He had to brave the stables, all the same, so he took care not to be seen at all as he came around the western flank of the keep, and approached the stable fences. He kept his head down and his face shadowed by the hood as he slipped along the outer fence into the stable itself, where the few courier horses and the king’s own horses alone had not gone down to pasture. In the near dark of the interior he lifted a plain leather halter and ordinary lead rope from its peg beside the nearest stall, ignored the inquisitive blazed nose that poked out to sniff the air around the theft, and was gone out the door again, down by the main Guelesfort gate, which was, by day, not usually shut.
Here he expected to pretend to be a serving boy on an errand; but the guards were inside the guardhouse, out of the weather, and paid no attention as he simply walked out.
In the town streets, he lengthened his stride, taking only moderate care to keep his head down and keep the wind from blowing the hood half-back. He kept the cloak clutched about him and the halter and the large bundle under it, and hoped for at least as much luck as he entered the lower city and approached the town gates.
Here, too, the thick snow obscured a mere straggle of farmerfolk and craftsmen going in and out on ordinary business. He simply walked close in the tracks of a pair of craftsmen, head bowed. With them, he passed beyond the gates, out onto the road that led through a scattered few craftsmen’s dwellings, past a few fences, and then took a brisk stride along beside snowy winter orchards and fields and pasturages, leaving other traffic behind. Oxen and cattle huddled near haystacks, or in the lee of shelter walls. He saw horses in pasture, a few, but he had his mind set on one horse, the one to which he had some legitimate claim, at least, not to be called a thief.
He wished he had been able to bring Paisi’s own bridle, and most of all his saddle, which were stored in the tack room up above. But that had been too great a risk, and someone would have stopped him. He hoped the halter would fit, or that he could make it fit. He was cold to the bone, and his feet were numb by the time he reached that pasture where Tammis ranged. The sky was gray and the whole world else was white, and he feared that no sensible creature would come to a call in this weather. He stepped through the rails and trudged out into the midst of the pasture. They had learned a whistle for Tammis—none worked on Feiny—and when he whistled into the blowing wind, once and three times, then he saw, indeed a dark head come out of the little copse of trees a distance away.
He had no apple for a bribe, but in his bundle he had honey sweets he had saved from the table, and when Tammis had nosed up to him, he could deliver a small offering.
He slipped the lead-line over Tammis’s neck to be sure of him while he was enjoying his treat, and cold-numb fingers managed, with some little difficulty, to get the ill-fitting, cold-stiff halter over the piebald’s poll and settled behind his ears.
Then he could lead Tammis toward the gate. Tammis had no notion he was being stolen. He went cheerfully enough. There was little else he could give him, he knew, but the bread, if a horse would eat it. And how they should feed him when he reached Gran’s, not to mention his own horse’s appetite, he had no idea. He supposed he should take both Feiny and Tammis up the hill once he got home and turn them over to Lord Crissand, praying him to send them home to his father, so he and Paisi should not be obliged any further.
The thought hurt. He wanted not to think that far ahead.
He was careful to close the gate once he had passed it. The horsemaster had lectured him and Paisi very strictly about gates, as if he and Paisi had not come to Guelessar knowing that already, regarding Gran’s goats, who could manage most latches for themselves.
And there, in the snowy lane, he seized Tammis’s shaggy mane, poised himself, and vaulted for his back, bundle and all, the way the stableboys did. The first attempt, encumbered by the bundle, he slid right off Tammis’s rump and woolly side, but it was close enough to encourage him: the second try, in which he brought Tammis close to the fence and shifted his bundle to the hand that gripped the mane and the rein, let him make a leap, wriggle his knee across Tammis’s well-padded backbone, and thence ease astride, Tammis being a fairly patient horse.
Off they went, then, Tammis ambling along in no great hurry at first, then warming into a jog that kept them both warm. They reached the highroad, and Tammis was sure at that point that they would be going north, toward town, but he reined him about in a wide circle and turned southward, as the merchants traveled, with no one in sight north or south, in the threatening weather.
He had gotten away clear. He was going home, the same way Paisi had gone, and he would keep faith with Gran, at least. If she wanted him to go back again, he would tell Gran that the ways of Guelessar were not for him, that he was homesick, that he might see his brother later, on his regular visit—all such excuses as he could contrive.
And maybe his father would indeed come riding past with Aewyn as they always had, and maybe after much of a year had passed, they could exchange greetings and he could pay his respects to his father and patch things as if nothing very bad had happened.
Or maybe there would only be soldiers, to collect the horses, and bid him stay away from Guelessar forever, since he had done things so badly and made trouble with the priests. That notion, which he thought more likely, settled like a leaden weight in his chest.
He had dreamed of Guelessar in his childhood, and thoroughly enjoyed his first days in the Guelesfort, oh, so full of wonders; and with Aewyn for his friend. But they had taken a dark turn in the Quinaltine, at Festival, and he had no wish to see all the good memories go sour, or do further harm to his father’s reputation or to Aewyn’s. He wished no one ill—wished no harm, even to Brother Trassin, who had wanted to pray for him and save his soul, but he felt the urgent need, for this hour, to be far from here as fast as he could persuade Tammis to travel before the tangle grew deeper and darker. He just had to get home and be sure Gran was all right.
What he would do then—then, and forever afterward, he had no scrap of a notion. He had planned everything toward Guelessar, toward his father. Now he found himself not quite a man and no longer a child—even his time with Gran had become perilous, perhaps on the verge of passing. She was very old, and frail, and he and Paisi both knew she might leave them someday soon.
Then what? Then what, and where?
And what will I be, if I come home too late this time?
Gran had sent him out to find his fortune. His time with Aewyn, and among the books, had all been aimed at growing up and becoming a man who could support the family: Aewyn had been so convinced they would grow up together, and be allies, and now all that plan was gone, he began to realize it was not Otter the child who was coming home to Gran. Otter had grown up in his winter in Guelessar, grown up and gone away and looked to have very grown-up men angry with him and fearful of him.
Lord Crissand might not be as well-disposed as before, either.
Where was safety for them, then?
Tammis’s hooves found packed snow in a track where carts had passed, and thumped along good-naturedly, his breath frosting on the wind. Snow turning his shaggy mane white. Tammis carried him home, not at all the Otter who had left, but another creature altogether, one he hoped had, on this last day, grown warier and become harder to catch.
iv
IT COULD NOT BE TRUE. IT COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE TRUE, WHAT THE BODYGUARDS whispered among themselves.