Yaret sat on the ground with her arms around her legs. She had been sitting there, motionless, for a good half hour, and finally the horse was warily approaching.
It was a large brown mare; undoubtedly the same one she had seen three days ago. A fine-looking animal despite its nervousness. Nuolo wandered over to it and gave it a friendly nuzzle. The horse was twitchy and inclined to kick, so Nuolo withdrew. Dolm, after one long, speculative stare, ignored the horse entirely.
Loose, broken straps dangled from the saddle, knocking against the horse’s legs. That must be irritating; and the saddle too must chafe, thought Yaret, after three days on the horse’s back. After a few more minutes she stood up. The horse twitched and stamped. She took half a dozen steps towards it and sat down again before it could work its way into a panic. Eventually it bent its head to graze, watching her at the same time.
She moved a little closer twice more in the same manner, until the horse set off cantering away and it became clear that she could do more harm than good in trying to catch it. So she went back to the camp, rebuilt the fire and set the pot on it for supper.
“Your horse is here,” she told Eled. “It still has one saddle-bag.” The words didn’t seem to register with him, which was concerning. His awareness had dipped dramatically since she had danced the Rannikan an hour ago.
Yaret decided that he needed food. He wasn’t eating enough. So she concentrated on getting some mashed-up peas and shreds of rabbit inside him, spoon-feeding him with words of encouragement as if he were an infant.
Then she threw a handful of oats into the remaining stew in the pot to bulk it out. Tomorrow she’d have to find something to supplement this diet, hunt out some roots and vegetables. She should have done that today but the tired woolliness of her brain hadn’t latched on to the necessity. The dried peas would only last a few more days.
She herself ate less than she would have liked, and then looked through her bags to tot up what food still remained. There was a flat pack of some dried meat from Havvich, but you might as well eat leather. She only kept it as emergency rations, because it reputedly never went bad, and might also do to sole her boots with. There were the rest of the peas, and two large bundles of oats, which she had to share with the donkeys. Dried beans and apples made much smaller bundles.
Then there was one packet that she had forgotten: brown biscuit, another emergency ration. Eled could probably cope with it if it were soaked. Last were two little pottery jars, the smaller of salt, the bigger one of honey – a gift from a customer which she was taking home for her grandmother. That was all.
If she could get the saddle-pack off Eled’s horse, it would probably contain some food. So she had one more fruitless attempt at edging closer to the horse before dusk fell. Still it would not allow her to come near.
Maybe a night with the donkeys would calm it down; though not if those wolves started howling again… Yaret sincerely hoped they wouldn’t. She badly needed sleep.
Resisting the temptation to immediately find her bedroll, she set some biscuit to soak with a spoonful of honey in the water. Gramma wouldn’t mind. How long before she would see her grandmother again? It could be weeks at this rate. The thought sneaked into her head that things would be much easier if the rider simply died.
“Oh no no no, not while I’m looking after him,” she said aloud, and crawled over to check again on Eled. Still alive, for now, thank goodness. She did not want him to die.
The donkeys wandered over for their evening handful of oats. Yaret fed them quickly; for once she’d thought about sleeping she felt ready to keel over.
“Guard the camp,” she mumbled to Dolm. It occurred to her that if anything came near the camp, now the horse would warn her too – by galloping away if nothing else. Comforted by that drowsy thought, she fell down on her bedroll, pulled the blanket over her and was instantly asleep.
When she woke it was, astonishingly, full daylight. She sat up and scratched. Eled was snoring faintly. Yaret crawled to the entrance of the cleft and saw the horse was still there with the donkeys, grazing.
She spent some time trying to lure it closer with a handful of oats before she gave up in exasperation. What was the point of the horse returning here if it wouldn’t let itself be caught? Stick to a useful task, she thought: hunt for some roots to dig.
The likeliest spot to find edible roots was the richer pasture closer to the Darkburn. She took Dolm with her, more for the sturdy comfort of his company than anything else.
As the donkey plodded with a deliberate lack of hurry beside her Yaret wondered what she would do with the horse if she did succeed in catching it. It wasn’t as if she could even ride a horse with ease. They hadn’t owned a horse for years – not since old Mallie, who had pulled a cart around at the pace of a snail and had gone no faster with Yaret perched upon her back.
Yaret had ridden Dolm on occasion, although he didn’t care for it and wouldn’t go far. But even a recalcitrant donkey was nothing like a high-strung, kicking, galloping horse.
All the same… Maybe she could somehow get the rider up on to the horse and move him. Where to, though? Twelve miles back to Deloran – no, not Deloran, somewhere still inhabited. With a broken leg. And the next town to the north was almost twenty miles away.
“Well,” she said. “One thing at a time.”
And then she gave a cry of startled relief, because something was working in her favour here, at least. In a damp depression in the ground were growing not only wild carrots and nips but thick bushy spikes of spearweed, which was generally regarded as food for pigs but was perfectly nutritious for hungry humans too.
She spent some time digging out roots and harvesting the grainy spearweed; though when she looked around for star-moss, she found none. Then she ventured to the nearest finger of the forest, where she gathered more wood and kindling for the fire. Dolm was useful in carrying all this back.
A productive morning’s work. Yaret spent the afternoon making overtures to the horse now that she had carrots to entice it with. Although it ventured a little closer, it would not allow her to walk towards it without cantering away.
When she went into the cleft to ask Eled for advice on approaching the horse, he could give her none. He was dismayingly sleepy and barely coherent, and felt almost as hot as he had two days ago. He was going backwards.
Yaret fed him more soggy biscuit laced with honey and sang him a couple of songs, since they had amused him earlier. The shadow of a smile crossed his drawn face. She cleaned him up and washed him down again, trying to make him comfortable. But she knew that he could not be comfortable.
Eled slept. Yaret washed out the cleaning cloths and tidied away her dried linen. Carefully avoiding the horse, she walked back down to the streamlet to rinse the roots and cut more watercress.
One day at a time. And another one was nearly gone…
How many more would pass before she could move on, move Eled, do anything at all? A parade of endless days seemed to march ahead of her, with nothing changing but the wind: everything held in suspension while she waited for the rider’s leg to mend. It could take weeks.
And the head wound – Eled’s drowsiness and confusion. She felt the sad weight of care increase; there was no escaping it. She had taken on this burden, and she could not lay it down and walk away. She could only do what she was doing. Rinsing roots and picking watercress.
Dolm brayed, and Yaret stood up with a start of shock. She swung around, a bunch of watercress in one hand and her knife in the other.
There was a man standing behind her, three or four yards away. How had he got so close without her hearing him? Was he a brigand, a highwayman?
This was no highway. She stood quite still, taking in the travel-stained cloak of grey-green wool, the long sword sheathed but clearly – intentionally – visible, the broad body and shaggy head and cold dark eyes. All this in an instant. The man was not threatening her; not yet, at any rate. But Yaret thought that she had seldom seen anyone look so thoroughly fed up.
He spoke in a deep, impatient growl. And in his voice the threat was there, if kept in check.
“Where did you find the horse?”