First Truth

  Cracking her eyelids, she saw Strell scraping the last of his breakfast from his bowl, studying a piece of leather on the ground before him. His mended coat lay untouched where she had left it after he fell asleep last night. Her hat was on his head. Recalling how he shamelessly spied on her sewing last night, Alissa decided turnabout was fair play and didn’t move.

  His shirt clung to him, still damp from its obvious laundry. He didn’t seem at all cold for it, which she thought terribly unfair. Oblivious to her scrutiny, he ran a hand over his head and squinted up at the pass. She could almost see what was on the ground before him. If he would only shift a bit. . . .

  Talon dropped from the sky to startle them both with her scrabbling claws and loud complaints. Alissa could feign sleep no longer. Strell glanced at her and away as she sat up. Safe in Talon’s tenacious grip was a grasshopper, and the small bird danced impatiently for Alissa’s attention. From the day they had made their acquaintance, Talon insisted on offering Alissa her catches, not eating until Alissa refused whatever the kestrel had caught. But this morning Talon would have to wait. Alissa wanted to know what Strell was busy rolling up and tucking away.

  “Good morning,” she said cautiously, pretending to stretch as she tried to get a good peek. She felt she could manage civility despite his slurs last night.

  “Morning,” he grunted, eyeing Talon warily as he stuffed the leather back in his pack.

  Unsure if he was still angry about last night or if he was simply not a morning person, Alissa turned to Talon. “What a fine grasshopper you caught,” she cooed. “I’m not very hungry right now,” she lied. “You eat it.”

  There was a snort of scorn from the opposite side of the fire, which Alissa carefully ignored. As if sharing Alissa’s sudden unease, Talon refrained her usual dramatic—and utterly false—display of diffidence, meekly accepting the large insect as Alissa gingerly proffered it back. Fluttering to the woodpile, Talon began to meticulously dissect her meal. The silence grew.

  Not knowing what to say, Alissa picked up her “new” hat and looked it over. Talon’s tuft of squirrel fur was wedged into one of the tears, and she felt her eyes narrow, not knowing whether to be pleased or affronted. Strell’s hat, she decided, was a mangled mess of ancient leather. She had done him a favor in taking it off his hands. Still, it was well-oiled, and if she wanted a hat, she would have to mend it. Alissa let it fall to the ground. Just the thought of the work involved to make it usable again made her fingers ache. How, she wondered, could Talon do so much damage in so little time?

  Strell continued to fuss with the tin pot hung over the fire on a shaky-looking tripod. He hadn’t acknowledged her except for that wonderfully expressive grunt. Looking for her water bag, Alissa found it full and within her reach. Strell must have filled it. Her bowl, too, was clean. Strell must have washed it. Huh, she thought. She hadn’t expected that.

  “Thanks for the clean bowl,” she said as she poured some water in it to heat. “Would you like some tea?”

  Strell eyed her with a sullen wariness. “Why so nice?” he said bluntly. “I thought you wanted me gone.”

  “Uh,” Alissa stammered, surprised at his frankness. “You did get me out of that ravine, and you’re entitled to your own opinions, no matter how idiotic and backward they are. Besides”—she flushed—“after today, you won’t be anything but a nasty memory.”

  He stiffened, taking this with the expected bad grace. “Alissa, you may be Mistress Death herself, but I’m not leaving until you can walk out of these blessed mountains on your own.” Clearly disgusted, he threw a stick on the fire. “Just my luck,” he muttered. “The snows are less than a month off, and I’m out in the middle of nowhere playing nursemaid to an ignorant farmer who doesn’t know to keep her eyes on the ground where they ought to be.”

  “So now I’m Mistress Death?” Alissa said. What was it with this . . . this . . . dirt-eater! she fumed. “I don’t need a nursemaid. And I don’t need your help.”

  “You did last night.”

  “I would have gotten out eventually.”

  “In the belly of a wolf, maybe.”

  Alissa felt her cheeks warm. “I don’t ever recall asking for your help.”

  Strell simpered at her. “Yes, you did.”

  Her lips pursed. She had. “Well, I don’t need it now. Why don’t you take your wretched coat and go back where you belong?” Angry, she rose and limped to his side of camp. Strell’s frown shifted to astonishment as she snatched his coat. It was obvious what was going through his mind, she thought. Up and around in three days. Ha! Maybe for a milksop of a flatlander.

  “Here!” Her ankle gave a twinge, and she felt herself go ashen. Feeling ill, she threw the coat in his lap instead of his face, where she wanted to. “I spent half the night on it so you could go, leaving me debt-free.”

  “But . . . your ankle,” he stammered. “I saw it. It was the size of a duck’s egg.”

  “It looks fine to me!” she said, embarrassed to have his eyes on her foot, even if it was in a stocking. Her ankle was still swollen, but it could bear her weight.

  Strell’s mouth opened in protest. Then his face hardened. “Fine!” he barked, and he began shoving things into his pack.

  Sullen, Alissa returned to her side of camp and dumped her water on the fire. She’d skip breakfast. It wouldn’t be the first time, she thought crossly as the fire sizzled, sending a billow of acrid smoke into the dawn-still air. Thumping down by the blackened, wet wood, she snatched her boots. The tension was almost palpable as they both worked furiously to part ways.

  Strell muttered something and reached for his tripod. At the same moment, Alissa unthinkingly tried to jam her swollen foot into her boot.

  “Ah-h!” they simultaneously cried. The pain in Alissa’s ankle ebbed to a dull throb. Annoyed, she looked at Strell, wondering what his problem was. Seeing him kneeling by the fire, her face went pale and her stomach churned. In his anger, he had forgotten the tripod had been sitting over the flames all morning. Stunned, he stared at the angry burn blossoming across his palm.

  “Here!” Alissa tossed her mortar to the ground and dumped her water bag into it. Water splashed over the edge as Strell broke from his shock and plunged his hand into the bowl. Taking Strell’s water bag, she slowly added more, making a muddy slurry where the fire had been.

  “No, don’t take it out,” she said, pushing his hand down as he tried to do just that.

  “Of all the idiotic . . .” he began bitterly.

  “Uh-huh,” Alissa agreed. “That was kind of daft.”

  He stiffened. Their eyes locked, and Alissa met his glare with a wide-eyed innocence. “Well, it was!” she protested, and he turned away.

  The wind gusted, sending a chill through her. Ashes, she thought, what if he was really hurt? “All right,” she said meekly, sorry for having agreed with him so quickly. “Let’s see it.”

  His jaw clenched as he raised his hand. Drops of water plunked back into the bowl. Taking a deep breath, his eyes rose to hers. “Will—will I be able to play?” he said.

  “Play?” Alissa started at him blankly.

  “You know . . . music?” With one hand, he pantomimed blowing into a pipe.

  “Oh.” Alissa looked at the long, angry blister. It didn’t seem as bad as she had first thought. “Yes.” She winced. “I suppose so.” A faint stirring of unease slipped through Alissa. He was a piper? she thought. He couldn’t be the same one she heard the night the raku flew over her. He would be halfway to the plains by now.

  “How long do you think?”

  She blinked, jerked back to present. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t?”

  His voice carried a hint of alarm, and Alissa glanced at him. “The only thing I ever tended was Talon, and all she needed was food.” Together they turned to her, and Talon chittered happily under their gaze.

  “Who made that salve then?” he asked. “It worked well on my scratches.”

&nb
sp; “My mother,” Alissa said shortly, reluctant to talk about her. Alissa awkwardly stood up. “It would probably do your burn some good.”

  Leaving him to cradle his hand, Alissa went to her pack and upended it. She glanced back at Strell as everything spilled out in a sliding mess, but it was the fastest way for her to find anything. Apparently Strell had discovered his manners and was at least pretending not to watch as she stuffed everything else away. She wondered if all plainsmen were that nosy or just him.

  Strell held out his hand as she sat down before him. At his hesitant nod, Alissa spread the thin, creamy salve over the burn, and with a clean but ratty bit of cloth from his pack, she loosely bound it. “There.” She met his eyes, wiping the stinky salve from her. “That should help.”

  “Thank you,” he said. Then his eyebrows rose and he cocked his head, staring at her. “In the morning light, your eyes are gray. I thought they were blue.”

  Alissa stiffened. “Well, your nose is bent,” she said crossly. His eyes were as brown as her mother’s, with flecks of gold. Suddenly aware their heads were nearly touching, she drew back and jumped to her feet, scrambling for something to do. There was nothing. He was packed. She was packed. Even the fire was out, extinguished by her flood. She snatched up the jar of salve and jammed it into her bag. Talon took flight, sounding as if she were laughing. Once more at a proper distance, Alissa remembered her boots. Dropping down on the sparse grass, she tightened their laces, wincing at the twinge her ankle gave. Tomorrow it ought to be fully healed.

  “Will you be able to travel?” she tentatively asked, concerned that now she would be the one morally obligated to stay and play nanny.

  Strell flexed his hand, blanching as the skin pulled tight. “I’ll make do. I don’t want to risk an early snow.”

  “I know what you mean.” Alissa looked east down the slope toward her unseen home. “But you’re farther along than you think. That’s the last valley before the foothills.”

  “Last valley?” he repeated, his eyebrows arching up. “It’s the first. I’m heading in.”

  Alissa stared at him, a curious mix of disgust and panic stirring in her. Aw, Hounds, she thought. He was going the same way she was. “Are you mad!” she shouted, hoping she could get him to turn around. “It’s too late to start across, and now with your hand . . .” She gestured weakly. It was obvious he shouldn’t be alone for a few days at least.

  “I have to. I have no choice,” he said, his face losing all expression.

  No choice? she wondered. Everyone has a choice. They just may not like it. Alissa waited, hoping he would say more or tell her she was right and that he would go back to his plains where he belonged. But he didn’t. He just sat there, looking at his tired, worn boots, keeping whatever was bothering him to himself.

  Well, she thought. If he wasn’t going to hoe his row yet, they’d better get going. The snow wouldn’t wait for them. And with that, Alissa stood and shouldered her pack.

  Strell just sat there.

  “Are you coming?” She stood with her staff in hand, thinking the situation was eerily familiar.

  He looked up from his obviously very interesting boots. “I told you, I’m headed west.”

  Exasperated with his sorry attitude, Alissa picked up her staff and frowned at him. With her tender ankle and his burned hand, they had no business being out here. “What makes you think I’m not headed that way, too?”

  Strell stared up at her. “You’re jesting, right?”

  “No.”

  “What’s so important that it can’t wait until spring?”

  Alissa’s eyes closed in a long blink as she struggled to keep her voice level and mild. “None of your concern. Why can’t you wait?”

  Grunting, Strell lurched to his feet. Too proud or stubborn to ask for help, he wrestled with his pack until Alissa held it up for him. He didn’t say thanks, but she really didn’t expect him to. How he had planned on traveling alone, Alissa couldn’t begin to guess. Strell glanced up at the pass, then behind Alissa and out over the valley. Understanding filled his face, and his eyebrows rose. “That was your music,” he whispered. A thin finger pointed accusingly at her. “That was your fire on the bluff the night I saw that raku!”

  Alissa’s breath caught in dismay. It was him! she thought. But that was days ago. How on earth could she have passed him? Maybe she was going faster than she thought. “I see it didn’t eat you either,” she said, struggling to cover her own surprise. Bone and Ash, she moaned silently. This was worse and worse.

  Strell’s face darkened. Then he drew himself up and shook his head as if in refusal. Without a word, he turned and began to walk stiffly toward the pass. Alissa watched him go, thinking it was going to be a long, miserable trip. And how could anyone travel slower than she? He must have stopped to butcher some poor animal.

  As she turned to follow, the sharp clink of metal against stone drew her eyes down. She crouched to tuck the still-warm tripod into her pack. Whistling sharply for Talon’s attention, she rose. With her back to the sun, she hobbled gingerly to catch up. “Hey!” she called. “Wait up!”

  9

  “Strell?” Alissa wheezed. “Can we stop for a moment?” Flushed, she leaned back against a wide beech, staring desperately up at its yellow leaves. They rattled in the breeze that somehow failed to find her, hot and sticky on the forest floor. Her pack made an uncomfortable bump, and she slid down the smooth bark until her rump hit the dirt. She didn’t want to let Strell know she was having trouble keeping up, but Hounds, she felt like she had been whipped.

  During one of their frequent breaks yesterday, Alissa had caught him shaking his head in wonder at her needlework on his coat. She suspected his opinion of persons “not of the plains persuasion” might be changing. At least he wasn’t treating her like a beggar-come-calling anymore. His attitude was more like that to a relative who visits only when she wants something.

  “You’d better not say anything nasty,” she muttered under her breath as he pulled up sharp and returned. Alissa knew her face was pink and that sweat was dripping unladylike from her forehead. Trying to hide her fatigue, she bent to tighten her laces.

  A pair of dark boots stomped to a crackling halt just within her sight. “Is it your ankle?” Strell said gently.

  Startled, Alissa glanced up. He actually looked concerned. Not knowing what to think, she shook her head. She had forgotten all about her ankle. “Tired,” she sighed, wondering if perhaps there was a reason her mother had always frowned at how fast she seemed to mend.

  Strell slipped off his pack and awkwardly opened it with one hand. Sitting on the leaves, he pulled out a piece of dried meat and offered it to Alissa. She drew back, wrinkling her nose.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I thought it was a rumor. Foothills people really don’t eat meat?”

  “Nothing that has feet.”

  Shifting uncomfortably, Strell pulled a stick out from under him. “Then why do you all keep animals?”

  “You eat them.”

  Strell grunted at that, sending the stick into the trees to clatter among the gray branches. “How about some cheese?” Rummaging deeper, he brought out a large wedge and broke off a generous portion. This Alissa accepted with a wan smile, too tired to say anything. Strell, she noticed, had put his meat away, contenting himself with the cheese as well.

  “I wish you’d tell me when you need a rest,” he said cautiously.

  “What do you think I just did!”

  “Wait,” he said sharply. “Don’t untie your tent just yet. If you exhaust yourself, you’re more likely to get hurt. I, for one, don’t want to wait around for a pulled muscle to mend just because you were too thickheaded to call for a break.” He hesitated. “Alissa, please don’t make too much of this. It’s not that important. I’ve been traveling since I was fifteen. I didn’t expect you to match my pace. I—I just forgot.”

  Alissa sullenly bit into her cheese. He was right, but it was galling to have to admit it. T
alon landed on Alissa’s knee, crooning gently. Fine, she thought. It wasn’t worth arguing over, and it was painfully obvious she had been pushing herself. “You’re right,” she said softly. “I’ll tell you from now on.”

  “What’s that? I couldn’t have heard you right.” He actually had the audacity to pretend to be shocked.

  “I said you were right!” Alissa snatched her staff and struggled to her feet. Talon took flight with a startled squawk.

  Laughing quietly, Strell stood and ineptly shouldered his pack, ever mindful of his sore hand. “There’s a lake up ahead,” he said. “I don’t think it’s too far. If you think you can last, would you like to try to reach it before we stop for the night?”

  Normally Alissa would have come back with a sharp remark, but this time, instead of saying the first thing entering her head, she thought about it. She was tired, and her back and feet felt like she would be crippled for life, but a bath sounded great. “Not far?” she sighed.

  “Don’t think so. It’s early yet. We can slow up.” Strell smiled encouragingly down at her. He had her old hat on to block the sun, and Alissa thought it looked ridiculous on him. The floppy leather was half in his eyes, and she impulsively bent it up so as to please her sensibilities. Strell’s eyes widened, and Alissa spun away hoping he hadn’t seen her flush. What did she care what he looked like? But before she could take three steps, she froze and pivoted on a slow heel.

  “How do you know there’s a lake up ahead?” she said carefully. “You said this morning you had come in through a different valley.” Alissa’s thoughts went back to that mysterious something he had shoved into his pack yesterday. “You have a map? Let me see?”

  “’Course I have a map,” Strell said. “You think I’d be ignorant enough to risk the mountains this late without one?”

  Alissa’s eyes narrowed at the implied insult, but she swallowed her anger as he knelt and rummaged through his pack. Silently, almost reverently, he took a roll of leather, untied its ribbon, and carefully laid it out.