Lora of Two Worlds

Quicker than it takes to tell. The arrow came; Norton had time for one thing only — to knock Lora out of its line, and stand himself in the very place she had been. Leon had the arrow dead in his eye. Without one instant's flinch his hand went out, and before Norton's face, bare-handed, he caught the shaft. Lyle saw his lord take the arrow; he whipped round — the archer was gone clean away. He flew into the saddle, several of the black-clad went after him, and they hunted down the small road. In the instant the shaft was caught, time seemed nailed to the wall. The blood went out of Leon's face — and Norton, hand clamped to his chest, was already going down. "Norton? Norton!" Leon stared at the shaft in his hand, past believing his own eyes: It was only a shaft. No arrowhead on it. In the very instant he gripped the shaft, the hollow arrowhead — and the small iron shot inside it — were still driving on by their own momentum. The shaft stopped; the shot struck against the head; and the head, never fixed to the shaft at all, tore free and flew on — into Norton's chest. A head like that is a complicated piece of work — longer and heavier than the common — and so it wants a broader, heavier fletching to balance it and keep the arrow true. "My lady..." Norton worked up a thread of a smile. Lora drew his hand aside — the arrowhead had gone deep into his chest. Not much blood showing without, and his wits held; and no one needed telling that it hurt like fire. "Don't talk. We'll have you looked at this minute — the head comes out, and you'll be all right." Coltrain and the rest had closed around. He took the shaft from Leon's hand, and it broke out of him before he could stop it: "A flying arrowhead!" "You know the archer?" "No — they are not one man. Have you ever heard of the Empress's Thorn Guard — the ones who put her enemies out of the world in the dark for her? This arrow was theirs before any other's. To think — the Guard dissolved by the King all those years ago, and still some hand knows how to make them." Coltrain looked at Norton, and said to Lora: "Don't let it frighten you, my lady. Every man of us here crawled back off a battlefield — who hasn't carried an arrow wound of his own? Two men, here! Carry Norton to the old physician, quick." Shawn and his men had already laid hands on Windsor Fortune and on Rowena Ashby in her carriage. "Rowena Ashby — you are truly tired of living, loosing a hidden arrow at me. Take the pair of them to the shire court together. I refuse to believe it — proof this hard in hand, and the Windsor house still able to hold you up!" Rowena Ashby wore a face of utter unconcern: "Who shot at you? And what is that to me? Even before a court you need witness and material proof. All this bluster now — and no proof to show, you'll be turning me out the door again, meek as milk. Won't you?" "That's right! Which of your eyes saw us loose the thing? Or is our house's mark cut into the arrow somewhere?" Windsor Fortune craned his neck out and bawled it too. "Steward Coltrain — load them under guard. Shawn, Channing — you two take witnesses from the scene and go along." They had barely got the prisoners aboard when Roland came up with his men. He looked once at the bully-boy breathing his last, and gave a nod: "I'll ride them in to the shire court myself. Whoever looses an arrow at an Odenheim will have his escape road already laid. An arrow that special, and they don't fear leaving the evidence behind — you can take the measure from that of how far past all fear the Windsor house has grown! We can only hope Lyle lays hands on the archer." "Brother, I want to stay at the manor. Norton took that wound saving me. I won't be easy in my mind till I've seen him safe past it." "But here..." Leon said: "Set your heart at rest. My carriage will be here directly — I'll stay at her side." After Roland took Coltrain and went, Lora walked into the manor. The two houses, her mother's and her father's, had worked and kept this land between them for decades; peace and good order lay over every corner of it — a whole sky of difference from the drawn steel outside the gate just now. The golden wheat stood one breath from the last cutting; before the houses and behind them, plot upon plot of garden greens grew sleek and oil-green; fig and medlar, cherry and crabapple, the tall and the low, hung with fruit near ripe, swinging gently in the stirring leaves. "My lady, look — over that hill lie the Windsor manors. The little river at the hill's foot is our boundary with them — and a great part of why they hunger after this land of ours." So said one of the old soldiers walking in with them: "There are no small farmers left round the city. Over all these years, the old hereditary fields that held out have gone, bit by bit, into other hands. The Odenheims were as gentle to their tenants as a landlord gets — and if the Windsors truly take this land in..." "Every man's days... would go hard." His voice frayed as he said it. Men who feared nothing on a battlefield — brought low by a single peck of grain. It was Lora's first visit to East Manor, and her heart filled the way it would at the sight of an old companion of many years — full of the grief of parting. Hearing the old soldier speak so, she felt a knife turned in her chest. All she could offer was comfort: "Set everyone's mind at ease. Even if the Odenheims must let go of it for a while, the manor will be taken back — you may count on that." She had caught her brother's tone just now — no thumping of the chest as he usually gave — and she knew: even carried to the court itself, the killer might go unpunished. To have justice done, you need more power than the men who do the wrong. She lifted her eyes to Leon, keeping silent watch at her side, and smiled: "Doesn't this look a hidden paradise, off at the world's edge? I could wish it stayed under our keeping forever — this beautiful, always." "It will. Don't worry. Every good thing you want, we will have. As for that little camel..." With strangers all about, Leon hardly knew how to put the rest of it to her. He only could not bear to see her worry. "My lord — Lyle and the others are back." The two of them stopped, and turned to watch Lyle dismounting. "Lost him — he got away!" Lyle's brow was in a knot, his eyes sour with the taste of it: "The man's hands are very good. We ran him down, and I caught one flash of him in the woods — I'd swear by then he had already turned his line." "Could he be a man out of the palace?" "That... would be hard to swear to. But a man well schooled in the tracking arts, certainly." Lyle had never before met such a hand. Conan nodded with him: "At covering a trail — a cut above our own covert guards." Could it truly not be the Windsors? A hand of that order — following at the heels of a bond-mistress? "No archer taken, and the shire court end goes harder still. Even with Felix sitting there, I doubt they could be laid hold of." This was not a thing that hard words would mend. Leon bent his head toward Lora: "Go in ahead and see after him. I'll be along directly." Lora nodded, and with Lilac walked into a small courtyard. A few old soldiers stood in it; at her coming, every head bowed and every eye dropped, and the way into the house was made clear. Mercy of mercies: Norton on the bed was white of face, but his wits were still with him. He turned his head, saw Lora, and went awkward all over: "My lady, I'm truly all right. It's a dirty place, this — you'd best step out..." "Who says my place is dirty? Out on a battlefield, a man's guts spilled plain — you stuff them back in and sew the belly shut over them. That's dirty!" the old physician snapped, taking all the offense. Only then did Lora mark the sour tang in the room. She looked about her — vinegar burning in the corner: the old physician was fumigating the room clean with it. So the Empire had its surgery too?

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