XXII: AURWATH AND SWITCHWATER
HOW THE LADY MEVRIAN BEHELD FROM KROTHERING WALLS THE WITCHLAND ARMY AND THE CAPTAINS THEREOF: AND OF THE TIDINGS BROUGHT HER THERE OF THE WAR IN THE WEST COUNTRY, OF AURWATH FIELD AND THE GREAT SLAUGHTER ON SWITCHWATER WAY.
THE fourth day after these doings aforewrit, the Lady Mevrian walked on the battlements of Krothering keep. A blustering wind blew from the north-west. The sky was cloudless: clear blue overhead, all else pearl-gray, and the air a little misty. Her old steward, stalwart and soldier-like, greaved and helmed and clad in a plated jerkin of bull’s hide, walked with her.
“The hour should be about striking,” said she. “’Tis to-day or to-morrow my Lord Zigg named to me when they were here a-guesting. If but Goblinland keep tryst it were the prettiest feat, to take them so pat.”
“As your ladyship might clap a gnat ’twixt the palms of your two hands,” said the old man; and he gazed again southward over the sea.
Mevrian set her gaze in the same quarter. “Nothing but mist and spray,” she said after a few minutes’ searching. “I’m glad I sent Lord Spitfire those two hundred horse. He must have every man can be scraped up, for such a day. How thinkest thou, Ravnor: if King Gaslark come not, hath Lord Spitfire force enow to cope them alone?”
Ravnor chuckled in his beard. “I think and my lord your brother were here he should tell your highness ‘ay’ to that. Since first I bowled a hoop, they taught me a Demon was under-matched against five Witches.”
She looked at him a little wistfully. “Ah,” she said, “were he at home. And were Juss at home.” Then on a sudden she faced round northward, pointing to the camp. “Were they at home,” she cried, “thou shouldst not see outlanders insulting in arms on Krothering Side, sending me shameful offers, caging me like a bird in this castle. Have such things been in Demonland, until now?”
Now came a boy running along the battlements from the far side of the tower, crying that ships were hove in sight sailing from the south and east, “And they make for the firth.”