the painting of his chest, the markings on his face, so that he swam in and out of sight even as she gazed at him. His eyes remained hooded but, when he smiled, the moon caught the gleam of his teeth.
‘I’ve not shown this way to many,’ he said. ‘A few of the scouts, no others. Count yourself lucky.’
‘I do, but . . . we cannot go over the treetops all the way home, surely.’
‘The sky road, they call it,’ he said, and she knew they must be the indigenes. ‘Can’t move an army by it. Can’t move a squad by it. One man, though. One man, one woman. Get us clear of the Denlanders at least.’
‘They have scouts out. They must range quite far,’ she warned him, but his unconcerned nod said that he already knew this.
He unfolded his limbs. ‘Go where I go,’ he said, and then looked her over. ‘You hurt?’ It was impossible to tell whether concern touched his expression or not, but it touched his voice. ‘Not easy, the sky road, understand?’
All around them, she was seeing the swamp from above, the great undulating plain of the canopy, broken here and there by the ragged gaps of lakes or clearings. It was silver in the moonlight, like a field of waving grass perhaps, or a meadow below the Wolds.
‘I will manage,’ she told him.
He did not doubt her, but was moving right away, using hands and bare feet, branch to branch, spidering sideways, following the sturdiest boughs with such ease that it really did seem like a road to him. Determinedly, she took off the boots and stockings the Denlanders had given her, stowed them in the fork of two branches, and followed Mallen across the indigenes’ sky road.
‘They found you,’ she addressed his retreating heels. ‘They told you, the indigenes.’
‘Right.’ He looked back to check, but she was following, unsteadily but gaining confidence, and he grinned again. ‘Remember, we owe you.’
‘I thought they didn’t . . . take sides.’
He made that little sound that passed for laughter with him. ‘They’re only human,’ he said.
What surprised her was how easily this came to her, who had not climbed a tree since she was a girl. Bruised and battered, tired and aching, barefoot with a day of walking behind her, she felt almost half-indigene herself. Her hands and feet seemed guided by spirits, here in the moonlight. Each branch she clutched bowed under her weight but bore her; each time Mallen looked back, she had gained a little on him, until she had to slow down to dodge his feet.
‘Is it . . . ?’ She did not quite voice the question. Mallen’s glance at her was shadowed, secret. More magic in this world than the Kings, it seemed to say, but she never did quite ask outright, and he would never say.
All around them, like a cloud-castle city from a storybook, the magical silver landscape slumbered and murmured with life, and she began to finally understand Daffed Mallen. Who could not love this, and want to stay with it always? She had never seen the like, and knew with a deep sadness that she never would again. She would not become one of Mallen’s scouts. She would not inherit this world as her own. She was gifted this one night, to walk across the roof of the world and see what so few human eyes had ever seen.
*
Later, much later, Mallen signalled a halt, just when her weariness was catching up with her, at last. Her grip was no less sure, but her arms ached fiercely, and she had splinters in her hands and feet. It made her feel a little better to see Mallen now settle back, obviously glad of the chance to rest as well.
‘Are we clear of them?’ she asked him. ‘The Denlanders?’ He nodded. ‘We’ll drop down soon. Did you a favour, giving you some of their clothes. Grey’s better than red for hiding.’
Settling back in the crook of a tree, half submerged in foliage, she found herself looking at him as a man rather than a near-mythical rescuer. Some pinch of her old propriety awakened at the sight. Really, he was no company for a civilized woman! She giggled at the thought: bare-chested, painted and savage. What would Alice say about her choice of companion these days?
‘Mr Mallen, you are a disgrace to the uniform,’ she said.
His vulpine grin came back. ‘Master Sergeant to you, Marshwic.’