“If I may water my horse—?”
For answer, the woman whistled sharply, and a curly-haired boy poked his head out of a cow-shed.
“Timon! Bring the knight some hay for his horse, then come to the house and I’ll give you something for him to eat,” she said.
“You don’t—” George began.
The woman laughed. “Oh, Knight, you’ll be paying for it, rest assured! We won’t fleece your 172
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sister, but she doesn’t expect to get anything for free from us.”
“Not a bit,” Andie replied, feeling herself relax at last. This, she understood, and finally she was in her element. The wealth of Ethanos was built on trade.
She was the daughter of a long line of merchant-kings. She would have felt uneasy about being given anything, especially from people as so far from wealthy as the folk of Kiros Rocky Springs were. But a good, sharp bargain—that was different.
It might not make George comfortable, but she was on her home ground, now. Before the elevation in her status, she had slipped out of the Palace and gone down to the marketplaces of Ethanos countless times. There, when she’d had money, she had learned to haggle just like any other child of the city.
Now she settled down at the kitchen table in the immaculately clean farmhouse, with her list and a glass of coarse, resinous wine at one side, feeling more at ease than she had in days.
“Now, understand, I can’t supply what you need by myself,” the woman said, sitting down across from Andie. “I’ll be acting as factor for my neighbors, and as we make bargains, anything I can’t sell you, I will send one of my children after. They know only that my cousin Merrha has sent travelers from the city who need supplies and didn’t want to be fleeced by sharpers in the big-city markets.”
Andie nodded. “I don’t have actual coins,” she began.
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In answer, the woman got up, went to the cup-board and brought out a tiny scale and a bag of bar-ley grains. “It won’t be the first time I’ve been factor for bargains with a mercenary or mustered-out Guard,” she said simply. “We’re the last big village before the mountains.”
When she was done, and the bargain was concluded, they were well into the afternoon. Each time they concluded the bargaining for a particular piece of merchandise, and the links of chain were weighed out, the woman either had a child bring the article out and set it beside George and his horse, or she sent one with the gold off to the neighbor for whom she had acted as agent, and within a short time, the child would return with precisely what had been requested.
Last of all, when the matter of a mount for Andie had been settled, came a tiny little girl riding a mule.
That was when George put his oar in.
“I’ll look at this creature, if you don’t mind,” he said, and without waiting for permission, lifted the tot out of the simple riding-pad, and began a thorough inspection of the beast.
Andie was going to protest—then thought better of it. After all, what did she know about horses and mules? Merrha’s cousin wouldn’t cheat her, but what about the unknown neighbor? She watched as George looked in the mule’s mouth, inspected its eyes and the insides of its long ears, then felt each of its legs, picking up the foot for a complete inspection of each hoof.
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When he finished, he stood up, and patted the mule’s shoulder with one armored hand. “Older, but not elderly.” That was directed at the woman, who nodded.
“A sturdy fellow, if you expect endurance rather than speed, and don’t overload him. Good tempered—my youngest can handle him.” The woman patted the mule herself, and it flicked an ear at her. “My neighbor breeds good donkeys and mules, but this is one he’s kept, waiting for someone a little out of the ordinary to take him—someone we know will be kind to him. If I were going on a long journey, he’s the mount I’d pick.”
“You’re sharp, but fair, Mother,” said Andie, who was actually quite pleased with how things had come out. She still had most of the belt, all her rings and half the bracelets. They had everything George had asked her to get, plus more bedding, a large piece of canvas that could serve as a tent or a rain shelter, and she had more clothing and some medi-cines. And she had taken the opportunity to get the woman—whose name she still did not know, and did not want to know—to help her bandage her shoulders. The pain of the scrapes was already less, and she wasn’t as concerned about infection anymore.
“Thank you,” Andie said, once she was mounted up on the saddle-pad, nicely balanced between the shoulderbags holding some supplies in the front of the saddle and the panniers holding the bulk of their purchases behind. For someone who was not a rider, this was very comforting.
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“You are very welcome,” the woman replied. “We wish you all success in your Quest.”
And with that reserved farewell, she withdrew into her house. George gazed after her, his body language registering puzzlement and surprise.
“Let’s go—I’ll explain,” Andie urged. “We need to make as much distance as we can before we camp for the night.”
George shrugged and clucked to his horse. The mule followed, and as soon as they were out of sight of the farmhouse, and well on the trail leading upward out of the valley, he held his horse back for a moment so that they could ride side by side.
“I don’t know her name, so that if we are questioned about who sold us what, I can honestly say I don’t know,” she said without preamble. “I don’t expect us to be caught, but both that woman and I know it could happen, and anyone who helped us knowing that I was a lottery-maiden could be severely punished. So if someone were to question her, she only knows she sold things on behalf of her neighbors to a girl sent to her by her cousin in Ethanos, and to the girl’s brother George, who is a foreign knight. She doesn’t know the girl’s name, and the girl was dressed like an ordinary sort of person who could have been a shepherdess, or a farmer, or practically anything. She doesn’t know where I come from, whether it’s Ethanos or outside of it. And I don’t know who she is. Do you see now?”
He nodded. “And I can see that, since you took 176
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the time to bargain with them, they have no reason to consider us fugitives.”
She nodded somberly. “And from now on, we need to avoid people as much as we can. Sooner or later, someone will realize that you rescued me. And if you haven’t slain the dragon by then…”
“Even if I have, if what you are afraid of is true about the involvement of someone among the Queen’s Council, at least one person in the Royal Household is going to be angry and want to be rid of you,” George pointed out. “You won’t be safe until you are out of Acadia.”
There it was—bald and unadorned—the one fact she had avoided thinking about. She didn’t want to leave Acadia. But she couldn’t see any way around it.
She would have to, if she wanted to live. Not even the centaurs could hide her forever.
But if she left Acadia, nothing would have changed, except that she alone would be safe. All the things she feared for her people would still be hanging over them.
That—that was not acceptable, either. But right now she was quite out of ideas.
This was true mountain country, now, and true wilderness. Valley meadows, leafy trees halfway up the slopes, then evergreens gradually taking over at the higher altitudes…their road wound its way up and down through tree-tunnels that only intermit-tently allowed them to see the sky.
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It would have been a lovely journey under other circumstances. The weather remained fair, and remarkably pleasant, even if the night was going to be cold. She had only read about the wilderness, never experienced it for herself, and she found herself liking it a lot. Or—parts of it, anyway. The way it was never entirely silent, but simply quiet—bird-song a
nd insect noises, the rustle of leaves, the distant sound of water. She had never before realized how noisy people were. And the forest was so beautiful. She wasn’t at all used to deep forest; it was like being inside a living cathedral, with beams of light penetrating the tree-canopy and illuminating unexpected treasures, a moss-covered rock, a small cluster of flowers, a spray of ferns. These woods were old, too, the trees had trunks so big it would take three people to put their arms around them, and there was a scent to the place that somehow conveyed that centuries of leaves had fallen here and become earth.
Those were the good parts. The bad parts were that as tiring as walking had been, riding the mule all day used an entirely different set of muscles, and by mid-afternoon they hurt. A lot. She wasn’t looking forward to a bed on the ground.
They camped that night among evergreens, and George showed her how to make use of her herbs for a lentil stew for breakfast. She already was thinking longingly of the food back in the Palace—though, she was ravenous enough to have eaten almost any-
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thing. But their fare was plain in the extreme and even though there was quite enough to keep her from feeling hungry, still, images of roast fowl, lamb, bowls of ripe fruit and yogurt, fresh bread and hon-eycomb, and sweet wine kept intruding between her and her plain flatbread and crumbled goat cheese and olives.
She didn’t say anything about her cravings, though, because she was fairly sure George would take it as just another sign of weakness. So far as she was concerned, she was already showing enough of those as it was—because when she’d gotten down off the mule, she had discovered her legs hurt so bad she could hardly walk. The muscles on the inside of her thighs and calves were screaming by the time they had stopped for the night. She had thought she was in good physical shape, good enough to face just about anything….
Evidently not.
And when she’d gone off to the nearby stream for a wash, she had realized on splashing her face that the water was so cold it would make her very bones ache. There would be no bath; she’d be lucky if she didn’t end up too cold to get warmed back up again just doing a quick wash. And at that moment, sitting beside the stream, she wept, pining for a hot bath to ease away the aches. A stupid thing to cry over—hadn’t she escaped death? What was there to cry for?
But she was just so sore, so aching, so tired, and felt so alone—
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George was no help. The occasional moments of friendliness he showed toward her always turned to indifference or even what seemed to be barely concealed hostility. It was no use turning to him for any kind of comfort.
At least she hadn’t been anywhere that he could see her crying over wanting a bath, and the cold water had erased the traces of her tears. His raised brow as she hobbled around was bad enough. His earlier thaw had turned chilly again. Perhaps he was having second thoughts about having her along, doubting her ability to serve as any sort of a guide, questioning her usefulness.
Perhaps he still didn’t trust her solution for keeping The Tradition from mucking up their lives.
Certainly he was watching her carefully for any sign that she was becoming a burden. And she knew, she just knew, that the moment he could point to anything and say “You are holding up my progress,”
he would find a way to be rid of her. He must be certain that as a princess she couldn’t take care of herself, and that shortly she would be demanding things of him that were impossible. Like, say, a hot bath.
It was horrible, because she got an occasional glimpse of someone who could be a pleasant companion, and then it was as if he dropped the shutter over that part of himself, closing it off from her.
At least Merrha’s cousin had been more solicitous.
On learning that she wasn’t much of a rider, she’d insisted that Andie buy a bottle of sharp-scented lini-
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ment. It was effective, at least, and her legs had healed enough that she didn’t send herself into paroxysms of pain rubbing it into the places where she’d been pulling out splinters that first day. She took the opportunity when George went off into the woods to hike up her skirts and deal with the situation.
George lapsed back into his usual unnerving silence once he’d finished helping her with tomorrow’s breakfast. It was something of a relief to crawl into her blankets and close her eyes. At least she didn’t have to watch him staring into the fire with that faintly disapproving look on his face.
Of course, maybe that was her imagination at work. Maybe the scowl didn’t have anything to do with her. Maybe, given how poorly he’d fared in combat with the dragon the first time, he was trying to figure out a way to kill it all by himself. Certainly she wouldn’t be of much use there. Maybe the second thoughts he was having were about taking this Quest in the first place.
Or maybe not. Maybe he figured that her solution of declaring themselves brother and sister would only force them down another, equally noxious Traditional path, and he was trying to figure out what that would be.
Maybe he just doesn’t like me.
He certainly was a prickly sort. She had gotten the impression from tales and histories that Champions were a good bit more amiable than Sir George. This fellow acted as if he was afraid to let anyone near him.
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But what do I really know about Champions? Like Godmothers, there hadn’t been one in Acadia in a very long time. It wasn’t as if there was any real need for them. Nothing had ever happened that required something as potent as a Champion—until the dragon appeared….
She shrugged and pulled the blankets a little closer. I have some suspicions about exactly why that dragon appeared when it did, she thought, clenching her teeth. She wasn’t going to share them with George just yet, though. Maybe not ever.
The tip of her nose began to grow cold, and with a sigh, she pulled a corner of the blanket over her head.
At least tonight she had enough blankets. Last night there hadn’t been quite enough coverings; it hadn’t been bad while she was falling asleep, but once she was unconscious, she’d moved about and bits of her had been sticking out in the cold all night.
She must have half awakened six or eight times, with cold feet, or her neck and shoulder going stiff and cold, or the blanket slipping off her back. No fear of that tonight.
Of course, George didn’t need much except a saddlebag and his cloak. Or so he said. How he sleeps in that armor I will never know. Maybe there really was magic on it to make it comfortable, but it didn’t look like anything she would want to sleep in. And it must keep him pinned in one position all night long, since when she’d looked over at him, it hadn’t seemed as if he had moved at all. Lying on his back, with the 182
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cloak draped over him and his hands crossed over his chest, he had looked like an effigy on a tomb.
She shuddered at that thought, and fleetingly wondered if the Champion might not be able to defeat the dragon. What then?
Ruthlessly she shoved the thoughts and image from her mind for now. She needed to make some plans, and the first would be based on the assumption that George would do what he had come to do.
I need to decide what I’m going to do next. Go with Sir George when he left Acadia, of course—that was the immediate future. She couldn’t do much about what was going to happen when he actually caught up to the dragon, but until then, she really was helping him negotiate the countryside, even if he wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself. Without her along, the country people would be less friendly, and though she might not know where the beast’s lair was, she did know the roads of Acadia and what was in the kind of countryside they were passing through. But once he killed the dragon, she would become exactly the useless burden he thought her.
When that happened, she would have to have a plan, a reason for him to take her along.
I could
tell him I need to talk to the Chapter-Head.
It wouldn’t be a lie, either; she did need to speak directly to someone about her suspicions. Surely the Godmothers and the Wizards should look into the situation, at least. Even if they didn’t interfere directly, they might find a young hero with the right One Good Knight
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Traditional background who could go to Acadia and set things right. Or they could tell her that her fears were groundless, and she could go home again.
But what if he doesn’t survive? Again, the unpleasant thought intruded. And she finally admitted to herself that was a situation she probably ought to plan for. If he couldn’t kill the dragon—
If he’s hurt, I will need to find someone to take care of him; I am not a physician nor a Healer. If he’s dead…someone will need to be told—his ChapterHead, at least. And in either case, I am going to need to find a new Champion for Acadia. If there had been anyone capable of taking the dragon in Acadia, it would have been dealt with months ago; The Tradition would have seen to that.
That would mean getting out of Acadia on her own. Well, she could do that a lot faster, now that she had a mule. Once outside the borders, she supposed, it should be possible to find her way to the Chapter-House that Sir George belonged to—Glass Mountain. Surely one could ask to be directed to these things. It stood to reason that if a band of Acadian farmers and shepherds could find the place, she ought to be able to.
It isn’t as if Champions are trying to hide themselves, she reminded herself. What would be the point of that? They were supposed to be accessible. How could you find them to get them to handle a monster or lead an uprising against a cruel tyrant if you couldn’t get anyone to tell you where they were?
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No, it stood to reason that people knew where the Champions’ Chapter-Houses were. And if George was defeated, she would just have to go and bring back an older and more experienced Champion.
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