pump the water from the low-lying fields reclaimed from the fens. The keeper was a surly man
with a hunched back, shrivelled up like a blighted leaf. He greeted Gordoc but spared not a word
for Ramil or Tashi, sensing they meant trouble.
"I don't want to know," he said, biting the coin. "You can stable your horses here tonight, eat and sleep under my roof, but you're to be gone by sun up.
No names, no faces. If you're caught, you were never here."
After seeing to their horses, Ramil joined Tashi by the fire in the little room allocated to them.
Gordoc was supping with the miller, feet up on the table.
Ramil admired the strong man's ability to seize his chance to relax when it was offered. As for
himself, he was still jumpy, expecting their pursuers to be knocking down the door at any
moment.
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"How's the leg?" he asked Tashi, passing her a bowl of bean soup and a hunk of bread.
"Fine," she said quietly.
"You've just had an arrow pulled out of your thigh and you say it's fine!"
Ramil marvelled. Blue Crescent people were so understated, it beggared belief.
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"All right, it hurts." Tashi put the soup aside untouched.
"You have to eat." Ramil took a spoonful of his own meal, his empty stomach growling.
"I'm not hungry."
"I don't care if you're hungry or not; you have to eat or you'll slow us down."
Tashi closed her eyes, refusing to listen to him. His restless energy and positive attitude dropped
like a stone into her well of despair, causing a ripple before vanishing.
Ramil tapped her arm, annoyed by her passivity. "Look, I'm going to need some help here, Your
Highness. I may have got you out of the castle, but we're still in the middle of Fergox's empire,
hunted by all his troops by now."
"I told you to leave me behind."
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"And I told you that I was going to rescue you." He now knew how the Inkar had felt; he wanted to shake Tashi himself. "Listen to me: you've been through a terrible ordeal. Fergox has meddled
with your head, told you stuff that's not true, confused you. Are you going to believe what he
said, or what you've spent your whole life trusting?"
Tashi shivered. "I can't explain it, Ram. I think I've lost my beliefs completely.
My faith was like one of those bogs out there--I thought it was all green and pleasant until I tried
trusting myself to it, then I fell through." She clutched her hands together in a tense, desperate knot. "I'm drowning."
Ramil, who had never stopped to ask himself what
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he really believed, tried to imagine what it was like to be her, a person whose whole life had
been governed by an acute sense of her Goddess. He guessed a little of the emptiness and the
fear that Tashi was feeling. He thought he'd saved her from Fergox, but now he realized he'd
only brought part of her with him. If he was to do his job properly, he would have to help her
escape this too, unlikely though he was as a defender of the Blue Crescent faith.
"You think this just because he told you he bribed the priests?"
She nodded.
"Well, I've known for ages that he did that--the rumors have been around for years."
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"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No, it's supposed to make you realize that, once you were made into the Crown Princess, how
you got there no longer mattered to everyone else."
"It matters to me--it will matter to my people."
Ramil ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. "Look, I don't know very much about your
faith but if it's anything like mine, I'd be wondering if the Supreme Being cannot use even a man
like Fergox in his or her plans.
You might be where you are now because your Goddess exploited the
Spearthrower's greed. Maybe she wants you here."
Tashi opened her eyes. His dark gaze was fixed on her, full of compassion.
"Do you think that's true?" she whispered, hardly daring to allow herself to hope.
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"Oh, Tashi, I don't know." Ramil rubbed his face, not feeling up to this deep discussion, though he knew it was vital. "I've never claimed to know what's true when it comes to the big questions
of religion. I'm just an ignorant boor, remember."
She smiled at the reminder of her own rash words. Ramil felt an urge to kiss her sweet, sad lips,
but instead reached out and took her hand.
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"What I do know, Tashi, is that it is possible and preferable to the alternative explanation that Fergox is in control of all our destinies. And I suppose the only way to find out who is right is to
live our lives as if we do have faith in our Father--or Mother in your case. It seems to me that in
the end your Goddess and my God are two sides of the same Creator."
Tashi knew she had reached a turning point. She could continue on to despair, following the
path pointed out to her by the Spearthrower, or she could listen to Ramil and walk the way of
faith with nothing but hope to guide her. She knew which she wanted to choose, if only to spite
Fergox. Not the most admirable reason, but it would have to do for now.
"Thank you, Ram. I take back what I said about your being ignorant. I think you are wiser than
me."
"So you'll help us in this mad jaunt of ours through occupied lands, fleeing all the soldiers of the Empire?"
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," she said, picking up her bowl.
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Chapter 10
The Fens in winter were a strange place, home to wild birds with eerie calls that sliced through
the thick freezing mists curling off the water. The reeds were frosted white, pale ghosts of their
green summer selves. The channels were edged with wafer-thin ice like lace on a lady's gown.
Black eels could be glimpsed rolling in the muddy water beneath, their skins shining with an oily
sheen. The riders had to pick their way through the paths, often trusting themselves to unsafe
causeways and bridges as they headed deeper into the marshy lands. They saw only a few
people, most of whom travelled by flat-bottomed boats, going about their secret business away
from the highways of Fergox's empire. Wherever the three travellers could, they avoided being
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seen, hiding in the rushes until the waterpeople had passed.
Finding shelter at night was the main problem as they had now gone beyond Gordoc's
knowledge of these lands. After the mill, they had risked spending the dark hours in a
fisherman's empty hut, horses and humans crowded together for warmth. The rotten hull of an
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upturned boat hosted them the third day from Felixholt, but by the fourth they were in the
empty flats of the true Fens and were facing a night in the open.
Ramil looked down at the golden head of the girl sitting in front of him, who was wrapped in
scarf, cloak, and his own arms, but still she shivered. He wondered if she would survive a cold
night outside. Her wound was healing slowly and she winced with the pain any time she moved
her leg. Luckily no fever had set in--perhaps it had been too cold for that.
"We'll stop early tonight," Ramil announced. "Build a shelter and a fire."
Gordoc nodded. "Aye, Ram. We have to keep her warm."
The level space between two stands of rushes offered as good a campsite as any they would find