She was still up in the tree, still repeating her song, when Percival led his group of four up the hill, their mounts foaming and sweating, half dead. She made sure that the men saw her, which was not difficult since they were using the snag as a landmark. Once she had their attention, she waved them vigorously toward the mouse hole through the hedge wall. Istvan, riding a couple of lengths out ahead of the others, took her meaning immediately and veered toward the opening. Raphael and Eleázar, who came along next, hesitated.
“Clog it up, why don’t you!” Cnán shouted down to them. “Like drunks rolling out of a burning tavern.”
They responded by showing her their teeth and followed Istvan. As they went, Raphael and Eleázar jostled each other playfully, acting the role of the panicky drunks, just to amuse her. In their relief at still being alive, they acted like little boys. She was pleased that they appreciated her wit.
Percival pulled up suddenly and stopped near the tree. “Go on,” Cnán called to him, “do as the others.” Looking away, she resumed singing, beating time with her fist.
“My lady,” Percival began. He had called her that yesterday, and she had guessed it was some kind of elaborate sarcasm. But this didn’t seem like the time for unpleasant jibes. Maybe it was just the way he’d been raised. Cnán wished she could meet Percival’s mother. “I cannot recommend that you remain in that position,” he said, “considering that hostile archers, in large numbers, are about to surround you.”
She did not respond. She was nearing the end of the chorus and did not want to lose her place.
“And if you do remain,” he continued, “you might leave off singing. Your tune is beautiful, but it will soon draw many arrows.”
She stuck out her thumb and said, “It’s part of a plan—Feronantus’s plan, if that impresses you—which you are currently fouling up. Go and fight for a place in that hedge hole.” With a quick scowl in Percival’s direction, Cnán took up singing again and stuck out her index finger.
“Ah, you are to be the lapwing,” Percival guessed. He turned and looked toward Raphael and Eleázar, who were about halfway to the gap. “You will run toward yonder gap and find it blocked by those selfish clods. You will then divert round the other way in—the low rubble wall at the end of the field. Which happens to be much better suited for Mongols anyway.”
Next came her long finger. She badly wanted to climb down out of the tree, but it was important that the Mongols catch sight of her first.
Percival looked up at her and said, “The performance will lack verisimilitude if I fail to give way to a lady in distress. For it is my duty as a knight to see you safe to your destination—as difficult as you sometimes make that.”
Cnán thrust the current finger at him and interrupted the song long enough to shout, “You’re fucking it up! Go!” Then she noticed movement along the rise—the tips of Mongol lances bobbing up and down.
“I shall follow you in,” Percival said thoughtfully. “The ruse shall work just as well.”
“Suit yourself,” Cnán snarled. She could clearly see the broad faces of Mongols beneath their helmets, and one of them pointed directly at her, calling excitedly to his brothers.
Cnán began to descend the tree. This went slower than she’d hoped, since a branch broke under her foot and forced her to dangle for a few beats of the song while she flailed for a handhold.
Percival, adroitly maneuvering his mount underneath her, took her ankle and guided her down over her patiently waiting pony, then saw to it that her ass slammed directly into the saddle. Even as she reached for the reins, he smacked the pony on the buttocks. It bolted. Percival cut behind, getting between Cnán and the Mongols.
Cnán, finally securing a grip on the reins, rushed along the same path that Istvan, Raphael, and Eleázar had followed. Trying to ignore whatever Percival might be doing behind her, she rode hard in the direction of the mouse hole, a ride long enough, she hoped, to let the Mongols get some sense of what she was trying for.
Raphael and Eleázar were overplaying their roles, berating and shoving each other in front of the narrow opening.
She could hear the Mongols shouting as they turned to follow her. Cnán veered the pony into a sharp turn. The pony veered onto a course roughly parallel to the hedge and maybe ten paces distant. She would have to cover about one bowshot, then execute a full reversal and jump the low barrier of rubble in order to gain entry to the field. Concerned about the pony’s ability to make such a tight turn at full gallop, she guided it away from the hedge wall.
The disaster came so quickly that she was tumbling ass-over-ears through the rye before she was fully aware that something had gone wrong. She used the last of her momentum to roll back on her feet. A loud snapping noise was fresh in her ears. She looked back. The pony lay in a motionless heap. Perhaps it had stepped into an animal’s burrow, broken a leg, tossed her…landed on its neck.
Dazed, she stood tall in the weeds and stalks—not the best strategy when archers were taking aim.