The Waters Rising (23 page)

“I think they’re from the abbey,” said Bear. “It’s hard to see the banners in torchlight, but I think I recognize them from the ones we saw at Netherfields. They had the device and colors there. The duke told us the abbey’s old and rich and it maintains a considerable force of its own.”

“My poor cousin,” said Xulai in a wounded voice. “My cousin, the duke.”

“Shhh, shhh,” said Oldwife. “Why should you worry over him? That’s pure silliness.”

Xulai started to speak, then caught the words before they came from her mouth. If the riders were from the abbey, they were probably headed for Netherfields, but not necessarily to build. Possibly to protect! If, on the other hand, they were from the king, they might well intend to attack Woldsgard. But! But, Woldsgard was probably already protected by an army sent by Prince Orez. The thought fell into her mind like a key into a lock.

“The troops of Prince Orez are already at Woldsgard,” she murmured. “They were on the way there before we ever left. My cousin felt he could use the help.”

They all looked at her as though she had turned into something strange. “Hallad, Prince Orez?” asked Bear. “Would that have been who was spying out the road near Altamont? I saw tracks when we crossed the road. A couple of riders came from the west, checked out the roads both ways, and then went back the way they had come.”

“Because we weren’t where we were supposed to be,” said Bartelmy. “According to the plan the duke and I made, we should have turned east by then and gone some miles down the eastern road. So they watched through the night, maybe until we headed east, and then, if Xulai is right, the troops from Etershore were at Woldsgard by the time we got to Eastwatch Tower, below the falls.”

“Why weren’t we supposed to see them?” asked Oldwife.

“What we didn’t see, we wouldn’t talk about,” said Precious Wind. “Is that the reason, Xulai?”

She nodded sorrowfully. “I’m sure we’re not supposed to know about it, and I made a mistake when I mentioned it. Prince Orez’s commander probably sent outriders to be sure we’d gone on by and there was no one else on the road. The outriders reported we’d be delayed because the bridge was blocked, so the army waited until the crossroad was clear. I hope they waited until the duchess was out of the way, as well.”

“I rather imagine,” said Precious Wind, “that they went by quietly, at a walk and well spaced out, shortly after we had camped, probably during or after that wolf-thunder nonsense with the horses, as well. We were far enough away that we wouldn’t have heard them, and getting there at night would have made the most sense. Few travelers ride at night, and at a quiet walk they could have gone far enough north to camp without being seen from the Wells Road. Very possibly, knowing of Prince Orez’s reputation for thoroughness, the last men of the troop were assigned to drag the road behind them to wipe out the hoofprints of the troop, while a few others followed them to simulate normal traffic on the road.”

Xulai shivered. Had she said too much? A little, yes. They hadn’t known Prince Orez would be guarding Wold. But she hadn’t said anything about her cousin’s plans, just that he needed help, and everyone in Woldsgard knew that. His leaving was still a secret, and so was the eventual building of an abbey, but the horsemen who had passed tonight did not look like carpenters and stonemasons. She would keep that to herself.

“An excellent decision,” whispered the chipmunk from under her collar.

Eventually, Bartelmy asked, “Does this change anything?”

“We have our orders. We do what we set out to do,” said Bear, his jaw clenched. “And if Xulai has no particular feelings about it, we can do it in moonlight, the hidden way. With this many riders on the road, it would be better not to get involved, however casually. Hitch the wagons. We’ll move in darkness, have our own outriders, and stay hid daytimes.”

Xulai forbid herself to cry. Being frightened for the duke or for her home at Woldsgard did not help. He had sent her to Wilderbrook; if she could do nothing else, she could be obedient to his wishes and keep her mouth shut. Still, she could not get his face, the way she had seen him last, out of her mind. He had been weeping, and she had felt he had been weeping for her, Xulai. He must have thought his princess’s Xakixa was in danger, or why weep?

They moved onto the level road with only four of the six mules harnessed to the dray. Clive Farrier rode one mule at some distance behind them; Bartelmy rode the other well ahead of them; both outriders were far enough from the slight jingle and crunch of the wagons that they could hear riders coming from either direction. The road was almost level; the wide river wound among an endless series of ponds and small lakes that virtually filled the wide valley. The animals made good time, and the moon did not set until just before dawn. By then both animals and wagons had been hidden in the forest once more while the men moved between forest edge and roadside, raking the grasses upward to hide their tracks.

They built a small, smokeless fire, using dry wood they had brought with them in case of need. They had hot soup and tea, slabs of toasted bread with honey, then collapsed into their blanket rolls, all except Oldwife and Nettie Lean, who claimed first watch since they had slept in the carriage and were wide awake. Nettie was posted at the wood’s edge, watching the road, while Oldwife sat with her sewing kit inside the woods, her back against a tree, where she would hear Nettie’s signal.

When everyone was asleep except herself, Xulai eased open the basket in which the two cats were sleeping, rolled them into her blankets, and lay her face where they had been. The box the princess had sent her to find was there, close. The thing she had swallowed was . . . inside her, somewhere. Surely it could hear her if she spoke. “What should we do?” she murmured. “Is there something we should do?”

Only silence. Her eyes filled with tears as she put the cats back into their bed and pulled it close to her, one arm protectively around it, the other thrust into the pocket of her cloak, where the chipmunk slept in the palm of her hand. She had had him now for some time, but he had not grown at all. He was still tiny enough to need her warmth. Though she thought it would be impossible to sleep, she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber and did not wake until late in the afternoon when Nettie Lean shook her by the shoulder, laying a finger across her lips.

“Shhh,” said the woman. “More riders.”

The other blankets were already empty. Everyone was crouched at the edge of the forest, looking at the troops going by. Mounted soldiers, their guidons bearing the king’s emblem: a stone tower, truncated, with an eagle above it.

Xulai crawled up beside Bear. “How many?” she asked.

“Troop of one hundred,” he said. “Eight of them so far.”

“How many last night?”

He tilted his hand back and forth, meaning “More or less.”

“An equal force, then,” whispered Precious Wind. “To join with the others? Or oppose them?” She turned to stare at Xulai. “Do you have some sudden and wondrous insight into this, pet?”

Xulai shook her head. Nothing. Except a feeling that the duke may have left Woldsgard for a time. He had said he might go, and she was sure he had gone. He had not told her where.

But he went in health, not ensorceled,
she told herself.
Not cursed, as Xu-i-lok had been cursed. But then, she would not curse him in that way until she had him! And he has moved too swiftly for that.
She did not speak it. Her people had enough to worry about. The night’s rest had allowed her to be sure of one thing: nothing had happened in Woldsgard that the duke had not anticipated and provided for. That anticipation was one reason he had sent her away so quickly. She had wondered at that, but it had been necessary!

They traveled at night for two more nights. At dawn after the second, they saw a ridge stretching from hillside to hillside before them, like a dike across the valley, the river thrusting its way through a cleft in its center and the road rising over its top at the left. Bartelmy rode up the rise and from there looked down on Benjobz Pond, another wide and shallow lake, this one cupped in a high, green valley with Benjobz Inn beyond it.

Once again, they hid wagons and animals in the forest while Bear sat by the fire and stared into the coals. Food was prepared, quietly. All of them but Bear ate, quietly. Finally, Precious Wind laid her hand on Bear’s shoulder. “What have you thought of?”

He stirred, noticing the plate before him for the first time. Hungrily, he seized a slab of bread, drew his knife, and sliced sausage atop it, then cheese, covering both with another slab of bread. “I’ve thought before we go riding by that place, we need to know what’s going on. Have any of you been here before? Know anyone who has? Have any kinfolk living up this way?”

Nettie said slowly, “I’ve mentioned my mother’s sister. Belika. She’s at the abbey, or so Ma always said. She cooks there. She’n’ Ma didn’t get along, but ever now and then, Ma got word of her.”

“Ah,” said Bear. “Well, now. Did you ever have brothers? Or cousins?”

“Belika had two boys, Timmer and Hout. They went down to Wellsport years ago, got in with the Port Lords, took ships for who knows where.”

“Willum, Clive,” Bear said. “You’re now Nettie’s cousins. One of you’s Timmer, the other is Hout; decide which and practice using the names. Nettie, you’re just who you are, Nettie Lean, joining your cousins to visit your aunt and their mother at Wilderbrook, hoping to make up for old family quarrels. Dig the cause out of your memory; create one if you can’t remember, so you can gossip about it. Nothing more boring than old disagreements in other people’s families. There are saddles in the dray. Each of you Farriers rides a horse—take that pale roan and the gray, they’re lightest in the bone, along with that brown she-mule for Nettie. Go on down to Benjobz, ask him if he’s got work you can do in trade for your lodging and food for a day or two, while the horses rest up. If yes, fine. If no, fine, say you’ll camp somewhere close by. If you’re asked if you’ve seen us, say you traveled with a bunch of Woldsgard people for a few days and left them when they had wheel trouble, this side of the falls. Get into conversation with anybody who’ll talk. Say you were off the road when a whole rush of horsemen went by one night. That’d make anybody curious, and someone’ll want to show off his knowledge of where they came from.”

“And you folks?” asked Nettie.

“Abasio?” Bear looked at him questioningly. “It would be good if you’d follow Nettie and the men, arriving a bit later. You could take lodging at the inn to rest your horse, or perhaps find some business they may have for a dyer. You don’t know Nettie and the men; they don’t know you. The rest of us are going to stay right here for a day or so,” Bear said. “When you find something out, one of you come to tell us about it. Once we know who all those horsemen were, then we’ll decide what to do next.”

Abasio nodded agreement. “And after you’ve been told?”

“Then each of you does what you said you’d do. Nettie and her cousins get on their well-rested animals and start up the Wilderbrook road to see her aunty. By that time, you’ll be acquainted with Abasio, and he’ll go along, or he’ll go first and you follow or t’other way round, whatever seems most natural. If you leave before us, stop at the first good camping place and keep watch; move on each day. We may not meet up until we’re at the abbey, but we’ll all get there.”

“We could all stop at that inn and find out the same information,” complained Oldwife. “I don’t like this splitting up.”

Precious Wind patted her arm. “All the rest of you could stop there and ask questions, certainly, if Xulai, Bear, and I were not with you. However, there is enmity directed against the child, Oldwife. You know that. And it’s against us, too, because we protect her. This plan seems the least dangerous and takes the least time.”

Willum and Clive went off to the wagons, unpacking this and that to stow in saddlebags. Nettie, shaking her head, went to do the same. She was a small woman; the brown mule was the smallest one, but still shaped like a barrel, and it had been a time since Nettie had ridden anything except a wagon seat. When it came to tactics, however, Bear always had a good reason, so there was no point asking him to change his mind. She was ruminating on this fact when Precious Wind tapped her on the shoulder.

“You won’t be sore from the little ride downhill from here to the inn, but you may on the uphill ride afterward. Here’s some salve for anyplace you feel blistered.”

“I’d feel better if Willum and Clive Farrier never touched ale,” Nettie said, shaking her head. “That’s an inn down there, and they can forget their own mother if they get drunk enough.”

Precious Wind spoke to Bear. Bear spoke softly to Willum and Clive, his hands moving up and down their shoulders as they nodded and agreed. Precious Wind returned to Nettie. “They will each relish one tankard in the evening. Nothing else, or Bear will slice off their ears and fry them for his breakfast.” She put her hand on Nettie’s shoulder.

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure.” She went on to whisper for some little time, while her hand massaged Nettie’s arm and back. Nettie felt much better when she was finished. Xulai, watching, smiled to herself. She knew that shoulder-rubbing trick of the Tingawans. When they had done it to her, she was convinced she must obey them or die. Of course, she was younger then and didn’t know how to resist it. They had taught her that, too. Later on. When she was old enough to obey out of reason rather than paralysis.