Now the female did speak.
“We have no part in such plans, we want none!”
“We may believe now we have no part,” he corrected her. “We are not movers and shakers, doers and undoers—but many times such, even as we, are entangled in the nets of Great Ones. Let be! In truth, by the old promise and the covent, having come hither by the——” (those words once more), “you have a right to claim refuge. You have followed a road long unused but none the less important. Yes”—now his eyes slitted in turn—“we are not kin, nor comrade ones to your kind, nor have we, in many years, sworn aid to anyone. But because you have come to us by certain ways we are bound to shelter you. You are free to stay, or go, whichever you wish.”
Abruptly then he vanished in a long, graceful bound, the female swift behind him, leaving me alone in the ruined courtyard as the sun sank behind the heights, its light lost in the shadow of what had once been a watch tower.
Wait—he had said wait. For what—or whom? I did not altogether like the sound of that. Had it been really a command? He had also said that I could go at my desire, though I was not about to strike out across this countryside among growing shadows and the coming dark of night.
There was no evil here and it was shelter of a sort. I cupped the globe tightly between my hands. What I had heard was tantalizing, but that I could get any more information out of the cats was doubtful. Oddly enough, now that they were gone, a loneliness touched me. There was no fear—just that emptiness.
I looked at the gaping doors. No, I had no mind to enter into that place. I would spend this night right here in the courtyard under the open sky.
So I harvested armloads of grass, pulled from the thick growth in what had been the garden. This I made into a nestlike bed. Once more I ate berries, found a small stream of water and drank my fill, washed my hands and face, combed all I could of the soil from my hair, and made up my mind to try to wash it clean with the coming of the morning.
I would have liked to have set a fire—I had a spark-striker in my belt pouch—but I sought no wood for one. It seemed more prudent to me that the dark of the courtyard remain. I wanted no advertisement of my presence. The cats had said this was a safe refuge but I did not want to test the truth of that. What they might deem enemies and what I could fear might be two different things altogether.
As I stretched out on my bed, my arms beneath my head, looking up into the darkening sky, I sought to plan what I must do when morning came. The cat’s word—that I was to wait—I did not care for that . . . unless I had some idea of what I waited for. On the other hand, without any guide, supplies, horses—what was I to do? To go wandering off, without any aim, across a land that was far more hostile than it looked—that indeed would be rank folly.
It seemed to me, now that I had a period in which to think through events since I had left Norsdale, that so far I had been singularly favored by fortune. The meeting with Elys and Jervon—had that really happened by chance alone? Or had I, by my choice in Norsdale, my determination to cling to Kerovan, set in motion a series of events that linked, one with the other, to foster some action determined by a will beyond my reckoning?
It is never pleasant to believe that one is moved here or there by that which one does not understand. As a child I had come and gone at the bidding of my uncle or Dame Math. Then later I had been the one to give orders, to decide the fates of more than myself when I led the survivors of Ithdale into the wilderness. I had many times been uncertain of my own judgment. Still I had had to make decisions and sometimes quickly, so that I grew more confident and sure of myself.
My lord had never said do this, do that. Though according to Dales law I was as much his servant as the youngest serving wench in his hall. He had stood beside me, been like my right hand or my left when there was need, but never intruded his own orders unless such was for our good, and then in such a way that his suggestion came not as a direct command, but rather as if I, too, must see the logic of it even as he did.
Was it the Waste and its ghostly shadows that now made me doubt my independence—think that perhaps after all I had made no real choice that was of my own wishing? How far back did such an influence then exist?
Had it come about long years ago when my uncle chose my lord—when I, a child of eight, was axe-wedded to a boy I had never seen? Or did the entanglement, which I now feared existed, start when my unknown husband had sent me the gryphon? Or did it follow after the invaders’ attack upon Ithdale? Or—had our fates been decided even in the hour of our births?
Did any Jiving thing have complete freedom of choice in this eerie country—or was what I had said to Elys the truth, that we who were born here had other heritage than human, were bound to Powers whether we knew it or not?
I knew that there was only one major truth in my life, and that was that Kerovan and I were meant to be one in the same manner as Elys and Jervon—each bringing to that unity different gifts and talents—so that the whole was greater. That Kerovan would not, or could not, admit this, did not release me, nor would it ever. No words of his, no action he might take, could make me other than I was.
Shutting my eyes upon the sky. I drew into my mind the memory of his face. The vision had not faded any during the many days we had been apart. I saw him as clearly now as I had on that morning in Norsdale, when he had put aside all I offered to ride away, as clearly as I had when trapped in the cave I had sought and had seen him. Now I strained to bring about once more that, only it did not come, no matter how much I willed it.
With Kerovan thus with me in memory, the only way I could hold him now. I drifted into sleep, holding fiercely to this small piece of comfort—the single one I knew.
I was warm—I must have slept too near the fire. Trying to edge away from the heat, f opened my eyes upon a dazzle of sunlight, which struck full upon me, turning my mail into a highly uncomfortable covering. As I sat up, my hair caught and tangled with the withered grasses on which I had slept, and I tried to shake that mass free as I looked, heavy-eyed, about me.
From the high position of the sun I must have slept clear through the night and well into the next morning. The birds still flew in and out of the vines, making a rising din with their chirpings and song. Otherwise the courtyard was deserted. There was no sign of either cats or bear.
My body ached. Though there was the padded jerkin between my body and the mail, still I missed the under-shirt I had torn in the cavern. I itched and felt as unkempt and dirty as any vagabond. I longed for cleanliness of skin, for fresh clothing. If I only had the saddlebags I had left in the camp the Thas had engulfed!
I arose slowly, stretching, wanting to feel more alert and lithe of limb. Once on my feet, I stood with my hands on my hips looking about.
This ruin must have long been just that—an abiding place for only birds and animals. Today, in the warmth of the sun, I no longer sensed that feeling of intrusion that had come upon me when I first entered the courtyard. This was only a shell from which life had long departed.
“Halloooo?” I did not know just why I tried that call. My voice was not loud, but it echoed emptily in a way that kept me from trying a second call. The cats—almost I could believe that I had dreamed them—still I knew that I had not.
Before I went to seek food and water I determined to know more of this place and I eyed the nearer tower speculatively. If the flooring within it remained intact I should be able to climb to a point high enough to see more of the country. That survey was imperative before I made even the shortest of plans ahead.