“M’lady…” mumbled Reynevan. “I cannot… What will happen if they catch up with you?”

“Them? Catch up with me?” She snorted, narrowing eyes as blue as turquoises. “You must be jesting!”

Her mare, coincidentally also grey, tossed its shapely head and danced again. Reynevan was compelled to admit the strange maiden was right. That noble, unmistakably fleet steed was worth considerably more than the sapphire brooch in her calpac.

“It’s madness,” he said, tossing her his mantle. “But thank you. I’ll return the favour—”

The cries of his pursuers echoed up from the bottom of the hill.

“Don’t waste time!” called the maid, covering her head with the hood. “Ride on! Across the Stobrawa!”

“M’lady… Your name… Tell me…”

“Nicolette. My Aucassin, pursued for love. Faaareweeell!”

She urged her mare into a gallop, but it was more flying than galloping. She rode down the hillside like a hurricane, in a cloud of dust, showed herself to the pursuers and crossed the moor at such a crazy gallop that Reynevan immediately lost his pangs of remorse. He understood that the fair-haired Amazon wasn’t risking anything. The heavy horses of Kyrie-eleison, Stork and the rest, carrying two-hundred-pound fellows, couldn’t compete with the grey full-blooded mare laden only with a girl and a light saddle to boot. And indeed, the eye couldn’t even track the maid as she dashed out of sight behind the hill. But the pursuers followed her, resolute and relentless.

They might wear her down with a steady pace, thought Reynevan fearfully. Her and that mare of hers. But, he salved his conscience, she surely has her attendants somewhere close at hand. On such a horse, thus attired, she’s clearly a maid of noble birth, and such as her don’t ride alone, he thought, galloping on in the direction she had indicated.

And there’s no doubt, he thought, gulping wind as he rode, she is surely not called Nicolette. She was mocking me, poor Aucassin.

Hidden among the alder marshes on the Stobrawa, Reynevan took a breather, even allowing himself to feel a little proud and scornful, a veritable Roland deceiving the hordes of Moors on his trail. But his pride and good mood abandoned him when something completely unknightly occurred that never—if you believe the ballads—happened to Roland.

His horse went lame.

Reynevan dismounted at once on sensing the horse’s jarring, broken rhythm. He examined the grey’s leg and horseshoe but was unable to diagnose anything, much less palliate it. He could only walk, leading the limping animal by the reins. Marvellous, he thought. One horse worn out, another lame in a matter of days.