“Surely we can’t criticize a man for his grief,” Roger said.
Percival saw it otherwise. “We are on a quest,” he said. “We work as brothers. Istvan has never truly joined us, and now… It’s not grief. It’s pure, mad vengeance. Why would he kill a family of trappers?”
“He’s after the Mongol guards,” Feronantus said. “He’s tracking tax collectors and studying hamlets that cooperate with the Mongols. Cnán has seen the results of one night’s work. I doubt that this was the first. He has done it before and plans to do it again. This will attract attention—probably has done so already. The countryside is in shock. War parties wander everywhere—Mongol and otherwise. No doubt there will be teams of horsemen riding guard wherever there are goods and money to gather and carry off.”
“We tend away from the main paths,” Cnán said, “but fur traders go everywhere there are woods and fields and water.”
“What you saw,” said Illarion, “was but one small contingent of a larger group. You may be assured that there are other parties just like it, ranging over the country, venturing into every forest and valley where furs are to be had. By this point in the season, they will already have harvested a small fortune in trade goods. Which means…”
“They’ll have protection,” Taran said.
Roger stared at Cnán resentfully. She glared back. A wry grimace came over his face. He looked away for a moment, then glanced back and nodded by way of apology. “It’s not good news,” he explained. “Istvan was one of our bravest and most loyal.”
“Mohi broke him,” Finn said, in rough Latin.
“Illarion saw his family killed and did not break,” Feronantus reminded them. “We can ill afford to lose anyone. I will send a party of three with Cnán—Eleázar, Percival, and Raphael. She will track Istvan, and the three of you will persuade him to rejoin us.”
“With respect, the girl is no rider,” Eleázar said. “Should we get into trouble—”
“For that reason,” Feronantus said, “she will do her utmost to keep you out of trouble. Which is how I prefer it.”
And that was final. All the knights looked on Cnán, some with hooded eyes.
Cnán had not expected to be hobbled by a trio of knights. She stated clearly, in a piping voice, that she could not range wide enough to find clear paths and also accompany Istvan’s search party. “He might return on his own,” she added.
Feronantus waved this aside. “You’ve done a fair amount of ranging already, have you not? He’s a big man, on a big horse, with a distinctive hoof and gait. You will find him quicker than we could, and Percival, Raphael, and Eleázar will jess and hood him, if necessary, before he attracts more attention. We shall tarry in this place for one day, mending our britches.”
Cnán suppressed a smile. This was Feronantus’s all-purpose phrase covering not just britches-mending but sock-darning, meat-drying, herb-gathering, and all the other chores that, if they did them today, would enable them to ride hard tomorrow.
“Then,” Feronantus said, “we shall head east on our present course. Kiev is—at most—a fortnight’s ride. If you don’t find him in three days, return to our track. Our trail will be embarrassingly obvious to one of your talents. We need you, Cnán, to show us a safe route through the outskirts of Kiev. All there is likely misery and confusion.”
“We should not go to that accursed place at all,” Roger remarked.
“Ah, but we must,” Percival said. “It is a matter of honor.” But Feronantus, weary of this argument between friends, held up both hands to silence them.
This region as a whole was inclined to marshiness, and of late the band of would-be Khan killers had been skirting the southern borders of a broad wetland—a mariscus, in Feronantus’s favored tongue—that covered more ground than some European kingdoms. Cnán knew as much because she had recently spent the better part of two months working her way across it from east to west. For the most part, they had been good months, since edible plants were as common in the bogs as Mongols were scarce. With no assistance from humans, plant life sorted itself out from low to high, according to its preferences regarding drainage.
In the bottoms, reeds grew thick and green in rain-swollen waterways; low, shrubby willows populated a patchwork of sandy islands; and other water-hardy stuff grew in such profusion that only the most wretched fugitives were to be found there. Merely to dwell in such a place was to confess oneself an outlaw or a witch. The valleys and ravines that drained into it were choked with trees, generally too small and mean to be of interest to any, save charcoal burners.