So Jack Dedham cleared off the table in the second of the two small rooms that were his, the table in question accustomed to duty as a dining-table and writing-desk, as well as a convenient surface to set any indeterminate object down on; and his batman brought breakfast for three. The three ate their way through it with enthusiasm, and the man, grinning, brought second breakfasts for three. "Make it four, Ted," said Dedham. "I'm getting hungry again."
When they were finished, and Harry was staring into her teacup and realizing with uneasy chagrin that she'd rather be drinking malak, Jack filled his pipe and began to produce thick heavy clouds of smoke that crawled around the room and nosed into the corners. "Well?" he said. "Tell me in what fashion you have come to seek my aid."
Harry said, staring at the worn tips of her Hill boots, "The Northern army will be coming through the mountains … soon. Very soon. Corlath's army is camped on the plain before the wide gap—the Bledfi Gap, we call it—the Gate of the North, you know, in the Horfel Mountains—"
Jack said from a cloud of smoke: "The Gambor Pass, in the Ossander range. Yes."
"We want to plug the northwest leak, the little way through the mountains above Ihistan—where an undesirable trickle of Northern soldiers could come through and—"
"And raze Istan, and go on to harass Corlath."
Harry nodded. "Not just harass; there are not many Hillfolk to fight."
"That explains, no doubt," said Jack, "why there are only three of you—and a cat with long teeth—for the northwest leak, as you call it."
Harry smiled faintly. "It was almost one of me, alone."
"I would hazard, then, that you are not precisely here under Corlath's orders."
"Not exactly."
"Does he know where you are?"
Harry thought about it, and said carefully, "I did not tell him where I was going before I left." Her ribs missed the pressure of a sash.
Dedham blinked a few times, slowly, and said, "I assume I am to conclude that he will be able to guess where you've gone. And these two poor fools decided to throw their lots in with an outlaw? I am impressed."
Harry was silent for a minute. For all her brave words to Jack at the fort gate, she felt that the path she had thought she was following had blurred and then lurched underfoot as soon as Sungold had jumped the wall. It was difficult for her now to remember who she was—damalur-sol and sashless—and why she was here, and where she was going; her thoughts ambled around in her head, tired and patternless. She remembered Luthe saying to her: "It is not an enviable position, being a bridge, especially a bridge with visions"; and she thought that in fact a nice clear vivid vision would be a great boon. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Corlath did not take at all kindly to Sir Charles that day, did he?"
Jack smiled without humor. "Not at all kindly, no."
Harry scowled. "He's still cutting off his nose to spite his face, ignoring the northwest pass."
"Ritger's Gap," said Jack. "He probably doesn't look at it that way, though. He came to us offering an alliance of mutual support, true, but he was doing us a favor by giving us the benefit of his spies' work in the north—which Sir Charles, in his less than infinite wisdom, chose to disbelieve. I would assume that your Corlath will now simply wipe out as many Northerners as he can, and what's left of his Hillfolk in the end will retreat to those eastern mountains of his. Whether or not the western plains are overrun with unchecked Northerners is not, finally, of great interest to him one way or another. Our decision not to help only means a few more divisions of the Northern army to harry them in their Hills: unfortunate but not of the first importance."
"If the Homeland got behind the attempt to throw back the Northerners—"
"There was never any chance of that, my dear, believe me," replied Jack. "You are attempting to be logical, I suspect, and logic has little to do with government, and nothing at all to do with military administration.
"You are also still thinking like a Homelander—an Outlander, if you wish—for all you've learned to ride like a Hillman," and his eyes settled on Gonturan, hanging by her belt over the back of Harry's chair. "You know Istan is here, and it seems like a waste to you that we should be obliterated without a chance; and you were also fortunately absent that day, and did not hear Sir Charles being insufferable. Sir Charles is a good man in many ways, but new things disconcert him. The idea of an alliance between Hill and Outlander is blasphemously new."
You are also still thinking like a Homelander—an Outlander, if you wish—for all you've learned to ride like a Hillman. The words hung before Harry's eyes as if sewn on a banner and then thrust into the ground at her feet as her standard. She looked at nothing as she said, "You are working up to telling me that there is nothing that can be done."
"No; but I am working up to telling you that there is no possibility of there being done what ought to be done—I agree with you, our, or at any rate my, country should get serious about the threat from the North. It is a real threat." He rubbed his face with his hand, and looked momentarily weary. "I am glad you have put this chance, little as it is, in my hand. My orders, of course, forbid me to go skylarking off to engage the Northerners at Ritger's Gap or anywhere else—the official, illogical attitude is that this is a tribal matter, and if we stay quietly at home with our gates closed the wave will break and flow around us. I know this is nonsense, and so do a few of the men who've been here more than a few years. I've been brooding for months—off and on since Corlath's unexpected visit; I believed what he told us that his spies had brought back from the North—whether or not it's worth my pension to go try and do anything about it. I rather think it is, as we're sure to be killed if we stay at home and I'd rather be killed out doing something than have my throat slit in bed. You're just the excuse I've been looking for; it's been a bit hard to determine which dragon a solitary St. George should take on, when there seem to be dragons everywhere."
Harry looked at Jack, conscious of Terim and Senay at her elbow, and a furry shoulder pressed against her feet under the table. The sense of dislocation was almost a physical thing, like a stomachache or a sore throat; but Jack's words now eased the sore place a little. The bridge could stretch to cross this chasm, perhaps, after all. She was still alone and still scared, but for the first time since she had ridden away from Corlath's camp she felt that her errand was not necessarily a mad one; and so her conviction that she was doomed to it was therefore a little less terrifying. And perhaps it did not matter in what world she belonged if both worlds were marching in step.
And now that Jack believed her, she could depend on him; for Harimad-sol was still laprun, and while she was glad of Terim and Senay, they looked up to her, and she didn't entirely like the sensation. The old friendship with Jack had taught her what kind of man he was, and he would not be embarrassingly awed by Harimad-sol and her legendary sword. The literal-minded pragmatism of the Outlander psyche had its uses.
But as the weight of solitude eased, his words laid a new weight on her: Were her perceptions so wrong then? Was she in fact thinking like a Homelander—and had she, then, betrayed her new allegiance? She opened the palm of her right hand, and looked at the small white scar that lay across it. What did Corlath think of her desertion? Had Luthe's fears for her been correct, and had she not been able to see the right way when the ways divided before her?
"Harry." Jack reached across the table and pulled her right hand toward him. "What is that?"
She closed her fingers till what she suddenly felt was her brand of Cain disappeared. "It's a … ritual I went through. I'm a king's Rider."