“All right,” said Rigg. “But I was more worried about whether the carriage would stay.”
“So let’s all let go of it and go back to Umbo’s and Param’s time and see if the carriage stays.”
“But I don’t want it here by the road.”
“Then we’ll go back and move it. Let’s just see first,” said Loaf. “Before we go to all the trouble of pushing it down the hill and then finding out that it stays in the present and General Citizen’s spies will spot it instantly.”
“Smart,” said Rigg.
“You say that,” said Olivenko, “as if the fact that Sergeant Loaf here thought of it, and not you, must mean that you’re stupid.”
“Get used to it,” said Loaf. “Rigg is constantly surprised when somebody is smarter than he is.”
“We’ve all let go of the carriage,” said Rigg, ignoring their banter. “Umbo, bring us back to the present.”
The fences were gone. The cow was gone. The carriage was gone.
“Good job,” said Umbo. “You got rid of it.”
“We didn’t move it,” said Olivenko, “and it’s gone.”
Rigg looked among the paths on the road and found the answer. “Within a day after we left it there, a half dozen paths come up to the thing and stop. With a couple of horses—no, too small. Donkeys. Not ideal, but strong enough to move the thing. They took it—down to that barn.”
“What barn?” asked Olivenko.
“The rotting weathered shards of wood there,” said Umbo, pointing. “They used to be a barn.”
Rigg took off running, and Umbo was with him at once. “You stay there, Param!” That almost guaranteed that she would come walking down the slope with Olivenko and Loaf, picking her way over the uneven ground.
Inside the rectangle defined by a few scraps of standing wall, and amid the ruin of a fifty-years-fallen roof, the wheels of the carriage were still identifiable. As were the rusted and tarnished metal fittings.
“Well, ain’t that something,” said Loaf.
“Waste of a good carriage,” said Olivenko. “Those folks took it from the road, and never did another thing with it.”
“Good hiding place, though,” said Umbo.
“They took it out quite a few times at first,” said Rigg. “Got four horses to pull it. But not always the same people—it was like the neighborhood carriage. I count . . . five different groups that took it out at different times. But always the same horses.”
“They bought four horses?” asked Umbo.
Rigg knew what he was thinking. Nobody in Fall Ford could have bought four horses, all at once.
“They must have pitched in together to buy them,” said Loaf.
“Well, they never replaced them,” said Rigg, looking at the paths. “For a while they pulled the carriage with three horses, and then two. And then the carriage never went out again after that. So they had the use of the carriage as long as the horses lived.”
“Probably worked the horses to death at the plow and harrow, or pulling wagons at harvest,” said Loaf.
“I wonder if they thought it was worth the price, to have the carriage to take out now and then.”
“Our little gift cost them,” said Rigg.
“Come on, they loved it,” said Umbo. “What if we could have had carriage rides when we were little, Rigg?”
“Imagine your father chipping in to buy a pig, let alone four horses, and then sharing!”
Umbo shuddered. “Let’s get back up to the road. They haven’t been waiting somewhere till we finished our business. What if they came up the road right now? What would we do?”
Rigg led the way back up the slope toward the horses. He could see that uphill was hard for Param, but then Olivenko was instantly there, helping her, and so Rigg ran on ahead. At the top of the hill, as he stroked the horse that he had decided was his, he scanned for new paths being formed in the road behind and below them. For miles out he scanned, and saw no paths except those of animals and local people going about their business. No urgency yet.
For a moment Rigg thought it might be a good idea to go back a few days into the past, all of them, including the horses, putting more time between them and any pursuers. But then he nixed the idea without saying it aloud. To go back, they’d need to latch on to someone the way they had with Olivenko. That would be memorable, and when General Citizen’s men came along, they’d know that Rigg’s party was time-jumping.
And if they jumped ten years, or fifteen years, or a hundred years into the past, then what? How could they guess what troubles they might run into? Or how they might change the future? Maybe they’d start a legend about travelers appearing out of nowhere—or, worse yet, about a prince and princess appearing out of the sky. Either General Citizen or Mother would have guessed what happened and been ready to intercept them as soon as they got on this road. No, they’d travel in the present until something forced them to do otherwise.
The journey went faster now, even though three of them were walking. Param started out astride a horse—that was hard enough work—with Loaf taking the other to ride ahead and scout the way. Before long, Param insisted on dismounting and taking a turn walking. “I’ll never build up my walking strength by sitting on a horse. Besides, it isn’t all that comfortable. It chafes my thighs and I feel all stretched out.”
They traveled for another couple of weeks this way, Param walking farther and farther before needing to ride again, until she was walking all the way. They bought more provisions at two different farmsteads, and at the last one, the farmer said, “Don’t know where you think you’re going, but it isn’t there.”
“What isn’t there?” asked Olivenko.
“Anything,” said the farmer. “Ain’t nothing at all that way.”
“Maybe nothing’s what we’re looking for,” said Olivenko.
“You think to find the Wall,” said the farmer.
“Wall?” asked Olivenko.
“Ayup,” said the farmer. “At’s right, then. Oh, you’ll find it. All up that way. Day or two beyond.”
“Are there any brigands living in that area?” asked Loaf.
“Might be,” said the farmer. “If they is, they an’t bothering us here.”
“Then we’ll do fine,” said Olivenko.
“What you running away from?” asked the farmer.
Rigg didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “You,” he said. “We want to get to a place where nobody pries into other folks’ business.”
“Soldiers patrol along there, you know,” said the farmer, not taking the hint. “You never know when they’ll come along. Just thinking you might want to know that, if you’re running away and don’t want to get caught.”
Rigg changed his estimation of the man at once. “Thank you for the warning.”
“Why do you think a man moves to this part of the wallfold?” said the farmer, grinning. “Run off with a rich man’s wife, you got to get off to a far place where you’ll never meet the old cuckold by chance. Close to the Wall, but not too close. I know what it is to run. So does my wife.”
Rigg looked at the half-toothless woman and the five children who huddled around her and thought: Is she happy with the bargain that she made? He could see that she had once been pretty.
They paid the man for the provisions—paid exactly what he asked, with no bargaining, since they were buying silence as well, if it could be bought, or at least thanking him for his attempt at good counsel.
There was no road now, and as they moved out across country, up hill and down dale, Rigg kept thinking about the farmer’s wife until he finally spoke up. “Why would she give up a life of comfort for what she has here?”
“She didn’t know it would be like this,” said Umbo, “and then it was too late.”
“She knew how the world works,” said Olivenko. “Her beauty would fade, her rich husband would replace her with someone younger.”