She nodded to Wainwright. “My cousin Justinian knows your men will check the wheels and the axles very carefully early in the morning, before we go. He knows that as Wainwright you have probably even provided a spare wheel and axle for each wagon or carriage in case of accident.”
Wainwright’s eyebrows went up. His lips pursed. He was silent for a moment, staring at her. “Aye,” he said at last. “I would imagine someone’s done that.”
“That makes me feel so much better,” she said. “Everyone says I’m timid as a chipmunk”—she flinched, for she had been bitten through her chemise—“but knowing you take such care makes me less so.” She turned back to Horsemaster. “Tell me, why do horses run off?”
Horses ran off for a good many reasons, each one of which evoked a story that reminded Xulai of other stories and taught her a few things Horsemaster had not mentioned to her before. It was an hour or more before she returned to the castle bearing a sack full of grain and herbs, after which she spent an hour or two in the kitchen with the cook.
“You say we need honey,” said Cook, shaking her head. “As it happens, I have new honey from Hives Town, along the river.”
“And this grain,” said Xulai. “And these herbs . . .”
“Well, I never . . . ,” said Cook. “What a combination!”
With the baking done, she spent the rest of the day helping Precious Wind and Bear. Most things, small and large, that they would need during the journey and afterward had been foreseen and provided for. There were even new clothes for Xulai, made large enough that she could grow somewhat before she would need to cut into the lengths of fabric they were taking along. They also had linens and weapons to pack; Precious Wind had her traveling desk and Xulai the large wicker basket she had adapted for the cats, affixing a latch so the lid could be closed tight enough to keep them inside in an emergency.
“So you’re set on taking those cats?” demanded Precious Wind with a scowl at black and white Bothercat, who had just leapt across her desk, throwing all her papers into confusion.
“My cousin said the abbey allows it. I fixed the basket especially for them. It’s so I won’t be lonely.”
Precious Wind’s face changed. “You will have me, Xulai. You will have Bear, and Oldwife, and Nettie is going along to keep us all decently dressed.”
“Neither you nor Bear curl up next to my ear at night and purr,” Xulai said firmly. “Oldwife says she’s incapable of curling; Nettie would be embarrassed. Bear is far too much the warrior to curl, and it does seem an unlikely posture for you to adopt.” She cast a glance at Precious Wind, whose eyebrows were threatening to hide themselves completely in her hair. “Your eyebrows are telling me you think the curling may not be essential. I grant you that, but the purring is, absolutely.” As it was, for several reasons. Under the thick padding of the cat basket, she had sewn her treasures: several gifts from the princess, now inside the little box from the forest temple, along with another thing.
When she donned her traveling dress early in the morning, the chipmunk was already in the pocket announcing itself with a high-pitched chitter. Below, the travelers were already assembling in the stable yard. Xulai’s fear of loneliness lifted a little as she actually saw her escort assembled. They were all people she knew well: Oldwife Gancer, gray haired and dark skinned, somewhat stout and wrinkled as a winter apple; Bartelmy, the fletcher’s son, a crossbowman, so fair as to be almost silver haired, keen eared, brown from the sun, green eyed, like a sight-hound in stance and movement, lean, alert, and nervy. He would drive the chestnut pair hitched to the hop-skip in which Oldwife and Xulai would begin the trip. Behind them four black horses drew the wagon with the brothers Willum and Clive Farrier driving. They were nephews of Horsemaster, and Xulai knew them well from the stables, bulky, muscular men, heavy across the shoulders as a team of oxen, much of an age and alike except that Willum was yellow haired and balding while Clive wore a long, copper-colored braid down his back.
Next came the heavy dray, pulled by six mules and driven by Pecky Peavine and Black Mike. Pecky was a cousin to Bartelmy, a small man with the family’s pale hair and green eyes, a beaky nose, and a perpetually smiling mouth. Pecky had been raised on the castle farms. He was good with growing things, quick with his hands, weaving and willowy as his name, his arms and legs thin but roped with muscle. Black Mike was from the workshops and the smithy, called black because he was: hair, beard, eyes, and skin. He was a grandnephew of Oldwife Gancer, and he could fix anything, or build it from scratch. All the men but Bartelmy and—probably—Bear were as likely as any other to drink too much and play the fool occasionally (so said Oldwife), but otherwise, they were dependable as daylight.
Behind the dray was the company-trot, the larger, closed carriage carrying only Precious Wind and her friend Nettie Lean on one seat, all the rest of its space filled with traveling supplies. The Great Bear of Zol would drive the four horses. Nettie was a widow: graceful, widemouthed, blue eyed and auburn haired. She had raised her widower husband’s sons by his late wife, had lost them when they set off to seek their fortunes, and then had lost her husband as well. She had no other kin but an aunt off at Wilderbrook Abbey, or so she thought, though it had been years since she’d heard from Aunt Belika. She and Precious Wind had formed a strong friendship in the last several years, as had all the others, except Bear, who tended to hold himself aloof as befit bears in general. The others respected his strength and skill too much to cavil at it. Either that or they were too wary of his temper and his touchy pride. Everyone knew everyone else and his family, everyone was amiable, so there’d be no quarrels to make the trip more difficult. Nettie was not attracted to any of the men, nor they to her, and Xulai felt this was no accident. The duke had thought of this as he had thought of everything else. The trip was to be made quickly, peacefully, and safely. Xulai might go on grieving her loss for some long time, but she was not to be aggravated by dissension among her people or be lonely for familiar faces.
Added to this entourage was Xulai’s horse, Flaxen, on a lead rein behind the hop-skip.
So, Xulai thought to herself: six men, four women—she was slightly surprised to be counting herself as a woman—ten horses; six mules; one small riding horse; two cats traveling in their large, well-padded basket with the latticework lid carefully fastened down; and one tiny, secret chipmunk that neither Oldwife nor Precious Wind would have countenanced for a moment if they’d known about him. Or her, perhaps. It could as well be a girl chipmunk.
Justinian, dressed all in the deep purple he had worn since the princess’s death, went to the back of the line and there spoke to Abasio, who had just pulled his wagon into line. Justinian had had a long conversation with him the night before; now he shook his hand, then turned and came forward, speaking to each one of his people and waiting until each one of them had nodded in agreement. He was telling each one of them what he had told her. She was being sent away to take the soul of the princess back to her people.
“Xulai is of an age to be in school, and the school at the abbey of Wilderbrook is known to be a good one; you will stop there at least until spring makes the mountain roads less dangerous. While Bear scouts the southern trail for the following spring, you will remain at the abbey to take care of Xulai and see to her needs while she is at school. Her care is a debt of honor that I as Duke of Wold owe to my wife’s father, the Prince Lok-i-xan, Tingawan ambassador. Do you understand?”
And each of them said yes, they understood. The duke had chosen from among his people none who were not reliable and steady. Each of them was fond of Xulai, and though they would not say it, some of them might have been grateful to be leaving Woldsgard, for by this time everyone knew of the cloud that hung over the place. Beyond him, she saw Abasio’s wagon pull into line behind the dray. He saw her and lifted his hand in salute. Blue neighed and flopped one ear.
Justinian returned to the carriage and leaned in to kiss Xulai good-bye. She grasped his hand and jumped down, drawing hi
m after her. He leaned down at her gesture, and she whispered, “Cousin, some time ago, while the lady could still talk, she said she was leaving something for me. Do you know about that?”
She saw his jaw clench, and for a moment she thought she had been wrong to remind him. Then he put his hand under her chin, saying, “Hidden in the false bottom of the dray is a flat, rather large crate, tightly fastened and sealed. Inside is the case holding whatever it was she left to you. She never told me what it was. She arranged the matter with Precious Wind, and I have given instructions that it is to be put into storage for you at the abbey.” He frowned. “I fear someone may be curious about what is in it . . .”
She spoke, surprised by the words coming from her mouth. “Why, Cousin, it is only some of her court clothing in lovely silks and embroideries. The princess, your wife, set them aside for her soul carrier, as a thank-you, thinking I might someday grow into them or have them made over into something smaller before returning to Tingawa. I will wear them with joy in memory of her.” Precious Wind had told her that. Long ago. Long, long ago.
His face lightened, and he actually smiled, an expression at once fragile and mysterious, though with great longing in it. “You will never wear anything more becoming than what you are wearing now. I like that color on you.” He lifted her back into the carriage, taking some time to straighten her cloak. Oldwife took her hand and pulled her close. Bartelmy spoke quietly to the horses, and they moved away. Xulai could not stop herself. She leaned over the side to look back, seeing him with a kerchief to his face, weeping as he stared after her, almost as if she had been the princess instead of a mere Xakixa. Would he remember what she looked like? If she grew up, as Oldwife seemed to believe was possible, maybe she could have her portrait made and send it to him so he could know what she had become.
“He noticed what I was wearing,” she said in wonder, looking down at her ankle-length, sleeveless surcoat of fine wool striped in blue and brown—the brown from brown sheep, the blue from white fleeces dyed with woad—at the long, silky sleeves of her ivory gown, at the fine woolen cape around her shoulders, at her new and very shiny brown boots. “He noticed.”
“You are a very nice-looking girl,” said Oldwife Gancer, her own old wrinkled eyes suspiciously teary. “The duke has always thought so. He told Dame Cullen Crampocket that Nettie was to be allowed to make what she saw fit out of whatever fabric she liked, no pinching of coin. He said the same to the shoemaker. Bartelmy himself went to Wellsport to buy leather and fabric. His Grace said your clothing was a parting gift, there would be no stinginess in it.”
Xulai felt a great, horrid wave of sadness. “I will never return, will I?”
Oldwife did not answer immediately, as though trying to think of some soft thing to say without lying. She shook her head sadly and pulled Xulai close to her in a sympathetic hug. “Not unless something unexpected befalls our neighbor to the south. She’s possessed by something mad, or devilish.”
“Don’t our people talk to her people?” Xulai asked. “Isn’t that how neighbors usually find out what’s happening next door?”
“They talk with us, and we with them, of livestock, crops, and of their families, but we learn nothing of her, for she never speaks with her people. She leaves all that to her stewards, and they’re as bad as Dame Cullen, pinch lipped and wary of spending a word out of kindness. Altamont is enough to keep any twenty women busy with the farms and the dairies and the villages and game parks, to say nothing of the forests, so why she lusts after Wold, the Wasting God alone knows.”
By midmorning they had crossed the streamlet before Netherfields. Oldwife looked up the valley, remarking, “There is never a time, winter or summer, without flowers blooming at Netherfields: hellebore in winter, then winter jessamine and aconite, narcissus and wild iris behind great stretches of crocus, and then all the flowers of summer. In the autumn the roses and asters go on until the snow, and then the shining holly clusters its red berries along the walls. Always something blooming or fruitful there, where they laid the lady.”
“No,” said a voice in Xulai’s mind. “It’s only where they laid her body.” Xulai heard it clearly, stunningly, a familiar voice, but within a moment she had forgotten it.
They had packed lunches for this day’s journey, eating them as they went, Xulai remembering to put a crust or two into her pocket for the chipmunk. The chipmunk had no name as yet, and she had been puzzling over what it might be called, but nothing fitting came to her.
In early afternoon they passed through the village of Hay, and in late afternoon the village of Halter, towns named for the fodder and the harness each was known for. Just as the sun melted upon the peaks of the Icefang range, they arrived in Hives, the honey town, and stopped for the night at the oldest inn, the Queen’s Skep, where they were fed roast chicken with mashed parsnips, fresh cheese, salad stuff from the garden, and cream pudding with raspberries for dessert. Abasio went to his wagon to sleep. Five of the men slept bedded in sweet hay in the loft of the stables, while the three women and Xulai spent a comfortable night in a large, warm room with Bear stretched monumentally upon his blankets across the threshold outside.
The next morning they drank strong tea with milk, ate puffy fried bread with honey and sweet butter, then rearranged themselves among the wagons and were on their way early. They stopped at noon near a shallow ford that crossed one of the small streams flowing down from the Icefang range to distribute a lunch of bread, sausage, and fruit before going on. As evening approached, the land to their left fell gently away, and they looked down onto the lake called Riversmeet, where Woldswater Running and the river Wells joined. The Wells, flowing westward, was the larger and the more tumultuous, pouring down from the east beside the upward-sloping east-west King’s Road. Their own north-south road crossed it over a humpbacked bridge of eight piers and seven arches.
“By Brimgod the Elder, some idiot has blocked the bridge,” growled Bartelmy as he pulled up the horses.
At the highest point of the bridge a wagon sat atilt while several men struggled to get the left rear wheel back on the axle from which it had parted company. Beyond them, two spans of oxen shifted from foot to foot and lowed to one another in shared complaint. The stone bridge was old, its center high enough above the river to allow small boats to pass beneath. The already narrow way across it was further constricted by low, moss-mottled parapets at either side. Not even a man on foot would get by until the oxen moved their wagon.
Xulai had been riding on the driver’s seat next to Bartelmy. Bear, since he had kept watch the previous night, had slept during the day, lying in the open carriage with his head in Precious Wind’s lap. Now he roused himself and joined Bartelmy in walking forward to offer help, which offer was rejected with some indifference by the apparently struggling men.
As they returned, Bartelmy said softly to Bear: “Beyond the bridge is the crossroad where we’ll turn east, provided those men ever finish what they’re doing . . .”
“Which seems to be making a great deal of prancing about and very little progress,” commented Bear.
“They are making heavy work of it,” Bartelmy agreed. “I think that’s the fifth time they’ve tried to get that clench pin through the axle slot.”
“There’s dust hanging over the roadway west,” Xulai remarked from the wagon seat. “As though a number of horsemen passed not long ago.”
Bartelmy muttered, “They didn’t pass. There’s no dust eastward or south. If they came here, they turned around and went back.”
Precious Wind murmured, “West lies the sea and Wellsport. A goodly town, Wellsport.”
“Certainly,” said Bear. “Full of stews and taverns. A good place for agents of the Sea People to sneak in, for one purpose or another, in a ship . . .”
“No ship the signalers have told us of!” Bartelmy said.
“Where are the signalers you speak of?” Xulai asked.
Bartelmy climbed into the wagon, pulled her to her feet,
and pointed to the west where the unseen riders had gone. “See that high peak west of us? The one where the sun glints red from the snow still lying on it? That’s Mount Ever-Ice, and on the peak there’s a signal station, fire at night, sun reflected from mirrors in the daytime. That station stands above Wellsport, a free town on a deepwater bay that is governed and maintained by the Shippers’ Syndicate, the so-called Port Lords, who deal in cargoes that cross the seas . . . or once did so.
“North of Wellsport lies the delta of the river Wells, a great tract of fens and mires riven by streamlets, most of it low and swampy, full of fish and birds. The place is called The Marish, and at the northern end of it, where the hills begin, there’s a small bay full of fishing boats with the little town of Wellsmouth perched on the slope above it. Wellsmouth is occupied mostly by poulterers and fisherfolk, and it lies on the side of Wellsgard peak. That station is manned by the Boat People, who swear allegiance to Prince Orez’s second son, Earl Murkon of Marish. He has a manor at the high end of the town. Of course, that’s as it was. The water’s rising closer to us than before, so the marsh has probably moved this way.
“On north from there, four other mountains make a curve around the north coast. Chasmgard, above the depths of Bone’s chasm, where Orez’s elder son, Defiance, Count Chasm, dwells with his grandmother, Prince Orez’s mother, Vinicia, the Lady of the Abyss—”
“The old girl keeps her seat there still, though she’s ninety if a day,” interrupted Bear.
“Next comes Combesgard,” Bartelmy continued. “Above the steep treelands of Halescombe, ruled by Hale Highlimb, Treelord, and manned by the foresters of Prince Orez; then Valesgard, above the wider Northern Valleys where the Free Knights breed the prince’s horses and keep the signal fire; and finally, Woldsgard Pinnacle, at the northwestern tip of Wolden lands, due west of where Krakenhold used to be. There the duke’s Men of the Mountain keep watch. The Icefang range blocks the duke’s vision of the peaks to the west, but he can look a little west of north from the Great Tower of Woldsgard and see Woldsgard Pinnacle, day or night. If a ship comes toward the port, within the hour it’s first seen, your cousin the duke knows of it. If a ship comes up the river Wells, be sure he knows of that, also. Not only that it comes, but how big it is, how many men aboard, and likely, what they’re carrying.”