused him,” he said, “but the wind was swirling, and—”
“If you had missed,” Percival said, completing his sentence, “you would never have been given another chance.”
A silence ensued, broken only by the snap and hiss of the fire and the swift, slick movements of Finn’s knife through the antelope’s carcass.
“What are we to make of this Graymane and his dogged pursuit of us?” Raphael asked finally.
Feronantus looked mildly annoyed and did not answer immediately. Of course, this was precisely the question on his mind.
“He is a man of some authority,” Feronantus said, “or else he would have gone immediately to his superior and handed the matter off to him. Instead, he devotes weeks to following us, studying us. Why?”
“He wants to know what we are about,” Raphael said. “We have aroused his curiosity.”
“And perhaps he has his own reasons for traveling to the East,” Eleázar suggested.
“Further evidence, if true, that he is a man of some consequence in the councils of the Mongols,” Feronantus said.
“It is a fine riddle,” Vera said, “and pray enjoy it at your leisure. I must know whether you wish to cross the Volga tomorrow or not.”
“If we cross over,” R?dwulf pointed out, “then Graymane will suspect that our errand must lie far to the east.”
“Oh, I think Graymane knows that already,” Feronantus said. “No. The journey already drags on far longer than I had hoped. We cross over with no further delay. And if Graymane follows us, then we set a trap for him—and this time R?dwulf lets his arrow fly.”
*
It did not happen as quickly as Feronantus had hoped. The larger settlements along the river, where ferries were easy to come by, were garrisoned by the Mongols, and so two days were lost in scouting up and down the Volga’s bank to find a way across. Vera’s second-in-command, Alena, located a fishing village whose inhabitants were willing to ferry the party and their horses across the river in exchange for a tariff that Feronantus claimed to find shocking. But the Shield-Brethren had made it obvious that they were trying to hide their movements from the Mongol authorities, and so it was inevitable that they would end up paying dearly. Rather than paying double to ferry the Shield-Maidens over as well, and then paying yet again to bring them back a few days later, they made the decision that Alena would remain with the other women on the river’s west bank and await the return of Vera.
In truth, Vera was of little use to them once they had reached the eastern bank. Her fluency in Slavic languages had, of course, been indispensable near Kiev, and her expertise in the geography of the steppes had seen them to the great river more quickly and safely than they’d have been able to manage on their own. But she and Alena had been able to communicate with the fishermen only with great difficulty, and they had finally resorted to drawing figures in the dirt. The few locals on the eastern bank who were willing to come anywhere near them were of another race altogether and did not speak a single word of Russian, Greek, Latin, or indeed any of the languages of Christendom.
Cnán identified them as a sort of Turk and found a way to talk with them. Her skills had been of little use to the group during the journey from Kiev, and she had become little more than a shadow following in the wake of the company. Now, once again, they were unable to continue forward without her assistance. Raphael found himself to be inordinately pleased by this turn of events, realizing he had come to enjoy Cnán’s presence when she was an active part of the company.
“You know what I am looking for,” Raphael told her as they approached a small settlement of such Turkic-looking people, “so feel free to ask whenever you sense that the time is right.”
A long conversation followed, in the hut where the headman of the village lived. Cnán served as translator for Feronantus and Raphael. Or that was the plan going in. But after a few initial pleasantries, she stopped translating altogether and would sometimes speak to the headman for as long as a quarter of an hour without bothering to turn round and say a word to the knights. It was obvious, however, from tone of voice and facial expressions, that she was busy satisfying the chief’s curiosity and assuaging his concerns about this armed band of Frankish interlopers who had just presented themselves on his doorstep. So Feronantus did not bristle but merely sat still, looked formidable, and behaved himself.
Raphael, with nothing better to do, doodled on a blank page of the book that he carried with him as a sort of diary and sketchpad.
Finally, Cnán turned and addressed them. “I think it is safe now to ask him.”
She spoke in Latin, and her words—as Raphael saw, when he looked up from his sketching—were directed at him. Surprised, he gave a little shrug and glanced at Feronantus, who nodded.
Cnán turned back to the headman and spoke to him for a little while, and in that speech, Raphael thought he heard words very like Khazar and Jew, Ibrahim and Musa—words that he had been hoping would be known to the natives of this land.
The chief responded immediately. Cnán turned to Raphael. She almost never smiled. But she was smiling now. “He says that they are not all dead yet,” she announced, “and that he can show us the way to where they live. In exchange for a small consideration, of course.”
“Of course,” Feronantus said.