Poda stepped elegantly along the faded track that led north from the Coban hills towards Obandiro. Yaret, perched on her back, held on to the makeshift saddlebags; she would have to do something about those before they fell off completely. The Wardens were not particularly handy at that sort of craft. She thought of Kelvha – of the ornamental saddlebags she’d seen at various markets with their embossed leather flaps and straps, the gilding and long tassels and decorative buckles. The Wardens hardly knew what a buckle was.
But it had been kind of them to escort her safely through Farwithiel and across the swirling waters of the Thore. She had forded the river on Poda with a shudder of memory which she tried hard to repress.
Once the Wardens had departed, she had stopped and said a farewell to the Farwth.
“I thank you once again,” she had said aloud, gazing back across the river to the shrouded trees. She already missed those great edifices of Farwithiel, supreme and massive harbours. “I will not forget you or your kindness.” This seemed, indeed, a superfluous thing to say: how could anyone forget the Farwth?
While she felt sure that the Farwth would hear her words, she did not expect to be able to detect any returning answer. So it was a pleasant surprise when the answer came, almost as strongly as before.
I shall remember you too, and your songs.
Yaret smiled. “Perhaps I may even see you again some time?” This was presumptuous, she realised as soon as she said it: for she had gathered from the Riders that the Farwth did not allow every traveller to proceed past its borders. Indeed, it permitted very few.
I do not know that. Winter comes, and spring should follow: but who can foresee what will happen in the world of humans?
“Well, I hope spring comes with bounty to Farwithiel.”
I do not understand hope. Things thrive, or they do not. Wishing has no effect.
Yaret thought about this, and then countered, “Wishing has an effect if it makes you act for the better.”
In that case it is not a wish but a deed.
She thought some more. “I suppose the point of hope is that it makes action possible,” she said; “or at least it impels you to action when otherwise you might do nothing.”
That would make hope also a deed and not a thought.
“Yes. Yes, it would.”
No answer. After a while, she bowed, and then turned on her way. The river was already out of sight and hearing before the reply came.
That is the first time that you have chosen to agree with me.
She felt no anger in the Farwth’s voice: perhaps even some amusement. So she said,
“I don’t think I always disagreed with you.” Who was she, after all, to challenge the Farwth? She was of no more account in that marvellous forest than a slightly annoying insect – yet one that it had cared for and discharged into safety.
You disagreed with me most courteously. As did Madeo.
Yaret had smiled again, and waved, and then continued riding.
After that there had been no word from the Farwth. That was a cause for sadness but also some relief. By now, a few days further on, she supposed she was too far beyond the Farwth’s boundaries to hear its voice, and was truly solitary once more.
Her farewell to Eled had been harder – for her, at least. Eled had not minded her leaving. It was obvious that he no longer needed her presence to keep him steady, and was content with the tranquil company of the Wardens. So that was good.
All the same it saddened her. Not only was she very fond of Eled for his own sake, but he was the last human link to that other world she had found herself entering so unexpectedly: the world of the Riders of the Vonn. She was left with Poda, a smattering of Vonnish, and vivid, sometimes painful memories. She suspected that life back home would seem flat and tame at first after the strangeness of the last few weeks.
Still, it would be good to be back with her grandmother – with both her grandparents. She was conscious that they needed her; and that was a need she could fulfil. Bringing Poda to a halt, she readjusted the slipping saddlebags yet again, before gazing up at her onward path.
She had not ridden as far west as the lonely wastes of the Iarad, and the scene, though somewhat stark, was not without attractions. The landscape had been painted in new colours during her long weeks in Farwithiel. Autumn seemed hardly to have arrived in that forest, yet here the trees were already almost bare; between their austere black outlines all the hues were of rust and mud and ochre. It was very beautiful in its way. And also cold. She spurred Poda on until she crested the hill, and the first villages of North Coba came into sight.
Yaret surveyed the smoking chimneys and grazing cattle with a faint sense of relief. All was as it should be. Of course there was no reason why it might be any different.
She decided that she might spend a couple of the coins given her by Walen on a comfortable night at an inn: but no, on second thoughts she’d save them, while the weather remained dry. It was the only money she had. Her own had been left along with much else by the banks of the roaring, tumbling Thore.
Once again that night came unbidden to her mind. The stars so powerful in the sky, so close. Lying alone and on the shores of death with the pain and wonder and knowledge of oncoming oblivion.
She found herself catching her breath and made herself recall that she was safe. She had been found, by Rothir. Who had departed. That too was as it should be. So forget about it now. She put the thought away.
Normally on this last leg of her annual journey she would have stopped at various villages to take orders for cloth. Now she avoided the usual stopping-points; she had no samples and no time. She dared not gallop in case Poda went lame again, and did not want to waste precious hours in social chit-chat with past customers. Indeed they would not want to waste time either if she had nothing to sell.
So instead, following meandering earthen roads that were occasionally blocked by sheep, she determinedly set her mind on the life ahead and the winter to come. She was still several days away from home; her lateness would have started to worry Gramma even though Gramma was not given to worrying. Yaret felt bad about that. Her grandfather’s feelings she did not bother to consider just now.
Plenty of jobs would be waiting for her. Once she was back at the farm she would need to work hard to lift the autumn roots and cellar them before the snow set in. Buy in flour and oats and oil from Obandiro. Make the yard ready for the nanny-goats. The sheep would look after themselves. And the donkeys…
Oh, my donkeys, she thought, my donkeys; and suddenly weary, she pulled Poda up and steered her off the road behind a sheltering hazel copse, deciding she might as well stop here for the night. It would grow dark within an hour anyway.
Well before the darkness fell, the fire was built and the pan was simmering. Yaret left the camp to search the copse for cobnuts. She had noticed that there were still quite a few around which the squirrels and mice had failed to find.
She spent a pleasant quarter-hour amidst the bushes in the company of complaining finches: her pockets were full and lumpy when she emerged from the far side of the hazel copse and saw an old man sitting by the road. Behind him a bony horse was grazing.
“Good evening, great-uncle. How are you?” she said, using the standard greeting to the aged in these parts. There was no need to adopt male mode for one so old, but she kept it on anyway, since it matched her clothing. The Wardens had kindly equipped her with a pair of old-fashioned breeches and two dun shirts; cast-offs, but she was grateful for them.
“Good evening to you,” he said, looking up.
Her first thought was, Oh, I’ll have offended him, he’s not that old at all. For his eyes were young and as blue as the evening sky. But when he smiled his face crinkled with a hundred lines as if he were as old as the hill. His hair was red – made redder by the twilight glow, most probably – but with two great streaks of white across his head from front to back. Like an elderly fox, she thought, intrigued.
“Have you come from Melmet, or Ioben?” she asked him. It was the first thing his red hair made her think of. For only in that distant western region had she ever seen people of that colouring – the same bright red as her grandmother’s hair, before it had turned grey. Although Yaret’s own hair was brown she had been told it held a reddish tinge in certain lights.
“From neither place,” he said, looking startled.
“I beg your pardon. It was the hair.” She gestured vaguely.
“No, no. I’m… just wandering,” he said.
“A fine evening for it.”
“Yes.” He hadn’t bothered to stand up to greet her. Of course to him she was only a youthful journeyman, and a scruffy one at that.
But she thought that he looked tired. His dark grey cloak was mud-spattered and badly needed mending: the hem had come unstitched. The pack beside him seemed inadequate for anyone wandering far. Yet the scrawny horse carried no other baggage.
“Are you hungry?” she asked on impulse. “I have some spare food, and a fire.”
The searching blue eyes looked up at her again. “Thank you, young man, but no. I need to move on soon.”
“You’ll travel further on a full stomach than an empty one. My camp’s not far away.”
“Well… perhaps, then.”
He stood up stiffly and followed her back around the hazel copse to the little campfire. His long stride kept up easily with her slightly halting step. It was not quite a limp, but it still slowed her up by the end of every day.
She could hear Poda pulling up the grass beyond the bushes. It occurred to her that it was as well that her fine horse should remain unseen. An old man could be as unscrupulous as a young one. But she had offered this old man hospitality; so she threw another chunk of wood on to the fire and added a handful of oats to the simmering pot to bulk out its contents.
“Rabbit and roots, is that all right?” As she spoke she seemed to be back on the Darkburn Loft, that first evening with Rothir. Her head swam for a moment. But that was probably just weariness. She knew that she was still not fully fit.
“It’s ample. How did you hurt your leg?”
“Oh… I had a fall, a little while ago,” she said. “I’ve been laid up with friends while I recovered. I’m a weaver and a pedlar of woven goods, on my way back home.” It was polite to tell a passing companion like this something of the nature of your journey. You didn’t have to tell him everything.
But her present companion did not seem inclined to tell her anything at all. He sat staring at the gently crackling fire with creased brows. After a while he gave his head a shake, as if to dismiss unwelcome thoughts, and asked her:
“Why did you think I was from Ioben?”
“The red hair, like I said. You usually only see it in those parts.”
“You’ve been to Ioben, then.”
“Yes, on my travels.”
“Lately?”
“The last time was two years ago. But I was in Melmet just three months ago,” she answered.
“Ah.” He relapsed into silence, again staring at the fire, until she handed him a bowl of rabbit stew. Then he ate hungrily.
Once the bowl was half empty, he spoke again. “And today you’ve come from…?”
“From the south. From Coba,” said Yaret. She wasn’t going to mention Farwithiel or the Riders.
“Ah. And how are things… south?”
She shrugged. “Quiet. Not much business.”
“What sort of woven goods?”
“Woollen cloth and garments, chiefly cloaks. I sell a few on the road and take orders to be fulfilled next year.”
“Ah.” He ate. She didn’t know whether to be offended by his failure to offer any corresponding information. It wasn’t good etiquette. But again he seemed deep in his own thoughts.
“I notice that your cloak is badly torn,” she said after a while. “I could mend it if you like, while you finish eating.”
His eyes narrowed in puzzlement. “Mend it? Why? I can’t pay you.”
“Why would I want payment?” she retorted. “It’s ten minutes work. I can do it now, while there’s enough light from the fire.”
He took off the cloak and passed it over. Yaret found the needle and thread in her pack: that had been another small gift from the Wardens. They must have put some thought into her leaving gifts, for they’d included ample provisions, as well as the clothing and the pan and bowls that sat beside the fire. And the best gift of all, the wooden leg. She felt a wave of gratitude and hoped she’d expressed it adequately at the time, because in the end, she had left in somewhat of a rush.
The cloak was a heavy wool serge. Old-fashioned in its style, and too heavy, she thought, to be comfortable for such an old man; although when she glanced up from her work he looked strangely young again, the blue eyes dancing in the firelight as he watched her.
“Thank you, young man. You are nimble with a needle.”
There seemed to be some extra meaning in his words. She had probably stepped outside her male mode by offering to sew. But it did not really matter with such an old man, who must surely have come across a number of such women through the years. And at least it meant he was showing her something more like proper courtesy.
“It’s the only thing I am nimble with, these days,” she said, a little ruefully. “How did this get burnt?” For the cloak, along its tattered hem, was but not just mud-spattered but charred black.
“I was too close to the fire.”
She had the feeling that she was not the only one who was not telling all she might. “It could really do with patching.”
“That will have to wait,” he said.
“How far do you have still to go?”
He paused. “Some way.”
“I’ll stop asking questions,” she said with a smile, handing the cloak back over. “Except for one – would you like any more to eat?”
He shook his head and hauled himself to his feet, donning the cloak once more. His height was striking. Taller than Parthenal, she thought, but not nearly as graceful. For an old man, though, he was agile, so that again she found herself becoming doubtful of his age.
“I must be on my way,” he said, his deep voice a little friendlier than before. “But thank you for the hospitality. I wish you a safe journey, young person, wherever you are going.”
“I’m going home to Obandiro,” she said. “What? Do you know it?” For he appeared to have frozen as she said the name.
The old man slowly shook his head. “Ah… No. Yes. I knew it once.” He seemed to be staring at her in some perplexity. Anxiety, perhaps. Or more like fear.
“Well, I wish you safe travelling also,” said Yaret, since the man seemed rooted to the ground.
“Thank you.” He was subdued. Then he finally turned and strode swiftly away. He must have been in an immense hurry, for within seconds she heard him calling to his horse. Bryddesda. An outlandish name; not Ioben, certainly. Yaret listened for the hoofbeats, and heard them briskly disappearing down the road.
That was strange, she thought, the way he looked at me just then. Young person. Maybe he wasn’t sure if I was male or female. She turned it over in her mind and then forgot about it.
For several days of uneventful travelling, she did not think about the old man with his strangely striped red hair. Her mind was set on home. Gently wheedling Poda to all possible speed, she headed north from Coba, riding across wide cattle pastures to reach the shallow Reedlakes.
There were small settlements here, perched precariously on stilts above the water, but she did not visit them. Even if she had her normal wares to sell, the Reeders never bought much; and what they did buy, they tried to pay for in dried salt fish or basketware. She did not care for the former and did not need the latter. So she skirted round the clustered lakes, watching distant fishing boats glide smoothly out upon the dark still waters. Nobody waved. They did not see her. She rode on north.
To save time she missed out her usual last diversion to the little town of Byant, and instead crossed the windy wildlands, the peaty ridges where even greythorn struggled to grow tall. But the weary up-and-down of this final stretch eventually relented, and brought her to the shelter of the Bander Woods. As she entered their familiar shade – so different to the gloomy tangle of the Darkburn, or the giant spaces of Farwithiel – she felt she was already home.
The last brown leaves clung to the oaks. The air was full of the smell of wood-smoke and damp earth. The dead leaves blanketing the ground, soft and sodden beneath Poda’s hooves, sent up their own decaying sweetness. Amidst them a jay was busily collecting acorns; a host of mushrooms had sprung up in clumps like small white villages. She thought of collecting some for Gramma, but decided not to delay. She was only two or three miles from her house now, and just wanted to be there at last.
Emerging from the edge of the Bander Woods she stared out across the land. And then she thought of the tall red-haired man staring at her, frozen in perplexity, anxiety; or fear.
For the smoke that she had smelt had not come from any bonfire in the woods. Over where Obandiro should be, its pall lay wide and grey. And underneath the pall was only blackness.