Julia’s
body lay on the charred and blood stained ground for over an hour. No-one dared
to go out to get it as none could be convinced that the knights had really
moved on. Eventually Aurelian summoned a
squad to recover the body under a white flag of truce, but before he could send
anyone out a small figure had appeared at Julia’s side, a young priestess
dressed in white and carrying a long roll of cloth.
The priestess stared down at the body for a
few minutes; her face showed no sign of emotion. She stepped out of her own
clothes and lifted the now greying toga from Julia’s body. Still naked, she
unrolled the cloth and carefully bound Julia’s body in it. Only after she had
completed this task did she wrap Julia’s toga around her own body. As she dressed
the garment lit up, the grey fading into pure white.
For all the time that she had been tending to
Julia the priestess had had her back to the city, but now she turned to address
the crowd of elven archers who were now creeping out of the gate towards her.
‘I need assistance’ she said, quietly. A stream of soldiers moved forward in a wave
towards her.
‘Help me to carry Julia’s body back to the
Lady’ she ordered
One of the soldiers hesitated before the
white-clad priestess.
‘Who are you?’ he mumbled
The priestess looked at him rather blankly,
but then smiled.
‘I am Aquilegia, High Priestess of the Lady
of Ortia’ she said wrapping her pristine toga tightly around herself.
‘We are weak’ she continued, ‘but we have
survived’
***
Hardacre
appeared in the middle of the Crimson Knights’ camp. It was approaching dusk
and all but a few guards were in their tents. He whispered dywyllwch, and a dark shadow fell over him – he slipped through the
forest of tents and out into some shrubby land beyond. He had no exact idea
where he was, but he could easily recognise the banners of the knights, and so
that narrowed things down to somewhere between Amansk and Monurbis. Now was not
the time to wonder about that – it was time to find somewhere to shelter for
the night.
He walked along a row of hawthorn bushes for
about half a mile until he came to a little hollow. He whispered the opening
words for his bag and put his hand in to pull out a blanket. It would be a cold
night, but he had survived worse. He wrapped the thick blanket around himself,
lay down, and fell asleep.
They
had huddled together in the utter darkness wondering what to do next. This
wasn’t much of an adventure so far, both of them had to admit, as they could
see nothing and it wasn’t really very warm. However, it was apparently only a few seconds
later that the bag had opened and the cold winter wind had whistled in. The two
teenagers had a whispered conversation, during which they had agreed not to
reveal themselves yet, and then Hardacre had removed the blanket from in front
of their noses and they were in blackness again. It was then they both realised
that they had no idea what they were doing and that there would never be an
obvious time to reveal themselves. They
decided, after some debate, that they’d shout out when it was either obviously
indoors or, when the bag was opened for a third time.
Time began to drag on inside the bag during
the few hours that Hardacre was asleep in the hollow. Lily’s mind began to go
round in stultifying circles.
She was now deeply regretting her rashness,
but there was no way that she would reveal that to Erik. She began to worry
about how Mr Hardacre would react when he found out that two minor human
princelings had stowed away in his magical bag. They were probably triggering
some awful diplomatic incident at this very moment, and getting the poor man
into big trouble, and he seemed really nice…
Lily was the sort of person who would act on
sheer instinct and then feel the consequences of her actions keenly at her
leisure. Here, in the dark, she had nothing to distract her from a long inner refection
on her foolishness. She started to wonder why she had dragged Erik along: now
he’d be cross with her too, and he might as well be an enemy… And her father –
he’d be so worried and angry. In fact, maybe the whole world would be
absolutely furious with her, and with jolly good reason.
She felt that awful butterfly feeling of
guilt in her stomach. Erik seemed to not be saying anything now and she
instantly knew this was because he
hated her and what she’d forced him to do. She sobbed as quietly as she could;
she was so far from home and she had no friends at all She pulled away from where Erik and she had
been curled together and groped around for the cage. Once she found it she
fumbled it open, not considering any of the possible consequences of letting
the tupaia out. Boo buzzed happily and bounded into her arms.
‘What was that?’ asked Erik, clearly waking
up from a deep sleep.
‘Nothing at all’ said Lily, ‘you must have
been dreaming’
‘Sorry’ said Erik, ‘ever since I was a child
I have fallen asleep instantly in the dark. I know that I should have stayed
awake to await the bag opening again…’
Lily smiled an invisible smile of relief –
maybe he didn’t hate her that much after all.
‘It’s fine – I’ll keep watch’
A few minutes later Erik was snoring. By
stroking Boo at the same time she could produce a sort of low pitch
counterpoint between the buzzes and the snores. It was a soothing combination
and soon Lily was asleep too. Boo nestled on Lily’s chest and slept as well.
Boo could no longer smell Balliwick’s scent, but once she sensed it again she
would ready to go: he was much nearer now.
At
the earliest hint of dawn Hardacre jumped up, wrapped the blanket around
himself like a big fur coat and began to make his way uphill. He wanted to see
if he could spy any landmarks, so that he would no longer be travelling blind.
He followed the contours up a sizeable hill that led away north from the
knight’s camp. Huddled on the top of his hill, he could see the snowy expanse
of mountains in the far north, and so he could guess quite easily what would be
behind him. He turned to see a white city on the edge of the horizon. He was
surprised to find how pleased he was to glimpse it. Then he wondered if the city
had been taken. He made a plan – he would make his way down to Ortia and see
what was happening. As for his quarry, whoever it was must have some connection
with the Crimson Flame Knights and one of his Ortian friends might throw some
light on who it might be, if they weren’t all dead or in custody.
He scouted down the eastern side of the hill,
travelling further and further away from the knight’s encampment while still
approaching the city. He used what cover he could to travel unseen and then
waited until he spied an elf; for once he could be fairly certain that an elf
would be a friend and a human an enemy.
The small group of mounted Ortians that he came upon about half an hour
later, recognised him and led him back to the city walls.
Along the way the soldiers were able to brief
him on what had happened, about the brief siege and the death of Julia. In any
case, he could see for himself the depressing signs of yet more bloody fighting
around the old imperial city. Human bodies were strewn across the battlefield,
some of them burnt beyond recognition. He was deeply impressed by the
destructive power of the lady, even when she was at the nadir of her powers; he
was, however, saddened by what she had been forced to do.
They travelled on until they reached Ortia at
about noon. It was much warmer now and several times he had considered taking
off his blanket and putting it into his bag. However, every time he began to do
it, the wind whipped up a cold breeze that blew through him and he stayed
wrapped up. As they walked he pondered darkly what some powerful member of the
CRS was doing in the middle of all of this strange racial politics, and he came
to no clear conclusions.
By the time Hardacre walked through the north
gate he was in a grim mood, wondering what his next step should be. The
proconsul, however, had never been more pleased to see anyone in her life and she
had to resist, with all the diplomatic acumen at her disposal, her strong
desire to give him a very big hug.
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