‘Darius’s healing skill is with beasts, not humans,’ I whispered.
‘Darius is a gifted healer and I do not think he would offer to help if he did not believe he could manage it. No doubt he has learned a good deal from working alongside Kella,’ Rushton said. ‘She is there too, but she is leaving this to him, which tells us something.’ He kissed me lightly and without either of us intending it, the kiss deepened. Despite grief and guilt and anxiety, or maybe because of them, I found myself winding my arms about his neck and pressing myself tightly to him. He held me very close for a long sweet moment, then he gently laid me back and leaned down to press a chaste kiss on my forehead. ‘I hate leaving you,’ he said softly.
After he had gone, I lay on my side gazing at the lantern that he had left behind, thinking about Angina and wondering over and over if what I had done had been an evil thing, or right and merciful. I would not know until Miky lived and woke, if she ever did. I shivered at the thought that she might wake knowing what I had done and hate me for it. I thought of getting up to snuff the lantern wick, but was still gazing into its wavering flame when sleep claimed me again. This time, mercifully, I did not dream.
I woke again to darkness, though it seemed to me it was not far from dawn now. The lantern had gone out and the fire was burned down to the merest ruddy glow. I shifted my shoulder. It still twinged slightly but there was no pain. Perhaps the power Nerat had given my body to heal itself extended to healing my spirit-form. I stretched out my arm and was glad to find there was no numbness.
What had wakened me, I wondered, when I might easily have slept another hour or two?
‘Marumanyelloweyes woke you, Elspethlnnle,’ came the acerbic thought.
My heart leapt and I started up in shock to see the form of a cat on the sill, dimly lit by the red glow of the embers in the fire. One yellow eye watched me.
‘Maruman!’ I cried, flinging away the blankets and rushing across the room to scoop the old cat into my arms and smother him with kisses. I had not realised the extent of my fear for him until I held him in my arms, risking his claws and his uncertain temper. To my intense relief, there was no singed smell from his fur or scabs or gashes from fighting; best of all, his good eye glared at me with clear intelligence; ire, too, at my lavish outpouring of relief and happiness. That he did not scratch or bite me told me that he had missed me, too. I had not known I was crying until he beastspoke me to stop raining on him.
‘I am sorry my friend, but you … you have been gone so long,’ I gulped, knowing that unrestrained emotions really did irritate his mind. I wanted very badly to ask where he had been, but he loathed being questioned. Indeed, curiosity seemed to trouble his mind almost as much as human delight or anger. He would tell me what he wanted to tell me when he chose, and until then I must be patient. ‘I am just so glad you are back,’ I said at last.
‘I came to tell you that you must travel at all speed/ haste to the high mountains, ElspethInnle,’ he responded composedly.
‘The high mountains,’ I repeated, and set him back down on the sill so that I could look into his yellow eye. ‘Did Atthis send you to get me?’
Instead of answering, Maruman turned to look pointedly out the window and down. After a slight hesitation, I leaned on the sill beside him and looked out, too. The sky was clear and dark with a few stars still glimmering overhead but there was a lightness along the horizon that heralded the dawn, although within the walls of Obernewtyn, a thick, low-lying mist blanketed the grounds, enveloping the lawns, flower beds and paths. It moved in slow eddies that made it seem as if everything fixed was floating.
‘What …’ I began and then stopped, for a gap had opened in the mist through which I could see the path directly below the window. On it sat a great, astoundingly ugly dog of the kind bred by Herders. Its muzzle and eyes turned up to me as if it felt my gaze, and I drew in a breath of stunned recognition.
‘Darga,’ I whispered, and swayed back, all the strength seeming to drain from my legs and arms with shock.
For here at last was the long-awaited sign that I must leave Obernewtyn at once and forever.
PART TWO
THE HIGH ROAD
16
‘No one must see you go / leave, ElspethInnle,’ Maruman warned.
I nodded, dazedly, trying to gather my wits.
Atthis had promised that when the time came for me to set off on the final part of my quest to find Sentinel, she would answer all my questions, and appoint companions to help me. It seemed as if I had been waiting for this moment for years, and now that it had come, I felt utterly unprepared. My mind shied away from it, grasping at some other reason for the appearance of Darga.
But a cooler part of my mind told me that Atthis must have contacted Maruman to ensure that he arrived at Obernewtyn at the same time as Darga. It shamed me to think that the ancient bird might have anticipated my reluctance and seen the need to send Maruman to chivvy me into doing what I had sworn to do. Yet it made no sense that I would be summoned to the mountains a sevenday before I was to set off for the Red Land. I could barely travel to the ken and back in that time, and there could be no delay in the departure of the ships if I was detained.
Then it came to me that Atthis meant to have fliers bring me to the ken. It was a long way, but the last time they had come all the way to the White Valley to get me.
‘Make your preparations,’ Maruman sent tersely.
I nodded, and forced myself to strip off my nightgown. Shivering a little, I bathed in a bowl of cold water and dried quickly, standing close to the dying fire before pulling on clean underclothes, a thin, long-sleeved knitted shirt with a high collar, and soft thin cotton undertrews. It would be considerably colder in the high mountains than in the valley so I opened my clothes trunk and took out a knitted woollen overshirt with long sleeves and doubled elbows, a woven hemp vest with several waxed pockets and a pair of heavy, supple, patched trews doubled at the knees and laced at the calves.
Pulling these on I thought how strange and yet familiar it felt to put on clothes I had worn on so many farseeker missions to rescue Misfits during the reign of the Council and the Herder Faction. Both organisations were vanquished now, and Misfits were free in the Land, yet I might have been making my last-minute preparations for an expedition as I sat on the bed to tug on my boots.
I laced them to the knee and let the upper edge droop over, pushing my short knife into the holster inside, though I doubted I would have any need of a weapon at the ken.
As I rose, it struck me that Maryon had arranged for the gifts of boots and coat and pack because she had foreseen this journey. It would be just like her not to warn me. I tried not to feel irritated, knowing I ought to be grateful that she had prepared what was needful. I looked at the pack she had sent over and wondered if I ought to take it.
‘Are the fliers waiting just outside Obernewtyn or further up the valley?’ I asked. ‘I need to know whether I should bring a pack with some food.’
‘Bring all that you cherish for you will never return to this barud,’ Maruman sent.
I stared at him. Then I understood. There would not be time enough to return to Obernewtyn between travelling to the mountains and down to Sutrium. Swallowing hard, I looked around the chamber. Knowing that I would never come back made everything suddenly precious. I drew a deep breath and went to lift the pack onto the bed. I would prepare it and leave a note, asking Ceirwan to send it and the bow and quiver of arrows down to the ships. I opened its upper and lower pockets and packed fresh underwear and socks, two spare shirts and a heavy soft woollen tunic in the bottom segment. I added my battered mending and healing kits and a small tinder box with an enamelled lid. When I went to get my comb, my eyes fell on Jacob’s journal.
I took it up, weighing it in my hand. Jacob had scribed in its pages of the key sent to Hannah by Cassy, which I would need to complete my quest as the Seeker, but it was my hope that the Agyllians had the key and that Atthis would present it t
o me at the ken. Either that or it was somewhere in the valley, if Jacob had gone no further, and Atthis would tell me where so that I could get it before leaving for the Red Land.
Nevertheless I was reluctant to leave the book behind, especially since there was a portion of it yet to read. I hesitated a moment longer and then swaddled it in its waxen cloth and slipped it into the largest pocket of the pack with a mental apology to Garth.
‘You are too slow,’ Maruman snapped.
‘I must consider what to send down to await me in Sutrium,’ I said with dignity.
‘Anything you send there will wait for you forever,’ Maruman said coldly.
I stopped and turned to stare at him. Finally I went over to him. ‘Maruman, what do you mean? I cannot reach the ships that will travel to the Red Land without travelling to Sutrium, unless the Agyllian fliers will carry me directly to the deck of one of them!’
‘Marumanyelloweyes said nothing of flying to ships,’ Maruman said. ‘Elspethlnnle must travel to the high mountains. You will not/never come back to thisland or this barud.’
I opened my mouth but he turned away to gaze out the window again, emanating impatience and irritation. Knowing there was no use in begging him to tell me more, I tried to take in what his words meant. I was to leave Obernewtyn this night, and I would not return to it or to the Land once I had gone up into the high mountains. And without being flown, there was no way for me to join the Red Land expedition.
Was it possible that I had been mistaken in reading into Cassy’s clues that she had left something for me in the Red Land? And what of Dragon? Had I also been mistaken in believing the same clue referred to her suppressed memories? Or was it that the clue had referred to something that had subsequently changed? After all, Hannah had dreamed that Cassandra’s key would lie with her body and Jacob’s, and that had been wrong.
Other questions rose and clamoured.
What of Swallow who was now camped in the White Valley enduring whatever rituals his people had devised for the seeking of a dream vision? The gypsy had said so often and with such certainty that he was to go with me on my final quest, that he had convinced me. Yet how could he go with me if I was leaving now, and if he had no knowledge of where I was going?
I drew a long steadying breath and told myself that Atthis would explain everything when I reached the ken. If I had read the clues wrongly, she would tell me what they had truly meant, or she would explain what had changed and how it was to be dealt with. I began to add other things to the pack, half my mind focused on what I would need and the other half thinking about what it meant that I would go now from Obernewtyn, telling no one, and leaving no message save that which was locked deep in Rushton’s mind. Even then, the information he had was wrong, for when he had entered my mind, I had truly believed that I was to travel with the expedition to the Red Land.
A picture of the master of Obernewtyn leaning over my bed to kiss me came vividly into my mind and I heard again his last words: I hate leaving you. I groaned aloud, remembering how we had blithely anticipated the weeks on end we had thought to share aboard a ship bound for the Red Land.
And what of Dameon who might even now be on his way up to Obernewtyn? I would never be able to say goodbye to him.
Maruman reached out and nipped me hard enough to make me gasp with pain. ‘Must go,’ he sent.
‘But I … I have to …’ I began, and stopped.
What was I trying to say, I wondered? I have to wait until tonight; until tomorrow? I have to tell Rushton I am going? I have to say goodbye to Dameon and Ceirwan and to all the others? How could I do any of those things when I could not explain why I was leaving, or tell them where I was going?
It came to me then, like a chilly draught from an unseen gap, that I had always known in my deepest heart that it would be like this, a slipping away from a life full of people I had come to love, in a place I had helped to shape, in a land I had helped to free.
Something else occurred to me.
I looked down at my boots. Right from the first I had thought they were too heavy for a sea journey where most of my time would be spent barefoot. The coat, too, was not the sort one wore aboard a ship. Then I looked over at the shelf where two trays now stood piled with samples of travel food sent up from the kitchens by Javo, at the insistence of Christa.
I knew then that Maryon had given me her gifts because she had foreseen my final departure from Obernewtyn and from the Land. I cursed her and wished that she had warned me so that I could have made my own preparations. But my anger faded almost at once, for what else could I truly have done beyond what had been done for me? I could not have said goodbye to anyone. And maybe, had I known in advance that I would have to leave this night, I would have done something that I ought not to have done, or failed to do something that needed to be done.
As if she was before me, I could almost see the grave dark eyes of the Futuretell guildmistress, hear her highland accent, as she explained that a futureteller did not tell what they saw if the telling would affect the hearer in some adverse way. And then I knew what would have changed if the Futuretell guildmistress had warned me how soon I would leave Obernewtyn when I visited her in her tower room. I would not have merged minds and bodies with Rushton. It would have seemed too desperate and painful in the face of an imminent parting. I would have denied us the piercing sweetness of our loving. I would have left Rushton without forging the precious golden cord that now bound our spirits together. I would not have had the comfort of knowing that one day he would understand why I had been forced to leave him, because I would not have left the truth hidden inside him. Surely even the fact that I had not known that I was to go so soon would allow him to understand something of what I was now feeling.
If Maryon had told me what she had seen, I would have carried only the pain of our parting away with me, for leave Rushton and Obernewtyn and all my dear friends and companions I must.
This awareness pressed like a stone on my heart, and feeling half-suffocated by the terrible weight of it, I wove a coercive net to capture and hold all grief and sorrow so that I could do with clarity and care what I must do. The moment it was complete, the tangle of my thoughts gave way to the intense calm that I always experienced in the moments before a dangerous expedition. I acknowledged that there were questions that urgently needed answering but I was able to set them aside, knowing that they would be answered when I reached the ken.
I finished my packing, fitting in as many portions of Javo’s travel food as I could, and then I went to fill the new water gourds from the jug of water on my bedside table.
I noticed a small circlet of dark waxy leaves on the table. My heart began to pound at the sight of it and the piece of parchment lying under it, bearing Rushton’s distinctive script.
I drew the parchment out, and read the words scribed on it.
My love, you know already what I ask, seeing this handfasting wreath. If you would bond with me, wear this about your wrist at firstmeal today and let it be your answer to my eyes. I will commission the Twentyfamilies to make two metal bracelets that the ceremony might be performed while we are at sea. If you would refuse me, whether only for now or for some time to come, wear it not and I will never reproach you. You will ever be my ravek. Rushton.
I took up the little wreath. The leaves were damp, which meant Rushton had not brought them when he had come in and woken me. He must have picked the leaves and worked the garland in the last hour for them to be so fresh. He had obviously crept back to leave it so that I would find it when I woke. If only I had woken when he came in, I might have held him one last time! I felt the coercive net fraying under the solid weight of this new sorrow.
‘Would you fail at the first test, ElspethInnle?’ Maruman asked sternly.
It was as if he had poured ice water over me. I grimly strengthened the net I had woven to draw off sorrow and regret, and as my mind cooled, I understood that nothing would have been solved or salved if I had woken when R
ushton came in with the wreath. Not one more embrace or twenty would have been enough to assuage my longing for him. Perhaps even an entire lifetime would not be enough.
I folded the parchment and slipped it into the waxed pocket in my vest and, after a moment’s hesitation, I carried the wreath to my bed and laid it in the dent in the pillow left by my head, praying that Rushton would find it and take it as a farewell, and a tender reminder of the night we had spent together.
Turning away, I stopped the water gourds and sealed them with wax before adding them and a number of other small things to the top section of the pack with the food packages. Then I laid a densely woven blanket over them, tucking it in and wishing I had a proper travel blanket with one side waxed. At least I had a good supply of food. I added a pair of sandals and a few toiletries in a small pouch, and then I tied the pack shut.
‘Do I have everything?’ I muttered.
‘The oldOnes said do not forget the stone key and the memory seed, ElspethInnle,’ Maruman sent.
I bit my lip in dismay at the realisation that I had been about to do exactly that. I went to the windowsill and drew out the long, heavy sword from the shelf under it. Inevitably, it made me think of the black sword that was now part of my spirit-form, and it seemed to me that I could actually feel its weight against my hip.
I tied several thongs about the cloth wrapped around the stone sword to hold it in place and then I used one of the lengths of rope the futuretellers had gifted to fashion a simple harness that would enable me to carry the sword over one shoulder; too late to wish I had got Grufyyd to make me a proper sheath for it as I had intended. I tested the weight of it and was dismayed at the thought of having to carry it any great distance.
Then I realised that Gahltha would be able to carry the sword without much discomfort if I took some of the webbing Grufyyd had designed to allow equines to carry things with ease. Maruman had not mentioned him but since the black horse had been appointed one of my guardians by Atthis, he would obviously go with us. I took several lengths of webbing from my trunk, checked the buckles, and then coiled them and stuffed them into the pack.
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