The Prince was still eating voraciously. Paulo was attempting to match him bite for bite, but was falling behind.
“D’Natheil, I must introduce you to one whose honesty I’ve much maligned. He was pursuing us with only good intent. This is Graeme Rowan, whom I induced you to bash on the head out of my mistaken interpretation of events.”
The Prince looked up.
“Sheriff, this is D’Natheil—no, more properly His Grace D’Natheil, Prince of Avonar, Sovereign of Gondai, Heir of D’Arnath.” D’Natheil was still dressed in the clothing of a dead farmer, the same shabby shirt and breeches I had rifled from Jacopo’s bins, but when he nodded his head, Rowan bowed to him, though I believed he had come to the meeting with no such intent.
“You’re not a wicked villain, then?” asked the Prince solemnly, as he motioned Baglos to empty the last dregs of breakfast into his bowl, even while scooping the last bite into his mouth. “Not a heinous, hide-bound slave of corruption that parades under the name of the law?”
“A servant of justice and order, but no slave, and neither heinous nor hide-bound, I trust,” said Rowan, just as solemnly.
“But at least a surly, knavish rascal who cannot abide the possibility of rational discourse from a female, and who could likely not even recognize such a thing were it to pop up from a tankard of ale?”
Rowan shook his head emphatically. “I’ve learned my lesson on that score from several sources.”
I looked from one to the other and felt my cheeks grow hot. “What is this conspiracy, gentlemen? I lead this expedition, and I’ll have no pompous men having secret understandings and uncivil attitudes. You’ve just met. How can you be conspiring already?” I threw up my hands and busied myself with smothering the fire, pointedly ignoring the two who burst out laughing at my discomfiture. But I felt a smile bubble up from deep inside me… from a place I had believed barren.
Baglos packed the last of his pots and bags and went with Paulo to collect the horses. Moments later, Baglos came running to D’Natheil in great agitation. “My lord, we cannot find your horse! We’ve had no luck at all in summoning him. Unless you can do something…”
“He’ll come.” D’Natheil closed his eyes, flicked his fingers in a small gesture, and whispered a word I couldn’t hear. But I felt it. Most definitely. The sheriff felt it, too, and watched the Prince intently. When I heard the distant pounding of hooves and saw the chestnut appear on the next hilltop, I was not surprised. D’Natheil looked satisfied as the graceful animal galloped into our camp and stopped within reach of his master’s hand.
Paulo grinned. “You must’ve learned his name.”
D’Natheil stroked the horse’s head. “Indeed I did.”
“And what is it, then?” I asked.
“He is called Sunlight.”
A relieved Baglos finished the loading, while I pulled out the journal and showed Rowan and D’Natheil its secrets.
“The first riddle is obvious,” I said, tapping lightly on the page. “A river is a road that never sleeps, and its travelers have no feet—boats and fish and such, of course. And we know we’re going to the mountains, so we must head upriver. But how far? When do we look for the next clue? The chest is the next, and it must indicate this one, ”It is the lesser brother’s portion that brings the greatest wealth and the lesser passage that finds its destination.“ ”
“It would imply a decision point,” said D’Natheil. “A fork in the road or some such, and we would take the inferior way.”
“We’ll have to trust that we’ll recognize it.”
In a short time all was ready. The sheriff knelt at the top of the hill, raising a dirty thumb to his brow, as stubborn in his piety as in all else. And so we set off in the sparkling morning, leaving the mournful ruin to the wind and the sparrows. With six of us together, and D’Natheil yanked back from the brink of despair, I felt more confident than I had in many days. But after only an hour’s riding on the little used path that paralleled the restless Glenaven, D’Natheil pulled up and looked back the way we had come. “We’d best ride hard,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Someone’s close behind.”
CHAPTER 31
The day flew by in a blur of grass and rocks and scattered trees. As we galloped toward the soaring majesty of the Dorian Wall, the gently sloping hillsides to the east and west of the river yielded to rougher country. Craggy knobs appeared, at first one here, one there, and then on every side. The meandering Glenaven moved faster here, darting restlessly between the rocks that threatened to stay its progress. Nowhere did I see any choice to be made as to our course.
We stopped briefly at midday to rest the horses. The hills and knobs had finally formed a continuous barricade on either side of the river, creating a narrow valley sparsely scattered with pine and fir. The air was hot and sultry, the breezes of the open country blocked by the encroaching walls. Though it seemed a year since Midsummer’s Day, little more than six weeks had passed. The land remained awash in summer.
We did not resume the morning’s banter at our stop. D’Natheil’s eyes flicked frequently back the way we had come. Half an hour and we were on our way again, Baglos in the lead. Rowan and Kellea rode side by side just behind the Dulcé. Paulo stayed close at their heels, and D’Natheil and I brought up the rear. I was not about to let the Prince lag behind as he had on the day of the storm.
“Do the Zhid still call to you?” I asked, as we wound our way up the narrowing gorge.
“Yes. But it’s easier now. I try to concentrate on everything you told me, on your stories.”
“The J’Ettanne were your people every bit as much as those in your Avonar. That’s why I chose those things to talk about.”
“You’re an exceptional storyteller. They seem far more real than anything Baglos speaks of.”
“Can you remember nothing of your years with Dassine? Ten years it would have been.”
He shrugged. “I keep thinking that if I work at it hard enough, I’m bound to see. But the memories stay just out of reach.”
“Why would Dassine have taken your memory and your voice before sending you? What circumstance could force him to do that? He said he had no alternative.”
“Perhaps he thought I wouldn’t do what was needed. Because of the person I am. It’s likely I don’t want to know what’s hidden.” Winter had touched his voice, and he dug his heels into Sunlight’s flank. “Come, we must move faster.”
The Prince rode ahead to where Graeme Rowan was picking his way across the swift water. The track ahead of us on the east side of the river was tangled with tree roots and underbrush, for the water had eaten away at the bank, leaving it narrow and steep-sided. The track on the west side of the river was still unobstructed. I considered briefly that the east side might be the “lesser passage” of the riddle, but a few moments’ observation convinced me it had been more than four hundred and fifty years since the east bank had been passable.
I needn’t have worried. The Writer had buried his instructions so cleverly that he hadn’t felt the need to make them true riddles. The way was very clear.
Half an hour or so after the river crossing, we heard a considerable rush of water ahead—a swirling pool of icy blue-green, the turbulent confluence of two healthy streams that formed the Glenaven. The stream on the right flowed from a broad grassy valley that angled almost directly west, funneling the afternoon sunshine straight into our eyes. The stream leaped and bounded its way through thick grass, dotted with clumps of yellow, blue, and white flowers.
The left branch flowed from a passage of very different character, a gloomy, narrow slot that at first glance appeared to have no path at all. Everything in my nature beckoned me to follow the sunlit valley, but I assumed that the darker way was ours.
“The lesser brother?” asked Rowan.
“It’s the first likely thing,” I said. “If there’s a path…”