“I think we should stay out here, don’t you, Aisling?” Keelan’s voice carried, and his sister slowed.
“Yes. We can hardly appear in Trevalyn complete with a whole bunch of horses and a witch and without any of our baggage and hope the servants won’t gossip for years after about it.”
Hadrann coughed. “I’d bet they would. No. I suggest we camp out for several nights while the witch recovers but not in the hollow. We showed such a place isn’t safe from attack. We’ll go farther west and a little north, swing past Verlaine, and cut around the hill cliffs over the Estcarp border. That’s probably the way Kirion’s men brought the girl. We may even find her people hunting that way for her.”
“That’d be nice,” Aisling commented. “We could then be shot as the ones who stole her away after burning a garth and murdering its people. Going that way is good, but before we go too far I want to talk to the witch. She may know how we can be safe while bringing her home.” The witch, when questioned, had her own ideas.
“The borderers will be out in strength searching for the trail and myself at the end of it. The council has forbidden a breaking of the border, but there are always those who are deaf to such a command. Let us find a safe place nearby and sleep. Tomorrow we ride as you say, west and a little north, for another day. Then I shall see if I am able to contact friends to report.”
Aisling looked at her. “Report then so that those who come do not start shooting first and ask if you had need of a rescue later.”
The witch smiled shyly. “That I would do, Lady. I swear I will permit no harm to come to any of you at the hands of my friends.” Her eyes lowered and she glanced sideways at Aisling, her cheeks showing a slight flush. “I am sorry I miscalled your land. I spoke from the pain of my body and the fear of what was to happen, but still I say it: you have the power. How are you safe here, where the power is feared and hated?”
“It would be a long story,” Aisling said. “But quickly then. My grandmother was but a young girl when the duke of Kars ran mad. He ordered the three times Horning, and of her family only she survived. She was found by a keep lord who owed her mother a debt for healing. He took the girl in. Later she wed his son, her true love. There was the Old Blood in the lord’s family also, thinner and further back, but he remembered.” Aisling smiled as she too remembered.
“My grandparents yet live. They love still and are happy. The old lord died in the Turning. I am one of three children born of my grandmother’s son. My brother Kirion is nine years my elder. He seeks power, and having none he turned to black sorcery. He has found a way to leech it from those of the Old Blood. Keelan, my other brother, who rides with us, hates Kirion, as do I, both for many offenses and because he would bring down Karsten in war again. Shastro, duke of Kars, is Kirion’s puppet. Thus it pleases us to set you outside Kirion’s grasp.”
“And the cat? When first I saw him I thought him perhaps one of the Old Ones.” She cast a look at Wind Dancer where he rode in his carrysack on Aisling’s shoulders. The cat looked back and yawned, and the witch laughed. “Truly it is said a cat is his own master.”
Aisling grinned back. “Very true. We don’t know who his sire was although my teacher in Escore had his suspicions. Wind Dancer says nothing, if he knows aught to tell. But he aided you by his own choice, and it was at his claws and teeth that one of your guards died and I was able to free you.”
The witch leaned over to smooth the cat’s fur. “My Lord Cat, I do give thanks for your valor. Your name shall be known with praise among the council.” Wind Dancer opened an eye, looked at her, yawned again, and apparently slept. But the aura surrounding him was one of smugness.
XI
They rode only another hour before Hadrann, scouting ahead, found a place he deemed suitable and safe. There they made camp. Wind Dancer vanished at once, to return, dragging a large mountain hare just as they lit their fire. The beast was a young buck, plump and already in winter white. Wind Dancer thrust the hare upon Aisling, then trotted off again. She smiled after him. Her brother took the beast from her and began the skinning and cleaning.
“Roast hare will do very well. Those filth of Kirion’s don’t seem to have had many supplies left.”
It was the witch who answered that. “They did not and kicked me the harder for it. I think in the way of that kind they had swilled and gorged all the way from Kars. By the time they took me they had eaten all the best they’d had. They stole somewhat again from my kin’s farm, but that too they wasted in riotous evenings. All that they had remaining was oatcakes and journey bread.”
“Your kin’s farm? Lady, I grieve for you. Bitter is it to lose those you love.” Hadrann was sincere and the girl knew.
She shook her head. “I too grieve for honest folk murdered. They were not close kin. My parents died while I was training. Once I would never have been permitted to return. But now the council allows a witch to return to visit friends and family once her training is completed. These kin were cousins I barely knew, but with them my parents had left their personal property that I might have it when I was free to come for such things.”
“What happened to it. Were the things burned?” Aisling was curious.
“Not so. A man of the guard who had ridden with me borrowed a packhorse from my cousin’s farm and took it with him well-laden with my parent’s legacy. It has gone to a friend. She is recently wed, and it pleased me to be able to give her these gifts.” She winced at the memory. “Now that horse may be most of what remains of a good farm. Those men burned every building. They lost six of their own to the good shooting of my kin, and they were angered. Everything is likely lost.”
Aisling, who knew the garths of Aiskeep, was the one who spoke. “I think not. No doubt there were sheep out in the pastures, if only a few. Unless you saw him die, likely the sheepdog fled to them. And your attackers may have fired all buildings, but in my experience not all burn to the ground.”
“It is true they had sheep that were pastured afar, nor did I see their dog slain, but I saw much smoke. It was a great plume against the sky as we rode for the mountains.”
“Yes, that was likely the hay barn, but houses burn less easily from no more than one flung torch.” She grinned at the witch. “I seem to recall rain only days before this. Was that not so in Estcarp also?”
The witch smiled back. “Why, yes. It was so. I remember riding in the rain to the farm and wishing my cloak let in less water. Then you think much of my kin’s home may have survived?” Her face fell again. “Oh, but they themselves are dead. I did not know them well, but I liked them and they were good, kind people.”
Hadrann gave a resigned grunt. “It is that sort that Kirion and his type most despise. But what Aisling said before is true. It’s possible the house did not burn. You may also find some of your kin live yet as well. Not everyone who falls with blood on his face is killed. Such wounds about the head or face bleed hugely but may be no more than a knockout blow.”
The witch’s face lit with hope. “It may be so. I shall pray it is. The men hustled me away quickly once I was taken. I saw only that Osland lay across his doorway without movement, blood still trickling down his face. I saw nothing of his wife or daughter.”
Keelan nodded slowly. “Then, Lady, it is not impossible more of your friends live than you know. Dead men do not bleed, and if Kirion’s filth had laid hands on the women you would have seen and heard…” He paused. “Too much.” He half-turned from his patient cooking of the hare on its improvised spit. “I would say, do not hope too greatly, but some hope is warranted. But what of you. Was there time for you to cry the alarm to your fellow witches?”