Brayden was pensive now, listening and brooding down into the dregs of his coffee. After several silent moments, his eyebrows drew together and he shook his head.
“The problem,” he began slowly, “is that I don’t know anything. I’m basing our safety on dreams and conjecture and memories more than half a lifetime old. But the Old Ones do know, and I can’t believe people who carve ‘Mother’s Soldier’ into their faces exist solely to stamp out the Mother’s most loved Gift.”
“Just like the Brethren shouldn’t exist to usurp and redefine the Father’s gift?”
“…All right.” Brayden rubbed at his brow. “You’re right to be cautious. I know in my gut I’m right, but with religious freaks, who can ever tell?” He slipped his cup onto the peeling surface of the shabby cupboard. “Compromise. We’ll head to Lind and find someplace safe for you to stay while I go into the valley and see if I can find something that will help us. I’ll gather what information I can, and we’ll discuss the next move. Will that do?”
Wil stared at the floor unhappily. Unfortunately it made sense. But Síofra had made sense for a time too. The Brethren had even seemed to make sense for a brief moment of hope. Wil had never liked the idea of going back to Putnam, but even that made sense in a desperate sort of way.
Anyway, Brayden was going out of his way to treat Wil as a partner, an equal voice. Wil thought perhaps that might translate into more freedom on the road, more chance of getting away clean if he found he had to. And if Brayden really was going to find Wil someplace to lie up, safe, by himself… there’d be all kinds of opportunity then.
In the meantime, Brayden was the best chance Wil had of shaking the Brethren and the Guild. And if nothing else came of all this, Wil was certainly eating better than he ever had before Brayden styled himself Wil’s protector.
“All right.” It was halfhearted and slightly sulky, but Wil couldn’t help it. “I imagine Lind is better than Ríocht, at least.”
Brayden smirked. “Good, because that was going to be my next suggestion.”
Wil stared for a long moment. Then he tilted his head. “Constable Brayden,” he said slowly, “did you just make a joke?”
“Um. No?” Brayden flushed. Wil hadn’t known he could. “I mean—that is, I suppose it wasn’t—”
“No, no.” A sardonic smile twitched at the corners of Wil’s mouth. “You’ve a sense of humor. Not a very good one, but… well, who knew?”
WITH DIRECTIONS from Jarvis—quite vocal in his opinion that they should not be venturing out in the rain what with the young man unwell—they found a shop on the northern outskirts of the village where Brayden kitted them both with rain gear, waxed cloaks and wide-brimmed hats. Wil caught a look at the heft of the purse Brayden untied from his belt to pay for it, noting with envy the solid glint of gold inside. Wil hadn’t thought about it before, but considering the horses, and the inn, and the baths, and all the meals—and now the new gear—and considering all that gold left over in the purse… well, Brayden must be quite wealthy.
They trudged for several miles along the road, the hardpack slipping and depressing under the horses’ hoofs. Wil rode with his head turned back for a while, watching with satisfaction as the prints filled with water, then mud, then turned to indistinguishable divots that would no doubt continue to erode as rain pounded the road. He smiled to himself and tipped his head down, oddly amused when a small deluge spilled from the brim.
Wil would never have thought of the hats either, but they did a fine job of keeping the water from dripping over his face and into his eyes. With the hood of the cloak turned up over his head and the hat atop it, no rain spattered down his nape, and with the coat underneath it all, he was probably as comfortable as anyone could be while traveling on horseback through torrential rain. Despite the whole saddle-sore thing.
The horses remained agreeable, even though their coats steamed and they blew plumes of heavy mist from their nostrils into the cold, wet air. Neither one of them turned ornery, though, and Wil made it a point to pat his on her muscled neck every now and then and mentally promised her one of his precious apples when they stopped. All right, and one for Brayden’s horse too.
They rode all through the miserable day, skirting down the first random lane they came to off the road and following that until it wound into another and another still. They finally set themselves west through heavy forest. Wil assumed it was midday because Brayden handed him a handful each of hardtack and jerky, apparently meant to be lunch. Wil didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but he admitted a touch of disappointment at the fare, if only to himself. It made him wonder what to expect at suppertime. Would they stop at all? And what about sleep? Just how hard did Brayden intend to push? Wil hadn’t even thought to ask how many days’ ride Lind would be.
The rain was too loud for conversation, so Wil held his questions. Anyway, it was just as well—it seemed as though every conversation they’d ever had started out with penetrating questions from Brayden that Wil didn’t want to answer. Silence was just fine.
The pace was slower once they left the road, the horses carefully picking along roots and slippery deadfall. Brayden led today, watching every angle constantly, gaze swiveling in regular wide sweeps about the perimeter, even craning his neck frequently and stretching his gaze up into the trees. Wil did the same but found his own eyes catching on the subtle change of colors from one tree to the next, the way the rain weighted the pine boughs and made them tremble, the slight bit of iridescence in the wet sworls of his horse’s mane.
They kept going even after it got so dark Wil couldn’t see anymore. The rain hadn’t let up, though it wasn’t as bad beneath the trees as it had been out in the open. Still, it was going to make a miserable night for sleeping—if Brayden even let them stop for the night. Though perhaps a sleepless night wouldn’t be an altogether bad thing. Wil had deliberately not allowed his mind to wander to this morning’s events, deliberately not thought about a lot of things, in fact, but if nothing else, the horses were going to need to be rested and fed, and Wil figured Brayden had to let them stop eventually.
Wil’s stomach was growling by the time Brayden finally called a halt, and his eyelids were drooping. And his thighs were killing him. And his arse bones hurt. He hadn’t even known he had arse bones.
He dismounted slowly, clinging to the saddlebow until the ground stopped feeling like it was trying to sway out from under him. His injured hand had been throbbing for hours and miles, probably from the wet and cold, and he kept it securely tucked to his chest beneath cloak and coat.
“This is the densest we’ll find in the dark.” Brayden seemed to be muttering it to himself as he led his horse over and pushed the reins into Wil’s hand. The crossbow had traveled strapped to Brayden’s broad back; now he wrangled it out from beneath his cloak and braced it against the nearest tree. The rifle had spent the journey propped across his saddlebow beneath the protection of the cloak. It almost joined the crossbow, but Brayden stopped, shot a sideways glance at Wil, and slung the strap over his shoulder instead, as though that was what he’d meant to do all along.
Wil might’ve snorted, but he was too busy realizing how deeply the cold had set in to his bones.
Brayden dragged his pack from the saddlebag, freeing the hatchet and shovel from their little loops on the sides. “There’s enough around here for a small shelter, at least. We’ll need a fire, though, or these cloaks will be no more than useless weight. I hate to do it. I might as well leave a sign that says ‘We came this way!’ but I haven’t much choice.”
A fire. It was a nice thought, but unless Brayden was a secret shaman, a fire was likely just wishful thinking. Still, it might be fun to watch him try. Shelter might be a more reasonable expectation, but Wil wasn’t even going to guess how.
“What about the horses?”
Brayden paused. “What about them?”
“Well, they need shelter too, right?”
“Not… really?” Brayden so
unded bemused. “Horses don’t need shelter, not like we do.”
“That’s stupid.” Wil set his hand to his mare’s neck, feeling protective. “Of course they do. That’s why there are stables.”
“Says the man who’d never ridden a horse as of last week—”
“Hey, I worked in a stable, in case you for—”
“—and who isn’t going to be the one building said shelter.”
That made Wil pause, but he only shrugged. “I could help. And, I mean, if you’re already building a shelter, why not make it big enough for them too? I don’t mind sharing.”
“Just—” Brayden whipped off his hat with a sigh, tipped it until all the water ran off it, then set it back on his head. “Never mind. I’ll see what I can do.” It didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but Brayden was all concern a second later when he leaned in and squinted through the darkness at Wil. “How are you after the long ride, anyway? Doing all right?”
Wil’s first impulse was to snark that no, he wasn’t doing all right, he’d likely never get his knees back together again, and his arse bones had gone from aching to really aching, and by the way, he was starving, what the fuck, did Brayden have a spare stomach or something?
He ended up nodding, voicing a polite “Fine,” then made himself busy with digging out the feedbags and filling them with a few handfuls of oats while Brayden chopped at pine boughs and cursed every time one of them dumped a bucketload of water on his head. Wil thought about telling Brayden it might be easier without the rifle swinging around on its strap behind him, and he needn’t worry—Wil had no intention of nicking it and shooting Brayden in the back—but the colorful outbursts were, after all, the most entertainment Wil had had all day.
So Wil kept quiet, smiling into the darkness as he stood with the horses and listened to their slow munching, the sharp sounds of snapping branches, and the occasional irritated mutter in the otherwise silence of the thick forest. It had probably been a good hour or so when the abrupt, brilliant spark of a match near dazzled Wil’s eyes; the brighter flare of flames catching and spreading into a small but real campfire near dazzled his reason.
“How did you do that?” Wil demanded, undecided if he was pleased or resentful.
Brayden looked over in Wil’s general direction, blinking and squinting in the light. He frowned. “How did I do what?”
Augh. Not only was Brayden able to start fires in the rain, he had no idea why it would amaze someone who hadn’t guessed the possibility. Wil stared at Brayden, still undecided if he should be backing away and signing charms or throwing himself at Brayden with a grateful embrace. Brayden had shed his hat somewhere and thrown back the hood of his cloak. The firelight scudded over his face with careful fingers, drawing gold and light touches of claret from hair curling damp and unruly. The effect kept glissading back and forth between primitive forest god and boyish artlessness.
Wil shook himself and shifted his stance. “The fire,” he said. “How did you start a fire with wet wood?”
“Oh.” Brayden turned back to the smoky fire, feeding it what looked like hacked-up chips and small split branches. “It’s easy with pine.” He worked steadily, stoking and fanning as he continually added fuel. “You can do it with any kind of wood if you split the bigger branches to get to the dry wood inside and chip away the wet bark. But with pine, there’s the sap or resin inside that helps it catch a lot quicker and burn hotter, so the wet outside will dry and burn too.” He shrugged, poking at the base of the flames. “We’ll have to keep a steady eye on it, else it’ll likely sputter, but I need the light to make the shelter, and we might as well have a hot supper while we’re at it.”
Huh. Wil thought of all the times he’d shivered in the rain, crouching in some damp little hole if he could find one, or trying to ignore the raindrops on his eyelids if he couldn’t. “That’s….” He swallowed his self-consciousness with an effort. “Will you show me?”
Brayden didn’t even raise his eyebrows. “Of course, but right now there are other priorities, all right? Between fuel for the fire and the shelter, I’ll need to cut quite a lot more.” He flicked a glance toward the horses and muttered, “Apparently a lot more,” though it didn’t sound too morose. With a sigh, he jerked his chin at Wil. “D’you know how to hobble?”
Wil rolled his eyes. “I did work in a stable, y’know.”
“So you keep reminding me.”
“Well, I did!”
“For two weeks,” Brayden said, not quite under his breath. Then, louder, “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I know how to hobble horses.” Wil had already taken some lengths of rope from his horse’s saddlebag and was looping them to size. He didn’t say he didn’t like to do it, that he thought it was a little bit mean, because he’d probably just get that same what the fuck? look he’d gotten about the shelter.
“Well, could you take care of them and then come over here? I could use a hand.”
The mares were still munching tiredly and unlikely to wander off, but Wil clumsily braided the knots—stupid soggy bandages—mostly by feel in the dim light of the small fire, and then looped the hobbles around the fore fetlocks of both horses. Neither one of them even twitched, but Wil quietly apologized anyway and made his mental promise of the apples a verbal one before he went to help Brayden.
Brayden had already started without him, moving beyond the small circle of wavering light. All Wil had to do was follow the grunted curses in the dark.
“Good.” Brayden took Wil by the shoulders, stood a little too close behind him, and guided his left hand up over his head. Wil was already gripping a thick, crosshatched bundle of prickly branches before he thought to shrug Brayden off, and by then Brayden was already rattling off instructions. “All right, feel how these are connected by this one joint? I need you to hold that tight, and don’t let them loose while I lift the other end and get it secured in those branches over there.”
What with his eyes having to adjust to the dark all over again, Wil couldn’t see two feet in front of his face, so he decided to take Brayden’s word that there were indeed branches “over there.”
“It’s going to be heavy for a few minutes, so be ready.” Brayden let go of Wil’s hand and was gone.
It did indeed get very heavy, and Wil had a hard time of it, what with the bark digging into his hand and the circulation in his arm slowing to a near halt by the time Brayden was satisfied and told Wil he could let go. Relieved, Wil dropped his arm to his side, backing up a few paces and right into a shallow trench filled with water.
“Watch out for that.” Brayden smirked as he passed by. “Your ladies won’t appreciate you fouling their trough.” And then he just moved on to the next section of branches.
So that was what the shovel had been for.
Scowling, Wil dragged his now muddy and waterlogged boot from the muck. His toes squelched.
“That wasn’t funny.”
“It was, a little.”
Wil notched the scowl up into a glare.
They repeated the process three more times, the last corner of the shelter so close to the small fire that Wil had to wrap his arm around the tree Brayden was working on to keep from tottering into the flames.
It wasn’t until some feeling leached back into Wil’s arm that he took a good look at what Brayden had done. It was terribly impressive. Wil had been expecting something like a lean-to, but Brayden had more or less built a roof made of pine boughs laced and woven together using the branches of the surrounding trees as supports. Higher on one side than the other “so the water will run off and we won’t end up buried beneath a small forest,” Brayden told him.
“Wooooow.” Wil stared up and turned in a circle. “This is very fine.” He grinned. “You definitely have your uses, Constable Brayden.”
Brayden only stared for a moment, then cleared his throat and looked away. “I do try.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and then gestured at the horses. “I know you know how to
curry. Why don’t you take care of them, and I’ll take care of supper.”
Still smiling despite his squishy boot, Wil nodded agreeably and went to do as bid.
“IT’S BEST if you do it away from you.” Brayden was watching carefully as Wil trimmed wet bark away from pine branches. “Do it toward you and slip….” Brayden opened a hand and shrugged.
Wil nodded and adjusted his hold, the heft and grip of Brayden’s wicked dagger a surprisingly comfortable fit in Wil’s palm. It had been awkward going, getting used to doing it with his left hand, but once Wil caught the rhythm, his speed picked up considerably.
Brayden was working on the bigger limbs with the hatchet. He sat on the ground atop one of the saddles, propping the branches from shoulder to ground between his legs and hacking off chunks in a steady spray. His boots were already half-buried in bark and curled shims. He was angled away from the fire, gaze shifting constantly to different points in the forest and doglegging around the curtain of the cloaks with every other sweep.
Wil sat on his bit of carpet with his back leaning against his own saddle, legs stretched out and feet crossed at the ankle. His boots sat next to the fire, drying, his stockings hanging over their sides. The detritus from his own work steadily piled in his lap, and every once in a while, he stopped to brush it away and wiggled his toes in the warmth of the flames.
Supper had been an interesting stew made from lumps of jerky and selections from the sacks of dried vegetables in Brayden’s pack. It was amazing what a little salt could do for the flavor of what would have otherwise been rather bland fare. Combined with the hardtack, two diced potatoes from Wil’s pack, and one each of the somewhat bruised apples afterward, Wil’s stomach had stopped complaining, and with the activity and the warmth from the fire, the chill in his bones was starting to recede.
Dream Page 3
