The Spring Balance-day was still more than a fortnight away. We'd been travelling a full moon and a fortnight on every back road in Kolmar ever since the night the mercenaries had attacked, with never a sniff of an inn or a hostel, and it had been raining forever.
Well, it felt like forever. When your best fire is a few tiny flames dancing on a stick for a few hours, believe me, patience and understanding fly out the window in a hurry. Jamie was growling at Rella, Rella was growling at me, and I was growling at everybody. Varien, maddeningly, was calm and unruffled. He was making me furious, but then, so was everything. In my poor defence I should say that the voices in my head had not stopped. They seemed to come in waves, sometimes loud enough to stop me from being able to think, sometimes barely there at the edge of hearing. I couldn't decide which was worse, but I was heartily sick of them and of everything else, especially myself. At least there had been no more attacks, thank the Lady for small favours.
Jamie had spent a little time every day training both Varien and me in swordplay. I was very little better than when I had started, but Varien seemed to take to it like breathing, and after less than two moons he was better at it than I was. This, of course, made me terribly jealous.
I seemed to spend every waking moment in a foul mood. I did try to fight it, but for some reason every least little thing made me snarl.
"Lanen, how fare you?" asked Varien quietly when we stopped in the poor shelter of some ancient trees to take our midday meal. At least the rain wasn't quite so hard there.
"Just as I've fared every time you've asked," I growled. "I can't get any peace, inside my head or out." I stomped away, looking for any vestige of dry wood I could find. I didn't find any.
We ate cold bread and cheese and strips of salted meat that were drier than we were. "I swear to you," grumbled Jamie, who was not much better off than I was, "if this keeps up much longer there'll be murder done."
"Stop bragging," said Rella. She was for some reason in better heart than she had been for some days. "We're nearly there."
"Nearly where?" I asked.
"There's a way station half a day's ride from here."
"And what is that?" asked Varien. "Of your good heart, lady, tell us that it hath a fire and shelter from the rain."
"No and yes," she replied. "There is nowhere to light a fire, in case it should smoke, but way stations have roofs and four walls and a dry floor, and there is always a stock of dry wood for the taking. There are also things there more precious than lansip, if none have been there before me."
She refused to tell us what she was talking about, but the thought of a solid roof over my head sounded wonderful, even without a fire. We all cheered up a little, and the voices grew that bit quieter for a while. It just shows that anticipation is a strong influence. Just as well. When we finally came upon the way station, it had grown even darker than the grey murk we had travelled through all day, and it took Rella a few minutes to find it even though she knew what she was looking for. It was well hidden, certainly. It was also no more and no less than she had said. When Jamie finally managed to light a stub of candle, we saw that we were in a small room with four low walls, a roof that kept out the rain but was so low that Varien and I couldn't stand upright, a small chest against a corner, a tiny grille high up in a corner to let in air, no windows and no place for a fire. I started grumbling and threatened to light a fire on the floor as I piled the wet saddles and other tack in a corner. The horses were in a sheltered brake; we'd fed and watered them, but the poor things had naught but the wet ground to sleep on. They each had two blankets, and we had to hope that would do.
"And how will you start a fire in here without setting light to your own foot?" said Rella, offended. "Honestly, girl, you're foul-tempered these days. Have some consideration for those of us who have to live with you. This is a way station of the Silent Service, not the common room of an inn! If anyone found out I'd let you in at all, I'd lose a month's wages and have to stock way stations until the next quarter day. There's nowhere for the smoke to go in any case. It's well sealed, though, and with all four of us sleeping here we'll be warm enough and dry for a change, and there are candles enough to keep a light as long as we want. That reminds me." She took the candle and carried it to the chest. When she opened it she laughed with delight. "Oh, the Goddess bless the poor bastard who's in disgrace! Dry blankets, by Shia, and enough waterproofs for all!"
She started hauling out bundles of folded material and handing them round, a blanket each and another bundle. These last were surprisingly heavy, but when I took my sodden leather gloves off I felt the curious texture. It was like a medium-weight burlap, a finer weave than I had expected, but it smelled of something that wasn't cloth. I sniffed.
"Beeswax," said Jamie, grinning. "Waxed cloth, by the Lady! Mistress Rella, I beg your forgiveness, and grant you mine despite the fact that I'm frozen to the bone." He stripped off his sodden tunic, wrapped himself in a dry blanket, put the waxed cloth over all and settied down with his back to a wall. "Blessings upon the Silent Service, I'll never curse them again without good cause," he said, and Rella laughed.
"Why doesn't the wax break when the cloth bends?" I asked, copying Jamie. The dry blanket was the first real warmth I'd felt since we got soaked through two nights since, and though the waxed cloth wasn't warm in itself it kept the heat in and I began to thaw a little. Varien sat beside me and wrapped the two of us in his cloth. He was, as always, nearly hot to the touch, bless him.
"None of your business," said Rella smugly. "Why do you think we're called the Silent Service?"
"How far are we from the Kai, do you think?" I asked. I had tried not to ask that every night for the past week. I was losing the battle.
To my delight Jamie said, "I am not certain of these roads, but unless I am far out of my reckoning we should strike the river in the next day or so."
Rella raised an eyebrow in approval. "Not bad for one who's been on a farm for a quarter of a century. I expect to reach Kaibar tomorrow," she said.
"Where we will find an inn, with a large fireplace and a real bed and hot food and cold beer," said Jamie. "I don't care if every assassin ever spawned is after our blood, I am going to sleep in a bed tomorrow night."
"Hear, hear," I said. "If I could get warm enough and stay warm, maybe I could shake this blasted cold."
"You won't get any argument from me," said Rella. "My back is killing me. I've been ignoring it something shocking ever since we started out."
I tended to forget about Rella's crooked back. She had exaggerated it when I first met her, to appear helpless and crippled in the presence of my father Marik, but it was not a disguise she could do off. I hadn't known how it bothered her until we started travelling together. She was made of stern stuff, but the cold and the wet got into her bones and every now and then she'd swear at the ache. Varien had taken to sitting back-to-back with her when we had our meagre meals, for she said the heat was a great relief. Still, that very morning she had not been able to contain the groan when she mounted her horse.
She wasn't the only one. My long back was starting to bother me too, and to add insult to injury I had a growing sense of discomfort below the waist. I had taken to running alongside the horses as often as I could stand it. It wasn't that I was getting fat, really, but I felt the way I did each moon just before my blood time. I was concerned, because I was a week past that time, and still my fingers were swollen, and my belly, and I had to wear a breast band to keep the soreness at bay. My bloods had been much lighter and shorter of late as well. I felt decidedly peculiar below the waist, and I could seldom eat much. Half of what went down came back up again later, but I tried to keep that as secret as I could. I put all down to short rations, too much cold and too much riding. The idea of a night in an inn—or two if I could convince the others—sounded like heaven. A chance to clean my clothing, my hair, my grubby self—blessed Lady, what a delight! And perhaps, I said in my inner thoughts, a good long visit with a Healer.