Everything she said made sense but I didn’t want her to be in charge of all our plans. I thought hard, trying to be as clever as she was being. “We should go by ways where it would be hard for a sleigh to follow. Or a horse. Through brushy places. Up and down steep places. ”
“Which way is home, do you think?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. I looked up at the overcast sky.
She looked around us and then, almost randomly, said, “We’ll go that way. ”
“What if it takes us deeper and deeper into the forest and we die of cold and hunger?”
She gave me a look. “I’d prefer that to what will happen if they find us. If you want to retrace our tracks and see if they’ll take you back, go ahead. I’m going this way. ”
And she started off. After a moment, I followed her. It was slightly easier to walk in her broken trail than to force my own way through the snow. The path she had chosen led us up one hill and down the next and away from the mercenaries’ camp, and all seemed like good things at the time. As we continued, the hillside grew steeper and the brambles thicker. “There will be a stream at the bottom of this,” I predicted, and “Maybe,” she agreed. “But the sleighs can’t come this way, and I don’t think the horses would do well here, either. ”
Before we reached the bottom, the incline was steep enough that we slid several times. I feared sliding all the way and ending up in water, but when we did reach the bottom, we found a narrow stream that was mostly frozen. The thread of moving water we easily jumped. It reminded me of my thirst, but I took another mittenful of snow rather than put my bare hand in the water. My heavy fur coat was like walking in a tent. The bottom hem gathered snow and added to my burden.
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Shun led us along the path of the stream, moving against the current, until she found an easier place for us to try to climb the opposite bank. While it was easier than it might have been, it certainly was not easy, and the brambles on this side of the stream were savagely thorned. By the time we reached the top of the steep bank, we were both sweating and I opened the neck of my coat.
“I’m so hungry,” I said.
“Don’t talk about it,” she advised me, and we hiked on.
As we crested the second hill, my hunger began to tear at my insides as if I’d swallowed a cat. I felt weak and angry and then nauseated. I tried to be a wolf. I looked around the white-swept landscape and tried to find something I could eat. This hill was cleared and in summer was probably used as pasturage for sheep. Not even a seedhead of wild grass peeped up above the snow, and nothing sheltered us from the wind that swept across it. If I had seen a mouse, I think I would have pounced on it and eaten it whole. But there were no mice and a useless tear dared to track down my face. The salt stung on my cold, chapped cheeks. It will pass, Wolf-Father breathed to me.
“Being hungry will pass?” I wondered aloud.
“Yes. It does. ” I was startled when Shun answered. “First you get very hungry. Then you think you will puke, but there’s nothing to vomit up. Sometimes you feel weepy. Or angry. But if you just keep on going, the hunger goes away. For a time. ”
I toiled along behind her. She led me across a craggy hilltop and then down into a forested vale. As we reached the trees, the wind grew less. I scooped a bit of snow to wet my mouth. My lips were cracked and I tried not to lick them. “How do you know about hunger?”
Her voice held little emotion. “When I was little, if I was naughty my grandfather would send me to my bedroom in the middle of the day, with no supper. When I was your age, I thought it the worst punishment of all, for at that time we had a magnificent cook. His ordinary dinners were better than the best holiday feast you have ever tasted. ”
She trudged on. The hillside was steep and so we were cutting across the face of it. At the bottom of the hill, she turned to follow the flat land instead of crossing it and clambering up the next snowy hill. I was grateful but I had to ask, “Are we trying to find our way home?”
“Eventually. Right now I am just trying to get us as far away from our kidnappers as I can. ”
I wanted to be walking back to Withywoods. I wanted each step to be taking me closer to my home and my warm bed and a piece of toasted bread with butter on it. But I did not want to clamber up any more snowy hills and so I kept my peace. After a short time, she spoke.
“But I was never truly that hungry in my grandparents’ home. It was after they died and I was sent to live with my mother and her husband that I went days without food. If I said or did anything that my mother’s husband thought was disrespectful, he sent me to my room and locked me in. And left me there. Sometimes for days. Once I thought I would die, so after three days I jumped out my window. But it was winter and the snow was deep over the bushes below. I was scratched and bruised and limped for ten days, but it didn’t kill me. My mother was worried. Not for me, but for what her friends would say if I died. Or simply vanished. She had marriage plans for me. One suitor was older than my grandfather had been, a man with a loose wet mouth who stared at me as if I were the last sweet on the plate. And another family had a son who had no wish for the company of women but was willing to marry me so his parents would leave him and his friends in peace. ”
I had never heard Shun speak so much. She did not look at me as she talked, but stared ahead and spoke her words to the cadence of her trudge. I kept silent and she talked on, speaking of being slapped for insolence, of a younger brother who tormented her with surreptitious pinches and shoves. She’d spent more than a year being miserable there, and when she adamantly refused the attentions of both her suitors, her stepfather expressed his interest, cupping a buttock as he passed, standing over her if she sat reading a book, trailing his fingers over her bosom as he became bolder. She had retreated to her room, spending most of her hours there and latching the door.
And then one day she received a message and slipped out of the house in late evening. She met a woman with two horses at the bottom of the garden, and they had fled. She halted suddenly. She was breathing heavily. “Can you go first for a time?” she asked me.
And I did, and suddenly appreciated the work she had been doing since dawn. I led us by a more winding way, seeking shallower snow in the lee of trees and clumps of bushes. Even so, it was heavier work than I’d been doing and sweat began to run down my spine. I had no breath to speak and she seemed to have run out of words and stories. I pondered what I’d learned of Shun and rather wished she had shared such tales when first she had come to live with us. I might have been able to like her if I had known more about her. When we paused to rest the sweat cooled my body and I shivered until we trudged on.
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I did not last as long as Shun had. I told myself it was because I was smaller and had to lift my feet higher at each step to push my way through the snow and work against the drag of my coat. Shun took the lead again, when I had slowed beyond her patience, and led us on along a widening vale. I hoped desperately for a shepherd’s cottage or a farmstead. But I saw no chimney smoke rising and heard only birdcalls. Perhaps sheep or cattle pastured here in summer but had been herded home to their pens for the winter.
The shadows of the hills began to creep across us as the sun moved and I realized we’d been traveling east. I tried to decide if that meant we were closer to Withywoods but I was too tired and my hunger had begun to creep back, setting claws in my belly and up my throat. “We should look for some kind of shelter soon,” Shun announced.
I lifted my eyes. I’d been looking only at the backs of her legs. There were no evergreens here, but to the south of us I saw bare-limbed willows along a watercourse. They were gray and twiggy and the snow had penetrated to lie shallowly on the ground beneath them. “Perhaps under the willows?” I said, and “If we find nothing better,” Shun agreed, and we walked on.
It began to get darker, and the clear day that had seemed almost kind now seemed cru
eler as the cold seemed to descend from the sky. Ahead we could see the brushy line that indicated another watercourse would soon cut our path.
We had good fortune. Evidently that stream ran wild and raging in the spring, for it had cut a deep path through the meadow. Now it ran quietly under the ice, but along the undercut banks, roots of trees trailed down and there were hollows in the earth behind them. They dangled like ropy curtains. We beat the clinging snow off the lower parts of our coats before we pushed the roots aside and forced our way into the earthy darkness.
This is good. Settle here and be safe. I felt Wolf-Father relax inside me.
“I’m still hungry,” I said quietly.
Shun was settling herself. She’d pulled her hood well up over her head and had sat down and pulled her feet up inside her coat. I copied her.
“Go to sleep. At least when you’re asleep you don’t think about food,” she told me.
It seemed good advice and I followed it, resting my forehead on my knees and closing my eyes. I was so tired. I longed to take my boots off. I fantasized about a hot bath and my deep feather bed. Then I slept. I dreamed of my father calling me. Then I dreamed I was home, and meat was roasting on the kitchen spit. I could smell it and I could hear the noises flames make when fat drips into them.
Wake, cub, but make no sound. Untangle yourself. Be ready to run or fight.
I opened my eyes. It was deep night. Through the droop of my hood and the screen of the roots, I saw flames. I blinked and it was a little campfire by the edge of the stream. A spitted bird carcass was propped over the flames. I had never smelled anything so delectable. Then the silhouette of a man passed between me and the flames. A Chalcedean soldier. They’d found us.
I could have slipped quietly from our den and very slowly crept away but instead I put my hand into Shun’s hood and softly patted her lips, and then covered her mouth more fully as she came awake. She struggled for an instant and then abruptly stilled. I made no sound as she pushed her hood back from her face. The firelight reached to paint stripes of shadow on her face as she stared. She leaned over and put her mouth to my ear. “It’s Kerf. The one that said he would help us. ”
Caution, Wolf-Father warned.
“I don’t trust him,” I breathed back.
“Nor I. But he has food. ”
She tried to be quiet as she pushed her feet out of her coat, but Kerf turned toward us. “I know you’re there. Don’t be scared. I’ve come to take you home. Back to your family. Come out and eat something. ”
His voice was deep and gentle, despite his accent. Oh, how I wanted to believe him. But Shun gave me a small push to show that she could go first. She pushed past our root curtain and then stood straight. “I’ve a knife,” she lied. “If you even try to touch me, I’ll kill you. ”
“I’m not like that,” he assured her. “I don’t rape women. ”
She gave a short, ugly laugh. “You’re saying you’re not a Chalcedean? Or that you’re not a man?” Her words were edged. Oh, I didn’t want her to make him angry. Couldn’t we pretend we trusted him until after we’d eaten that bird?
“I am both,” he admitted. His laugh was uglier, bitter, and old. “Though my father might agree with you. He says I stayed too long with my mother, that I should have been removed from her care when I was seven, like his other sons. But he was away at the wars, and so she kept me until I was fourteen. Neither she nor I was happy to see him come home. ” He was quiet for a time. He went down on one knee by the spit and turned it a bit. “For five years, I have shamed and disappointed him. He sent me off with my brother, on this raid, to make a man of me. ” Kerf shook his head.
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He was not looking at us, and Shun made a small motion, bidding me come out of the den. I did, moving softly, and stood well back in the shadows. “I’m going to fetch more wood and build up the fire,” he told us, and walked away into the night. We heard a horse snort and stomp. He spoke to it and walked on. Shun made a brief run and leapt the stream. I followed her immediately.
She knelt by the fire. “I don’t think it’s cooked yet. ”
“I don’t care,” I replied.
She took the spit off the fire and waved the bird about to cool it a bit. It flew off the spit and into the snow. I sprang on it, picked it up, and tore it in half. Some parts were too hot, some were cold from the snow, and some were raw. We ate it standing, making small huffing noises as we hit the hot places. I could hear Shun swallow, and the cartilage crackling in her teeth as she ate the ends off the bones. It was not a large bird and was too soon gone but I found myself panting with relief at the easing of my hunger. “The horse,” Shun said. I didn’t want to leave the fire but I knew she was right. I felt not a morsel of shame for eating his food and stealing his horse. I followed Shun to where we had heard the animals. After the firelight, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Two horses. A brown one and a white one, both hobbled. Their saddles were stacked nearby. I looked at Shun. I’d never saddled a horse before. Nor removed hobbles.
“Be careful,” I whispered as she crouched down by the white horse’s front legs. I saw her groping for the straps.
“I can’t feel how they come off. ”
“Take off your mittens. ” I was struggling with one of the saddles. I could barely lift it to drag it. How would I get it up on the horse’s back?
“Do they tie?”
“No. They buckle. ” Kerf spoke from just behind us. “Let me put the wood by the fire and I’ll unhobble them. If you truly want to go riding off into the dark. ”
We froze as we were. I felt only a little ashamed. Shun straightened up. “I won’t be in your debt. You were in league with those who stole us. So we owe you nothing for your righting the wrong done to us. ”
“I know that. ” He walked to the fire and dropped the wood. He crouched and carefully added a stick. He appeared not to notice that we’d eaten the bird he’d been cooking. “I’m here for one reason. To take you back to your people. ”
“And you expect no favors from me for your ‘kindness’?” Shun asked sarcastically.
“None. ” He looked at her guilelessly. “I won’t deny that I find you beautiful. I think you must already know that from how I look at you. But I understand you owe me nothing. I won’t try to take advantage of you. ”
It was as if he had stolen all our weapons from us. Slowly we walked back to his fire. I held my dirty hands out to the flames and felt the warmth on my face. He was well supplied. He unrolled a piece of canvas so that Shun and I might sleep on it near the fire. We had to crowd to fit, but it was warmer that way. He had another piece for himself, and bedded down on the other side of the fire.
“I still don’t trust him,” I breathed to Shun as I hovered at the edge of sleep. She said nothing.
He knew how to get food. The next morning when we woke, he had already built up the fire and had a lean winter hare cooking over it. I lay still, curled in the weight of my too-large coat, and watched him as he did things to his bow and to the arrow that had slain the hare. I wondered if he was the one who had shot at Perseverance and me as we fled. The one who had shot my friend. It was still hard for me to recall parts of that day. The moments when the fog man had focused on me were all gone. But I knew they had not gone back to look for the boy they had shot. I had only that one passing glimpse of him. I hoped he had returned to Withywoods and not been too badly hurt. I suddenly recalled Steward Revel, dead in the corridor, and a deep sob ambushed me. It woke Shun.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, and sat up quickly, staring at Kerf.
“They killed Steward Revel,” I choked out.
Her eyes flicked to me and then back to Kerf. “Did they?” she asked flatly, but it wasn’t really a question. Shun and I had spoken very little of what we had experienced and witnessed that day. We had been too drugged with the brown soup and too focused on getting from one mo
ment to the next. There had been no privacy for comparing what we’d seen. Neither of us had wanted to bare our wounds in front of our captors. “Stop crying,” she said to me, and by that sharp rebuke, I knew she still considered Kerf our enemy. Show no weakness before him.
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She’s right.
I rolled my face, rubbing my tears off on my hood, and sat up slowly. It wasn’t pleasant to move. My muscles ached, and moving opened gaps that let in cold air. I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw myself down and wail and weep and scream.
“I only have one cup,” Kerf apologized. “We will have to take turns with it. ”
“You have something to drink from it?” Shun asked.
“Warm broth. Snow-water and the bird bones you dropped yesterday. But we can only make one cup at a time. ”
Shun said nothing to that, did not offer thanks or rebuke. Instead we stood, shook our coats back into place. Together we shook and then rolled up the piece of canvas. She handed it to me to carry, a reminder to him that it was ours now. If he was aware of that subtle declaration, he ignored it.
There was little more talk. Shun and I had little to do to prepare to travel, other than eat the hare and drink what he offered us. He melted snow in a tin cup and added the bird bones and warmed it over the fire. Shun drank first, then he made more for me. It tasted wonderful and warmed my belly. I savored the last of it as he saddled the horses and packed his gear. I watched him load it onto the horses and a vague discomfort stirred in me, but I could not place why it seemed wrong.
“You take the white. I’ll put the girl behind me on the brown. He’s sturdier and better trained. ”
I felt sick. I did not want to be on any horse with that man.
“That’s why Bee and I will be taking the brown,” Shun said firmly. She did not wait for a response from him, but went to the horse and mounted it with an ease I envied. She leaned down and reached out her hand to me. I took it, determined that somehow I would get up onto the animal’s back if I had to shinny up his leg. But before I could try, the man seized me from behind and lifted me up onto the horse. I had to sit behind the saddle with nothing to hold on to but two handfuls of Shun’s coat. I settled myself silently, seething that he had touched me.