did you find us a safe route away from here?”
Sparrow’s round, dark eyes lifted to Eduard’s. Pain and grief swam in their liquid depths, for he had known the princess since she was but a twinkle of silver light on a swaddling board. But he nodded and pointed a shaky finger down the road.
“A league more and you will see an oak scarred and split in half by lightning. Veer off the road and follow the cut in the trees until you find the river. Follow this as far as you can, keeping to the middle in case they bring hounds.” He gave the thought a mild shudder and added, “Where the river widens and breaks in two, follow the north branch, again as far as far can take you …” His voice faded and his eyes slid back to where Eleanor stood.
“Sparrow?” Eduard prodded gently.
“Aye. Aye, as far as far can take you … then—” The curly head snapped forward again and a ridge of grim determination hardened his jaw. “Wait there until I come and fetch you, for though the lot of you might fancy yourselves great and glorious huntsmen, you will have your feet walking in circles without someone to shew you the way.”
“Ye’re not coming with us?” Sedrick asked.
“I will dally here a bit and see how many bees come out of the hive to search for us.”
“Aye, and if the weather holds at this much misery and no more, it should help us a bit,” Jean de Brevant remarked, squinting up at the gray, shifting mass of cloud above them. “If it turns, though, and gets any colder …”
Eduard followed his gaze to where the three women stood huddled together. They were soaked and frightened and could not be expected to last too long without heat and shelter.
“At the end of the path I have given you is a waterfall,” Sparrow said, reading the concern on Eduard’s face. “Beneath it is a cavern, large enough to build a fire and heat a pan of food. It will take three, four hours to reach it in this mort of English hospitality, but once reached, will give shelter for as long as it takes to bolster any spirits, should they be flagging.”
“You’ll not dally here too long,” Eduard said by way of a warning.
Sparrow looked down the road toward Corfe, then up into the thick boughs of the pines that lined either side of the tract. “Only long enough to delay them,” he said narrowly.
Eduard nodded and sheathed his sword before turning and walking back toward the bodies of the dead guardsmen. Jean de Brevant was close on his heels, a frown pleating his face.
“What can one elf hope to do against a score of the king’s men?” he asked, helping Eduard lift and carry the first body into the brush.
“You would not have to ask if you knew the elf,” Eduard answered.
Sparrow asked himself, a dozen times, what he was doing wedged up in the boughs of a tree with rain drizzling down his nose and the occasional squirrel sniffing at his rump. He stank abominably. His vest was still thick with mud and his face streaked with grime, but he reasoned it helped in concealing him … if only the squirrels had not started thinking of him as a large brown nut. A troop of them squatted on an adjacent branch, bickering and debating amongst themselves how best to drag their discovery into their hidey-holes, and Sparrow was forced to heave the odd pine cone across the gap when their numbers grew bold enough and shrill enough to sound like a gathering of fishwives.
He had been cleaved to the crotch of the tree for nigh on three hours, as best as he could figure it from the distant tolling of church bells. The oppressive drizzle had kept travellers off the road and no one had passed either way. The tracks left by the men and horses had lost their sharp definitions and the hollows were filled with puddles of water, spotting the road like a leper’s skin. Behind and beneath him, out of sight of anyone riding or walking by, were the bodies of the six guardsmen slain earlier. Sightless and soundless, they watched Sparrow with an equally unnerving diligence.
He adjusted his collar and lowered the jaunty brim of his felt cap, scowling at the water that ran free. He would give the king’s blundernoses until the next bell hour to show themselves, or he