Ken-in chewed his lip. You’re not going up into the hills alone, my lady, surely?’
‘I certainly am,’ she assured him, moving to check the girth on the saddle of her chosen horse. She pulled it tight and poked the animal in the ribs just for good measure in case it was inclined to hold its breath. ‘Where’s the mounting block?’
‘You’re not setting off now?’ Ametine gasped, wringing her hands in confusion. ‘It’s nigh on dark.’
‘What has that to do with anything?’ asked Velindre with ominous calm. ‘Or with you, for that matter?’ She settled herself in the saddle and, walking the horse carefully around the yard, she nodded with satisfaction at the animal’s well-schooled responsiveness. ‘You’ll do, won’t you?’ She patted his shoulder and turned her attention back to the disgruntled youth now leaning against the wall by the back door of the inn. ‘Did you get the provisions I asked for? And everything else?’
The boy rubbed a hand over his head, knocking his knitted cap awry. ‘Well, yes, but—’
‘Go and get them,’ Velindre invited with a hint of irritation. Now, Ametine, isn’t it? My luggage, if you please?’ Ametine brought the heavy leather bag over and Velindre secured it to the metal rings attached to the front of the saddle.
Ken-in appeared from a tack room by the outer arch of the yard carrying an oilskin bundle bound with leather straps in his hands, bulky furs slung over one shoulder and a small sack hanging from the other arm. ‘I did what you bid, but you can’t be thinking—’
‘The cloak, if you please.’ Velindre held out a commanding hand. ‘Tie everything else to the back of the saddle.’
‘But madam ‘
She cut off his protest by pulling the cloak off his shoulder. Standing in her stirrups, she settled the heavy fur around herself. She found a round hat in one deep pocket and gauntlets in another, beaver pelt, wonderfully warm and silky. She pulled them over her kidskin gloves, ignoring Karin who was muttering under his breath as he secured the food and grain on the horse’s rump. She wouldn’t go hungry, Velindre noted. In fact, she’d best discard what she could as soon as she was outside the city, lest the horse prove overburdened.
‘You can’t set off now. You’ll be dead and froze by dawn.’ Ametine’s breath smoked in the lamplight and she was shivering in her indoor maid’s livery. Now that the sun was down, the temperature was falling like a stone.
The bells of the city proclaimed the end of the day with ten brisk chimes as Velindre offered the silent horse-trader a double handful of white-gold crowns. ‘That should pay for the horse. What’s his name?’
‘Oakey.’ The horse-trader tipped his hat briefly to her and clicked his tongue to get the unwanted horse walking out of the stable yard. Oakey whickered briefly after his stable mate and Velindre soothed him with a pat beneath his mane before fishing in her purse again. ‘Ametine, here’s payment for your time and trouble. You can share it with your absent friend or not, as you see fit.’
She tossed a couple more Tormalin crowns to Ken-in, who looked up at her sullenly. ‘I appreciate your offer of an escort and I’m sorry if you’ve made a fool of yourself telling your friends you’re heading into the wilds on some adventure.’ It was too dark to see if the boy was blushing but his ducked head suggested to Velindre that she’d guessed right. ‘Believe me, boy, you don’t want to go where I’m heading,’ she said sternly. ‘And any mage worth the name doesn’t need an escort, whatever the weather, so don’t think of following me in some misguided hope of riding to my rescue in case of marauding trappers. I shall see any such trouble long before it finds me. I’ll also see you if you’re fool enough to try coming after me, and I will be seriously displeased.’
Satisfied to see apprehension replace the mulishness in Kerrin’s face, she carefully gathered up her reins in her double-gloved hands and drew the horse’s head around towards the open archway. The inn’s ostlers watched her ride out, shaking their heads in bafflement. Several turned questioning faces to Ametine but she had already disappeared inside the warm inn.
Out on the road, Velindre turned the horse’s head up the hill. ‘Come on, Oakey.’ The reluctant animal was evidently none too pleased to be heading away from a companionable stable yard with a bitterly cold night coming rapidly on. She used her heels to convince him otherwise, urging him to his fastest walk, wary of the cobbles in sheltered corners already slick with frost. Best to be out of the city gates before dusk, when some watchman was bound to take it into his head to ask where she was going, laden for travel at such a time. Not that any watchman could stop her. All the same, any gate-ward mentioning such a meeting to some superior among the Guilds would increase the chances of her visit being reported back to curious ears in Hadrumal.
The inns of Inglis were doing a roaring trade satisfying fur trappers eager for light, warmth and companionship. Velindre soothed Oakey with a firm hand as a riot of song spilled out of one tavern door along with golden candlelight and a man who’d tripped over his own feet. A linkboy with his lantern swaying on a pole stared open-mouthed at her. Velindre ignored him, forcing her recalcitrant steed on..
She soon reached the long bridge that snaked across the wide expanse of the River Dalas on a succession of tall, solidly built pillars. Ice gathered in the narrow arches shone pale against the black water in the fading light. What would a water mage be doing in the far north in winter? she wondered idly. Was Azazir curious as to the nature of freezing?
The bridge was strewn with sand though there were few enough carts or carriages out to take advantage of the Guilds’ forethought. Most people were content to stay by their own firesides, counting the days till the festivities of the Spring Equinox. Did the Aldabreshin celebrate the Equinoxes? Velindre realised she didn’t know. No matter. Dev would know all the local customs and playing the guide was the least he could do in return for the lore she’d be bringing him. She only hoped Azazir would be able to explain his secrets without too much of the rambling and digression that so many of the oldest wizards seemed prone to indulge in. She didn’t have time to waste and she certainly hadn’t come this far to fail.
Oakey slowed as the animal sensed that her thoughts were elsewhere. Velindre prompted him back to a faster walk with hands and heels. With a shake of his head, the horse pressed on through the empty streets of close-shuttered, primly respectable houses. Velindre paid closer attention to their route. She’d only had a few occasions to come this way on previous visits to Inglis and had never had cause to go far inland before.
A gate-ward was warming himself by a brazier beneath the towering gatehouse astride the highroad. ‘We lock up at second chime of the night,’ he warned as Velindre passed by him. You’ll have to find another way in if you’re late back.’
‘I’ll remember.’ She nodded perfunctorily.
There were plenty of houses beyond the pool of light cast by the torches smouldering above the archway.
Inglis had gates for the better collecting of tariffs and dues, their tall towers serving as lookout posts, but there were no walls warranting serious defence. Who was there in these northern wilds to attack the city?
Is that what Azazir is seeking? Velindre wondered. She found herself increasingly curious about meeting this notorious wizard. Solitude and freedom to explore all aspects of his affinity, away from the noise and nosiness of Hadrumal. Otrick had always said he learned more from a day out on the storm-tossed headlands of this ocean coast than he did from half a season in Hadrumal’s libraries. She had certainly outstripped every other apprentice of her affinity among her contemporaries once Otrick had accepted her as his pupil and taken her away on those voyages of startling discovery.
Though there had been the few times when she had wondered if their wild trials of wind and wave were going to end in disaster. Best not forget also that Azazir’s experiments had resulted in his banishment from Hadrumal. Her father would be content to see the mage dead and it must have taken something considerable to stir him to that degree. She shivered, not cold inside her cocoon of fur and wool but just a little apprehensive. Oakey slowed again with a whicker of protest and she felt his muscles tensing obstinately beneath her legs. As she let the animal come to a complete halt, he laid his ears back irritably. ‘We’re going to make a good start on this trip tonight, whatever you might think, my friend.’ As she spoke, Velindre leaned forward to stroke the horse’s coarse, bristly mane. Magelight glimmered between her fingers and spread to wrap horse and rider in a shimmering aura, no brighter than the moonlight now shining from above. Velindre glanced upwards. The sky was clear, pricked with bright stars, and the Greater Moon was rising in a golden half-circle above the dark, featureless mass of the forested hills before her. ‘Come on, Oakey,’ she encouraged.