From the tongue he had to lift and pull, he gathered the soldiers had gotten the family donkey, too.
He pulled the cart off the road and near the tree, where the wife was nursing the baby. Narlh ambled along, nose in the air. Matt wondered if he was really watching for an aerial attack. "Bless ye, kind sir!" The wife had a real smile on.
"My pleasure, I'm sure." Matt folded up cross-legged, facing the husband. "So you're bound for Merovence?"
"Aye, if I can come to those mountains!" the man said, exasperated. "They seem so close, yet ever do they retreat from me!"
"It's the clear air—it magnifies them so that they seem closer. I'd say you're still about two days from the pass at the top."
"You have come from there?" the man said, wide-eyed.
Matt nodded. "And I'd plan on lightening your load, if you can—some of that road is very steep, and it's all uphill."
The wife bit her lip again, and the husband said quickly, "We have brought little enough. What we have are things too dear to part with."
Matt just couldn't understand why married people seemed to acquire so many things that they couldn't bear to part with. Maybe it was because there were so many more of them.
He pushed himself to his feet. "Rest while you can. I'll send the kids over." He turned away to shoo the children from Narlh back to Mama. As they ran for the picnic, he muttered to the monster, "Never knew you were soft on kids."
"Hey, I think they look yummy!"
"Come off it. You were having as much fun as they were."
Narlh shrugged, with a rattle of wings. "Look, I missed out on it when I was a fledgling. A guy can try to make up for lost time, can't he?"
"I couldn't agree more." Matt glanced back over his shoulder—and saw the father carving a ham. His mouth watered. "They, uh—came well provided."
"Huh?" Narlh looked over, then turned away with a snort.
"Well, I thought it looked pretty good!"
"Each to his own," the monster said.
"Just what's wrong with it, anyway, huh?"
"It's not bleeding."
As he paced the circle on sentry duty, Matt reflected that Narlh must prefer his food still moving. When he said he liked fresh meat, he meant it. He gave the family about an hour, by the sun, then turned back to nudge the father. "Sun's past noon. You might want to get back on the road."
"Aye." The man sighed and forced himself to his feet. He reached down to help his wife up and called out, "Jorge! Cecile! Rampout!" The children left off playing hide-and-seek and came pelting back.
"Bless you for your kindness," the wife said, smiling, then suddenly dewy-eyed. " 'Tis good to know a few souls still act with charity."
"More and more where you're going," Matt assured her.
"I must trust in that." The father sighed. "We have no money and will have no farm. We must depend on kindness, now."
"No money?" Matt lifted his head. "Say...maybe we could strike a deal."
"Deal?" The father was instantly wary.
"Yes. I'm living off the land, see, and it's not exactly fat here."
"Aye." The wife blinked away tears again. "The soldiers..." Then she suddenly realized what Matt was saying. "You must take some food! We have more than we'll need to come into Merovence!"
"Judy," her husband said, uncomfortably, "we shall not find food in plenty, just for crossing the mountains..."
"Right," Matt agreed. "I couldn't let myself just take food from you—you're too apt to need it. But I could give you some Merovencian coins, and you can buy fresh food with that. Lightens the load going over the mountains, that way, you see—and cuts down on spoilage."
The husband looked interested, but Judy protested, "We could not take money from one who has done us kindness..."
"I assure you, you'll be doing me a kindness, just by selling me some supplies! Here, now..." Matt reached into his purse.
A few minutes later, he and Narlh headed downhill as the family toiled away uphill again, their cart lighter by two hams, half a bushel of grapes, a bottle of homemade wine, half a wheel of cheese, and a loaf of bread.
"Sure you don't mind carrying all that?" Matt asked.
"So what are you going to do, get squashed by lunch?" Narlh snorted. "Be real, okay?"
"I keep trying..."
"As you will." The dracogriff snorted. "But don't you think two gold pieces was a little much for these provisions?"
"Well, maybe..."
"You could have bought it all for two coppers."
"True." Matt shrugged. "But how much good are coins with Alisande's picture going to do here in Ibile?"
"There's some truth in that..."
"Besides, that family can put them to good use. Basic supplies—"
"Supplies! For two gold pieces, they can buy a small farm!"
Matt nodded. "You know, I suppose they could..."
They hadn't made much progress by sunset. Narlh could travel by leaps and bounds when he had to—but not for very long at a stretch; it was tiring. Besides, Matt was in continual danger of whiplash, and traveling braced against Narlh's bounding was tiring for him. So they went, at Narlh's normal pace, which was about as fast as a tired man could walk.
The good side was that, when evening came, Matt wasn't tired—at least, not terribly. He still had plenty of energy to set up camp and do whatever magic might prove necessary.
Preferably as little as possible; he felt as if he were lighting a beacon any time he worked a spell. No, if he could set up camp without magic, so much the better. Matt found a tree with a fork and wedged the butt of a fallen limb into it.
"What's that supposed to be?" Narlh demanded. "A bear trap?"
"No, a people shelter." Matt pointed at the sky. "We might have rain tonight."
"Good; I could use a bath."
"True, true..."
Narlh reared his head back. "Well! If you're going to be that way about it, I'm going to find some dinner!"
"You'll be amazed at the improvement when you get back," Matt called.
"You mean you're going to have a bath, too?" Narlh humphed, and waddled on out of sight.
Matt smiled, shaking his head, and turned to pick up the sack with the food in it. The comment about the bear trap had reminded him about the problems of night visitors—the natural kind. He wished he had some rope, but wasn't about to risk a spell for such a small item. Instead, he found a broken branch dangling from a nearby tree and hooked the sack onto a twig.
Not as good as it could be—any passing bear could knock it down, and a wolf might even be able to jump up to it—but at least it would protect the provisions from raccoons, or whatever the local equivalent was. Badgers, probably.
Then Matt went back to cutting branches. He draped them angling between the ground and the limb, to make a serviceable imitation of a pup tent. He stepped back to admire his handiwork, thought of starting a fire and fixing dinner, then decided to check out the neighborhood while there was still a little twilight left. He'd noticed a small hill when they'd been surveying for a good campsite; in fact, he would have set up there if there had been any cover. But it was just a grassy knob on top, and he was a little shy about being overexposed.
Still, it would do nicely as a lookout. He climbed up, then stood looking around at the landscape, feeling an oddly pleasant glow. The countryside lay quiet in the gloaming. It still sloped, overall, but they were down into deciduous trees, and every so often, the trees opened out into farmsteads.
But the farmhouses were burned out, the byres and sties were empty, and the fields lay in stubble—or churned to baked mud by horses' hooves. Kipling's lines came unbidden to Matt's mind: