Song was still up front. The stream they were following was on their left, a wide valley stretching from it, fertile lands, both banks. The forest that had flanked them to the south had receded. This was farming land. They could see peasant huts clustering into hamlets and villages, men and women in the fields, charcoal burners’ fires against the darkening trees.
Tai had come this way heading west, approaching Kuala Nor two years ago, but he’d been in a strange state of mind then—grieving, withdrawn—and he hadn’t paid attention to the land through which he rode. Looking back, he couldn’t say he’d begun to think clearly about what he was doing, what he intended to do, until he’d ridden beyond Iron Gate Fort up the long ravine and come out and seen the lake.
He needed to become a different man now.
Spring Rain had warned him so many times about the dangers of the Ta-Ming Palace, the world of court and mandarin—and now he had the army, the military governors to consider as well.
Someone wanted him dead, had wanted that before he’d received the horses. He couldn’t keep them, he knew he couldn’t keep them. Not in the world as it was. The issue was what he did with them, and—before that—how he could live long enough to claim them back at the Taguran border.
He twitched Dynlal’s reins and the big horse moved effortlessly forward to catch up to the Kanlin woman. The sun was behind them, shining along the plain. It was almost time to stop for the night. They could camp out again, or approach one of these villages. He wasn’t sure where the next posting station was.
She didn’t turn her head as he pulled up beside her. She said, “I’d be happier inside walls, unless you object.”
It was the fox, he guessed. This time he didn’t make a jest. He still carried the long day’s dark remembering, a smell of burning in his mind from a northern lake.
“Whatever you say.”
This time she did look over, he saw anger in her eyes. “You are indulging me!”
Tai shook his head. “I am listening to you. I retained you to protect me. Why hire a guard dog and bark yourself?”
Not calculated to appease her, but he didn’t exactly feel like doing that. It did occur to him to mildly regret hiring her. The soldiers from the fort would surely have been enough protection. But he hadn’t known that he’d be given a military escort.
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