Hardacre was
happy to camp – even though, unfortunately, the domestic chores were reduced to
an absolute minimum – and he liked to be riding outdoors. The weather was also
good – hazy late spring sunshine, with occasional showers in the early evening.
The Ortian patrol was well trained and efficient – traits that he admired and
secretly thought shamefully rare.
They had spent four days establishing a pattern – fanning out over the
landscape north and south of the road, looking for any signs of travellers. The
plain was fairly empty and there wasn’t much to see but they were making good
progress. During the days that they had
been searching so far they had seen no other humanoids, just the occasional
deer or wild cattle.
To the north of the road at this point the scrub turned into little
patches of evergreen oaks, some of them
large enough to be almost proper woodlands. These took longer to search
in than the areas south of the road, which were open and soon began to become
drier and thornier.
It was boring work and Hardacre’s mind wandered. He was irritated to find
that it wandered not to anything deep, or, indeed, very interesting, but to the
status of his domestic arrangements. Could he trust Simkins to pay the grocer
and the butcher? Would he even turn up at the right time? Inevitably, his
thoughts also turned to the question of laundry. Maybe he’d lost that battle
and he would have to start sending it out again to be cleaned. This didn’t
please him at all. He liked to keep a close eye on all household arrangements
and this was yet another thing that might now pass out of his control. He
became increasingly annoyed with himself and with the entire expedition.
Every now and then Flavia, the officer in charge of the Visneorian
troops, would ride up to Hardacre and ask him about his plans. She was serious
and persistent, and seemed to hang on his every word. Hardacre thought that
most of this was just good breeding and training, but he also guessed that some
of it was in deference to the deeply meditative state that he appeared to be
in. He wondered what he would say if Flavia asked him directly what was on his
mind. He was half afraid that he’d blurt out ‘socks, actually…’ Fortunately
that would never happen – Flavia knew her place. John would hate her.
Flavia’s squad picked up the tracks of other travellers at the end of
that fourth day. It seemed that two people had crossed the road during the last
night and were now travelling south. The
tracks were odd though – one set seemed clearly human and the other, well, they
were very strange. Hardacre wasn’t able to understand completely what was being
half-whispered between the elven soldiers, but they were clearly particularly
concerned about this second set of tracks.
They proceeded cautiously for the morning of the fifth day. At five in
the afternoon they stopped on a small hill crest looking over a flat plain. A
fringe of ash trees provided shelter from which they could spy on the pair of
travellers, who were preparing to stop for the night. One of them was a female
human, the other some hideous spindly creature, scarcely humanoid. The hatred
in the elves’ faces when they saw this monster was obvious, particularly among
the older soldiers.
Flavia broke off from watching the strangers to talk to Hardacre.
‘Is that the Ethian scholar?’ she asked
Hardacre nodded.
‘She must be’ he confirmed, speaking gently, without irony ‘who else
would it be out here?’
‘She’s in great danger’ said Flavia
Hardacre considered this.
‘She seems to be moving freely…’
‘Nonethless…’ said Flavia, her voice trailing off meaningfully.
‘We’ll attack after dark and rescue her’
‘Attack?’ asked Hardacre
‘Yes – we’ll kill the Tlaxacan and grab the human’
‘Really? Why? Can’t you capture him?
We outnumber him twenty to one’
‘No point taking risks. I think he will be a lot more dangerous than he
looks’
Hardacre was taken aback. This was strange behaviour.
‘Surely you want to interrogate… the Tlaxacan, don’t you?
‘Tlaxacans have nothing useful to say – and they’re dangerous – they
come with fearful dark magic’
Hardacre thought about this.
‘That’s murder…’
He paused as he saw the Captain’s shocked expression.
‘…well technically, perhaps it is…’ he continued, ‘you’re not at war at
the moment, are you?’
Flavia nodded emphatically.
‘Always…’
‘Well, the Hybitor isn’t at war with Tlaxaca, and I’m sure that Mr
Ismay would be very interested in hearing any information that we might get
from that creature’
Hardacre’s voice became calmer and flatter as he spoke.
‘So – perhaps I could claim the Tlaxacan as my prisoner’ he suggested,
‘I’m happy to subdue it myself and ensure that it causes no trouble either here
or in Ortia’
Flavia looked exceptionally sceptical.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you can capture it alive then you can have it, but
I’m not sparing any arrows to keep that
alive…’
Hardacre nodded.
‘I understand’ he said, impassively, ‘that’s fine’
The elves lit no fire and sat motionless on the hill waiting.
Hardacre’s mind was finally distracted from his domestic concerns. The day began to fail. From the plain below
came the smell of wood smoke and meat cooking.
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