Ladyhawke by Joan D. Vinge Page B

hard to seem nonchalant. “Remember me?”
    “What are you doing up there?” she said incredulously. She realized it was probably not what she should have said; but she had almost forgotten how to speak to another human being.
    “What am I . . . ah, and well you might ask that, yes indeed . . .” The boy looked away from her, plainly thinking fast. “The Bishop’s guards! A dozen of them! We had a terrible fight!”
    She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Why didn’t they kill you?”
    “Why didn’t they . . . ah, yes, I asked them that myself!” He nodded, and winced.
    “And?” she prompted.
    “And?” he said blankly.
    “What did they say?”
    “Why, that . . .” He glanced toward heaven. “Uh, they preferred to leave that honor to the Bishop!”
    She looked down, to hide her smile. She recognized Navarre’s handiwork: He must have tied the boy up, leaving him helpless and out of harm’s reach. But she had no way of knowing what his motives were. And what was the boy doing here at all? She had thought he was only some peasant’s son. But he spoke too well—and was too good a liar—to be a simple peasant boy. Had he been following Navarre? She looked back at him, uncertain.
    “Please, my lady?” the boy said pathetically. “A giant owl examined me quite carefully not one minute ago.”
    She studied him thoughtfully, considering the possible alternatives. No . . . she could not spend all night with that poor wretch dangling from a tree over her head. He looked harmless enough. Suddenly the yearning for human company, the sound of a voice that was not her own, became unbearable. She drew her dagger. Doubt and then gratitude filled the boy’s eyes as she reached up and freed his hands. Sliding from Goliath’s back, she severed the rope that bound him to the tree. The boy wriggled loose and dropped to the ground beside her, shaking out his numbed hands.
    A wolf howled, somewhere in the darkness. She looked away toward the sound, her heart squeezed with sudden grief. The wolf howled again, and she turned back to the boy reassuringly. “Listen. There’s nothing to . . .” She broke off.
    The clearing was empty. The boy had disappeared.
    She grimaced with dismay, clenching her fists. She had forgotten even more than she realized about how human beings behaved . . . Navarre would be furious. Suddenly she ached to hear his voice, even raised in anger, even shouting at her—a longing as deep and as hopeless as her longing for the sun. She shook her head, turning back in resignation to face the forest; listening, waiting.

C H A P T E R

Eight
    P hillipe stumbled wearily through the brightening dawn. He had walked all night, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and the haunted clearing. His face stung with scratches, his clothes were full of leaves and dirt from falls in the darkness; but it was a small price to pay to be free of Navarre. He began to climb toward the sunlit crest of another long slope; stopped, sniffing the air with sudden interest. He smiled. Somewhere over the hill, someone was cooking breakfast. He licked his lips, and went on climbing.
    Meanwhile, miles behind him, Navarre entered the campsite with the sunrise, his own face lined with fatigue. He strode directly to the tree where he had left Phillipe. One look at the empty limb, the empty ropes lying on the ground below it, told him everything. His mouth thinned. She had set the boy free. Of course she would. She hadn’t realized . . . he should have left her a note, should have warned her somehow. He struck the tree trunk with his fist, furious at his own stupidity and helplessness. He turned away from the sight of his failure, back toward the dying fire, trying to tell himself that the boy had been hopeless anyway. That he had not really lost anything—that he had never even had it to begin with . . .
    The stallion snorted, and he glanced up; he stopped, staring. The sight before him was so incongruous that he