Stifling a cry, Cnán fled. Her feet carried her out of the ferns and into the open field, wonder, guilt, and memory hot on her heels. At twenty paces, she paused, stood with shoulders stiff as stone, then—she could not help herself—she turned and looked back.
Percival had not moved. Raphael, who had witnessed this moment as well, was walking away—not toward Percival, she noted—a bemused look on his sun-browned face.
Cnán ran once more, slipping through the mouse hole in the hedge wall, getting out into the large field beyond, where she could have some privacy. The old snag that she had climbed earlier was a short distance away. She ran to it, circled around to the other side where no one could see her, and sank shuddering to the tangle of roots at its base. Pressing her fingers against the ancient bark, she wept until her entire body ached, for the pain, the grief, and in the middle of grief, the unexpected, impossible beauty of Percival’s illumination.
Sometime later, chest still full and cheeks tight with dried tears, she made her way back to the camp. The voices of the Shield-Brethren, less ghostly now, seemed to be handed from tree to tree across the field before Cnán caught sight of them. Yasper’s smoke had long since faded, and the air was clear. In the aftermath of the battle, silence had given way to anger. The Shield-Brethren were at odds now, and the former battleground resounded with the din.
“Roger, stop!” The shout rose over all as the camp came back in view. Raphael had interposed himself between the Norman and Istvan. The former held a drawn hatchet and arming sword.
“Stand aside,” Roger said. “He’ll be the death of us all, one by one. He doesn’t deserve your protection, much less your faith.”
“We are not barbarians,” Raphael said sternly, “to cut down one of our own when the enemy is yet near. Lower your weapons. For God’s and all our sakes, be reasonable.”
“Reasonable?” Roger snarled. “Taran is dead, and that man”—he leveled his sword in the direction of the Hungarian—“as good as drew down upon us all the Mongols who killed him. It is madness to keep him—and his insanity—in the company; reason demands he be put down before he gets us all killed. It would be a mercy to him—and to us all!”
“Enough,” Feronantus said, rising from where Taran lay. Illarion still sat on the opposite side of the body, and the two had been speaking in low voices. As she drew closer, she saw that the Brethren’s leader wore an expression between grief and grim determination. There was a calm hardness there that would brook no argument. “His foolishness has cost one life; let it not cost us more. Break camp and round up the spares we have found; we set out as soon as we have properly seen Taran to his rest.”
Roger, his weapons poised, did not move. Istvan’s hand rested on the hilt of his curved blade, his eyes set on the Norman’s with a hard glare bespeaking a ready willingness to do more violence, even to take joy in it.
The blood and dust in the Hungarian’s beard had caked to muddy black. He looked more demon than man.
Raphael remained between the two, eyes leveled steadily on Roger’s. The others waited, hardly daring to draw breath, none wishing to make the move that would provoke their brother into retaliation.
Roger broke his stance first. “So be it, then,” he said as both sword and hatchet dropped. He half bowed and stepped back, moving his attention toward Feronantus. “On your head be this, Ferhonanths. God and the Virgin save us all if this…if this…”—he cast his eyes once more on Istvan—“mad dog cannot be kept to leash. He is nothing to me—no companion, no warrior. He is a demon-ridden butcher, and I am done with him. He should be staked to a tree and left for the Mongols.”
Istvan received this imprecation with a courtly nod, his assurance unbroken, his arrogance galling to all around him—with the exception of Feronantus.
Disgusted, Roger turned on his heel and stalked away. The group slowly dropped their shoulders, shrugged them out, and then set to breaking camp.
Only Istvan seemed to notice Cnán’s arrival, though she raised her shoulder to avert his look. A demon-beleaguered man, cursed by his comrades, yet still defiant and proud. She understood nothing, clearly, about Feronantus and his intentions.