“Did you have any trouble?” Otter asked, trying to get the heavy grain sacks across Feiny’s neck.
“None,” Paisi said. He was wearing his field boots, and his good heavy cloak, and showed a flour sack he had gotten. “Sausages, a good white loaf, and cheese, white an’ yellow. I said ye was fussy an’ out of sorts, so’s ye know your state when ye get back to your rooms, m’lord.”
“Hold him,” Otter said, and with Paisi’s help got the grain sacks across the saddlebow, at which Feiny sidestepped and threw his head, stamping one shod rear hoof like the crack of doom.
“Stop it,” Paisi said, shortened up the reins, and slapped Feiny sharply on the shoulder. “Don’t you kick, ye rascal.”
More baggage went up. Otter struggled with the saddle ties atop the quilted barding, hoping not to have the blankets and sacks spilling in opposite directions, and he stood on the stone curb to tie the knots. It was a poor job. It made no orderly bundle, but it stayed, at least, until he could get his foot in the stirrup and get into the saddle.
Paisi handed him up the reins. It was their plan to go out like man and servant—young lords were prone to errands at the edge of dawn and dark, not the sort, Paisi said, that the gate-guards were apt to question, and if asked, he had to say he was visiting a friend.
Lies, again, but the sort that would get Paisi on his way. Beneath his cloak, Paisi had all the coin they had but his lucky pennies, the small hoard that Gran had given them—“Which I won’t need,” Gran had said, pressing her savings on them, “but who knows, in the city?”
Who knew, indeed? But with the pennies, Paisi could stop at farmhouses and buy a place for him and Feiny to sleep, out of the wind, and perhaps buy more grain than what he had, if Feiny ate it all.
Feiny started to move—the horse was inclined to move the moment he had someone on his back, never mind where, and frequently in an inconvenient direction. Otter anxiously drew the reins in to the least freedom Feiny ought to have, and pressed him with his knee, and turned him toward the gate, a direction not to Feiny’s liking. But he let Feiny know with his knee and his hands that he was bent on that gate ahead of them, and that Feiny shouldn’t throw his head and try to shoulder Paisi down. He had never been inclined to hit the horse, as the grooms said he should; but this morning he desperately gave Feiny a sharp kick and a short rein, and with a sigh, as if it had been a mere annoyance, Feiny went toward the gate.
It was shut at this hour. Paisi went first to the gate warden’s post and rapped at the little oaken door. “The watch, there!”
Otter bit his lip and kept Feiny still while Paisi talked to the gatekeepers and requested the gate open. The gatekeeper came out, carrying a lantern nearly useless in the growing dawn, and held it aloft for a passing look at Otter’s face. Then: “Ye better watch that ’un,” the guard muttered, he hoped regarding the horse, which was backing and stamping a hind foot, and signaled the other man to run the chain back on the iron gates.
The gates moved quietly on their hinges, well-kept gates, opening just a little earlier than ordinary, and Paisi walked by Otter’s stirrup as they moved briskly through, Feiny turning a wary and misgiving eye to the gate wardens.
They went out onto the high street and along the stone wall where the great Quinaltine hulked against the dawn sky ahead of them. There, under that vast and disapproving stone presence, they crossed the square and took the downward street as the light grew. Merchants opened their shutters and began to set out their wares. Housewives swept their steps clean of snow, and stared at their passage with more curiosity than Otter liked.
Perhaps the stablemaster would wake and ask where Feiny had gone. Perhaps soldiers would come to stop them before they got to the gate.
But no one spoke. Merchants stared as they passed and looked up the gray and lonely street as if they expected to see more than two riders.
Paisi, walking briskly at Feiny’s head, said not a word, not all during the long way down, not when they began to see a few other people coming up the hill toward the market square, one man with a mule, several men carrying bundles behind him. There began to be more such, and Otter breathed more easily. They had passed the delicate moments in which they were the only travelers on the street, and become less conspicuous, to Otter’s way of thinking.
It was the western gate they chose, the lower end of Market Street, where a sparse weekday market was spreading its canvas, only three merchants as yet beginning to offer wares on a threatening and snowy morning, and those the sort of goods that might fare best on such a day: knit goods, dyed wool, and hot cider.
The city gates beyond were open, now, a fresh scrape in the snow to show where they’d moved, not long ago at all. And blocking those gates, a small outbound company of pack mules and packhorses milled about. A pair of merchants, wrapped up in cloaks, were talking with the gate wardens.
Here was the place Otter chose to get down, screened by the small caravan, the two of them afoot and anxious.
“ ’Ere might be a lucky thing,” Paisi said in a low voice. “Wait an’ look wise.”
Otter opened his mouth to ask what Paisi intended, but Paisi ducked away from him, walked in among the mules, and a few moments later came back with one of the merchants, a respectable-looking graybeard hooded against the snow.
“This is indeed your man, your lordship?” the merchant asked.
Look wise, Paisi had said, and Otter had stood lookout for Paisi in little mischiefs before, in Amefel. His part was to be the lord, and he stood as tall as he could and pretended he was Aewyn. “He is, sir.”
“As they’re goin’ by way of the monastery at Anwyfar, m’lord,” Paisi said, “an’ they’ll feed me an’ the ’orse for as long as I ride alongside, it bein’ safer wi’ another rider in the company. A pack train, an’ all mounted, can move right along in this snow.”
There were now and again robbers to fear on the roads, when the weather made men desperate. It was a handsome offer, good for both parties, and the merchants clearly took Paisi for a lord’s personal messenger.
“As they’ll break any drifts wi’ them big mules, and switch the lead about,” Paisi said, “an’ it’ll be far easier an’ faster.”
Far faster. Otter found his heart beating hard, perhaps simply because their plan was finding great good luck, and he nodded. “A good idea,” he said, taking Paisi’s word as law. He handed over Feiny’s reins. “Excellent.” It was one of the king’s own words, in the king’s tone. “Be safe.”
The last words were not lordly: they were desperate. Paisi’s gloved hand took the reins.
“M’lord,” Paisi said, with a huskiness in his voice. “I’ll be quick as I can.”
“Do,” Otter said, then it was the plan, clearly, that he keep on being the lord and simply walk away, leaving the details to Paisi, who would travel far, far more safely by reason of the merchants.
Luck. Happenstance. Everything had fallen into place so neatly— everyone who could have opposed them had just not happened by, had not looked out their windows, or turned up in the stable early, and the gate wardens had showed no suspicion at all. It was done, and now Paisi would do what he promised and see to Gran, in the hopes that all their good fortune was just that.
Gran could bend luck. She claimed to bend it ever so little, being only a hedge-witch, but that they had been so lucky might be good news, that Gran’s witchery was working; or bad news, that Gran was in direst need and bent luck around them, who were hers, in great desperation to get help.