Players of the Game. Graeme Talboys K.
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Название: Players of the Game
Автор: Graeme Talboys K.
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780008103576
isbn:
Sheathing her swords, she stepped forward into the firelight. Several of the strangers turned to look at her and then back to Tohmarz.
‘Refugees,’ he said.
She could see that for herself. Tired, half-starved, and terrified.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I thought your presence might reassure them. Calm them.’
‘A woman with two swords?’
‘You know what I mean.’
She did, and she didn’t much like it. After all, she had ridden with the troop for a week and barely knew any of them. She had been with Alltud for three years or more, depending on how you counted it, and they were still strangers in some ways. Now she was being asked to calm distraught refugees.
Not knowing what else to do, she gestured for them to sit and then did so herself. With slow, wary movements, they gathered by the fire, eleven of them in total, and sat on the stony ground. The three children attached themselves to the women and two of them fell asleep straight away. At that Jeniche ran out of ideas, but Alltud appeared with some food he had gathered.
Tohmarz had the good sense to get his men out of sight, although she could hear him questioning some of them about how a group of refugees could stumble into the camp so easily. He sounded angry. Very angry. And it was the only sense she got out of anyone that night.
Once the refugees had eaten, she asked them where they were from, where they were going, if they had been alone. They stared at her with frightened eyes but remained mute. She didn’t push too hard. Instead she told them of the path to the coast, of the villages and towns, of the poor reception they were likely to get. The men nodded. And then they lay down and slept as well.
She left them to it, picking her way quietly into the dark beyond the flames where Tohmarz stood.
‘There’s your watcher,’ he said.
She shrugged. He didn’t sound convinced and she certainly wasn’t. The little band of refugees had been heading north, had likely come down from the mountains, perhaps from beyond them.
‘If you wish,’ she said and went on up the ravine to find Alltud, and maybe some sleep as well.
‘What’s eating you?’
Jeniche looked up from where she was making a mess of packing her bedroll. She sat back on her heels.
‘I don’t like being treated with such contempt.’
Alltud waited. He had long since packed up his own stuff and had even saddled his horse. This was an event. Normally, Jeniche was the one who waited whilst he stumbled around half asleep gathering his things.
‘Come on,’ he said, and knelt beside her. He took her roll, shook it out, and packed it for her. ‘Explain.’
‘Tohmarz. Trying to imply it was one of those refugees that had been watching us.’
They both turned their heads as she spoke, looking across at the battered huddle by the smouldering fire. Some of them still slept. The others were listless. One of the children watched the remains of the fire with eyes that saw no future. Jeniche cursed under her breath. Children shouldn’t even be looking for the future, let alone discovering it may not actually be there.
‘You told me all this last night. Remember? During that bit when I was trying to get back to sleep.’
She turned her gaze back to him. Most men would have flinched.
Taking a moment, she stood and approached her horse, strapped the bedroll on behind the cantle of the saddle. ‘Not that. It’s just the way he wasn’t even trying to make it seem convincing.’
‘So what?’ He climbed to his feet and glanced around with a casual air to make sure no one was too close. ‘This time tomorrow, with a bit of care, we’ll be well away from them and whatever idiot plan they have.’
Jeniche smiled, but she wasn’t sure it reached her eyes. Like the child, she was looking for a future and discovered that she, too, couldn’t see one.
Leaving the refugees with what food they could spare, the troop mounted and, as they walked down the ravine, picking their way over the rough ground, formed up in twos. At the mouth of the ravine they turned south, the early morning sun obscured by the side of the valley on their left. Each time they trotted across the mouth of one of the ravines, the sunlight struck them. Hard light in pure air, casting shadows that slowly shortened.
The side wall of the valley grew ever taller and the ravines grew further apart and deeper. Substantial dry water courses cut across their track, slowing their progress. The far side of the main valley was now visible as a hazy smudge on the western horizon. Vegetation on the flat valley floor was little more than low scrub and scattered, withered trees. There was no shelter worth speaking of. Yet Jeniche and Alltud knew they would have to cross it at some time if they were to get away. The ravines on their side at least gave them some hope that the far side would offer similar shelter.
As the gullies became deeper, they offered protection to increasing amounts of vegetation. Aromatic scrub, dwarf trees, taller evergreens, grazing. Shelter, shade, pools of water in the bleached stream beds. At least the season was in favour of an escape. Had it been winter, water would be pouring down from the hills and distant mountains, funnelling into these ravines and making them dangerous. The main valley floor looked like it would become soft underfoot, if not impassable with the river in full flood.
Alltud and Jeniche took careful note of each ravine as they passed, memorising landmarks to argue about later. By some bond they neither of them understood, they turned and looked at each other, breaking into broad grins. The day seemed less harsh.
As the morning wore on, a gentle breeze began blowing from the south. Warm, but pleasant, it cleared away the stale odours of baked clay and stone, of drifted desert dust, and lifted the scents of wild thyme and lavender. The sky had changed as well. A milky gauze of high cloud filtered the worst of the midday sun and to the south and west the horizon had become a slate grey.
Into the long afternoon they rode, alternating between walking and trotting. Alltud dozed in the saddle when he could; Jeniche watched the landscape and calculated distances. They would need to be under cover before dawn without working the horses too hard. To her it seemed that cutting straight across the valley would be the best course.
She spent so much time watching the far side that it came as a surprise to see how high the valley wall beside them now was. A broken slope of loose soil and stones covered with patches of grass and small shrubs. Along the top, bushes softened the edge and prevented worse erosion than was already apparent. And provided excellent cover for anyone who might be watching them. Like that small cluster of bushes beside a jutting slab of rock.
Still angry about Tohmarz’s reaction and just a little on edge about СКАЧАТЬ