“ ’Tain’t a joke, m’lord.”
“No,” he said, “it isn’t, Paisi. Just take care of Gran.”
“I’ll fit Feiny out for ye,” Paisi muttered. “An’ ye ride slow on ’im, and ye mind your way. That’s a treacherous, wicked horse, I had me fill of his manners on the way here. An’ ’at’s a dire, dark wood, Marna is. Sensible people don’t go in there. Not even bandits go in. Or if they do, they don’t last long.”
He had seen the borders of Marna Wood when he was a young boy. He had gone that far, with Paisi. He had seen the dark, dead trees, and Paisi had told him then that things died, that went under those branches. The trees there never leafed, except a little straggle of branches, and never died, either. It was magical, in itself. And Ynefel lay beyond that boundary, across the river. That was where Lord Tristen lived.
So it was the way he had to go, and when he knew that, he could breathe again. It was not that he wanted to go at all. He had changed since he had last ridden out from Gran’s yard. He had learned to live in the king’s household. He had learned to stand straight and speak up when asked; he had learned to say m’lord this and m’lady that, and how to hold a knife and spoon—all useful things, but none useful in the world now. He knew how to tend goats and make cheese, and these were skills that would feed his body, but never his souclass="underline" not for him, to live in this little house. He suddenly knew that, and it was a lonely feeling, but it was at least a peaceful feeling. It was not that he meant to leave forever. But he had to leave, for now, for as long as he had to. And Gran had Paisi. That meant everything was as it ought to be. The world was astonishingly simple, when he removed himself from Guelemara, and from here.
So he put on his boots and his cloak, while Paisi, who had shoved his feet into work boots, had gone out to see to Feiny. Meanwhile Gran made up a packet of food for him.
“An’ there’s ample grain for the horse in the shed,” Gran said as she tied up the bundle, “as the young duke has sent, an’ gods, we’ve had a wicked time keepin’ the goats from it, ha’n’t we?”
“I’m glad His Grace has taken good care of you,” he said. He was done. He took the packet, and by that time Paisi had come in, saying Feiny was saddled, and had his gear, and had a pack of grain besides a blanket Paisi had used.
“Which ain’t as clean as it was,” Paisi said, “but it ain’t the Guelesfort, an’ the washin’ ’ll freeze like planks in this weather, won’t it? You got to watch Feiny, now, I’m tellin’ ye. Don’t you get too confident with ’im. He’s feistier ’n Tammis, tricksy as a downriver peddlar. You got to do with him the way ye do with ol’ Crook-horn, an’ slap ’is jaw if he offers to bite.”
“I will,” Otter said, and hugged Paisi and hugged Gran last. “You take care, most of all. You take great care, Gran.”
“Go on wi’ ye, flit here, flit there, home again an’ gone. Give ’Im our respects, hear? Say I said so. Mind—” Here Gran seized him by the arm with more strength than seemed likely in her hand. “Mind ye skirt Althalen, and leave the highroad there. Don’t ye stray into the old ruin, and above all don’t go so far as the ford at Lewenbrook, where the old battlefield is: that ain’t the way. The old places has their ways of drawin’ a body in, if a body has the Sight, as you do, and they don’t let go if they lay hands on ye. The gray lady ain’t no harm at all, nor’s her daughter. But don’t gawk about and don’t poke into any old stones.”
“I won’t. I won’t, Gran.” The stinging in his eyes was not the smoky chimney’s fault. It was his own, for standing there too long, with Gran pouring every warning in Amefel into his head, all in a rush. He kissed her, then ducked out the shed-side door, and found Feiny waiting for him out in the daylight, all saddled and caparisoned, ready and fretting. He had learned, however, on the road, not to dawdle about any business with horses, and after giving Feiny a rub on the nose and a pat on the neck to let him know who he was dealing with, he gave a little hop to get a grip on the saddle and get his toe in the stirrup. Then he rose, high as the shed, able to look down on the thatched eaves, Feiny dancing under him.
Paisi came out to wave good-bye. Gran came as far as the sheltered front door, and the longer they delayed with the door open, the more the chimney would smoke up Gran’s mantel-stone, besides the cold getting into the house and chilling away all the effort of heating it. He waved back, and thumped Feiny with his heels and took up rein—quickly, and firmly, because Feiny started off with a jerk of his head, trying to get the bit. Feiny had his own notions, at the gate, of turning back eastward, Paisi was quite right.
West was his rider’s firm choice, however. Otter used a heel to reinforce that choice, and Feiny threw his head and veered off and fussed the whole width of the road before he would turn westward.
But it was a clear enough morning. Again, just to the north, he could see the town under gray cloud, with the lowering smoke of cooking fires obscuring the heights where the Zeide sat.
The smoke obscured the tower, but he felt that reproachful gaze, the same as he had felt it every day of his life until he had left for Guelessar, and the whole last bit of his way home.
He knew it was there the same as he knew the place of the sun in the sky—more constant than the sun, it never changed. It never moved, or sank, or rose. Unlike the sun, it was sometimes warm, sometimes cold, and this morning it changed subtly from one to the other, as he went along the road. It grew colder, and more troubled, as he rode past the turn that would take him to Henas’amef.
He refused to look in that direction. He had no intention of going up there for any farewell. He gave a kick, and Feiny jumped, and launched into an outright head-down rebellion along the road, a revolt that tried his strength and courage before he could haul that stubborn head up again and get moving westward at a sane pace.
But what Feiny chose next was a heavy-footed jog of a gait he was not to encourage, Aewyn had told him that. Feiny clearly didn’t respect his handling, and with trepidation, he thumped his heels in and kept a firm grip. The discussion went on, Feiny throwing his head and trying to turn around, and himself kicking every time the horse stopped, struggling with the reins, and finally, finally, getting his way, the horse having sunk into sullen obedience, in the right direction at a sensible, smooth pace. There weren’t other horses to follow. They were leaving safe, warm places. It was a cold morning, and Feiny didn’t want to go west. The horse’s ears switched occasionally but stayed flat and angry.
But now that he and Feiny had reached a truce and settled the direction for the journey, he found his first time to think.
And thinking called up Aewyn, and Guelessar, and the meeting with Paisi and Gran, and leaving home again, when he had just reached safety.
He was a fool, he told himself. Then he doubted everything, and asked himself what he was doing riding away, and why he feared the soldiers, and why the presence in the tower scared him so this morning—as if he were caught at something wrong, when he knew he wasn’t wrong.
He hadn’t been wrong, in Guelessar, only out of place. Now he ran from his mother, chasing questions the answers to which he wasn’t sure he wanted to know at all, and going into a place where some people had gone and never come back. Was that a reasonable thing to do?
There were bandits, some years. He didn’t know if there were new ones, after Lord Crissand had hunted out the last. There were the old places, the ones Gran had warned him to avoid.
And Ynefel itself was nowhere a reasonable person ventured to go.
He didn’t, in fact, know what he was looking for. All his life, Paisi and Gran alike had been sure his father would come for him—and he had, had he not?
But that had gone awry. He had come home, all dressed in finespun, and with horses Gran had no way to feed, and with soldiers following him. Paisi insisted on calling him m’lord, even yet, and that wasn’t right—it would never be.