progress to more challenging tasks. And I’ll try to meet you tonight, but I dare not make any promises. Lord Golden keeps me very busy, and it’s been hard for me to get this much time free. Do you know where Three Sails Tavern is?’
‘Yes, but don’t meet me there. Come to the Stuck Pig instead. It’s very near Jinna’s.’
‘And?’ I pressed, knowing there was another reason.
‘And you can meet Svanja, too. She lives nearby, and watches for me. If she can, she joins me there.’
‘If she can sneak away from her home?’
‘Well … somewhat. Her mother doesn’t much mind, but her father hates me.’
‘Not the best start for a courtship, Hap. What have you done to deserve his hatred?’
‘Kissed his daughter.’ Hap grinned a devil-may-care grin, and I smiled in spite of myself.
‘Well. That is a thing we will discuss this evening as well. I think you are young to begin a courtship. Better to wait until you have some solid prospects and a way to keep a wife. Perhaps then her father would not mind a stolen kiss or two. If I can get free tonight, I will meet you there.’
Hap seemed somewhat mollified as he waved me a farewell and went back to his stacking work. But I walked away from him with a heavier heart that I had come with. Jinna was right. Town life was changing my boy, and in ways I had not foreseen. I did not feel that he had truly listened to my counsel, let alone that he would act on it. Well. Perhaps tonight I could take a firmer line with him.
As I walked back through the town, the first flakes of snow began to fall. When I reached the steeper road that wound its way up to Buckkeep Castle, it began to fall thick and soft. Several times I paused and stepped aside from the road, to watch back the way I had come but I saw no sign that anyone followed me. For the Piebalds to threaten me, and then vanish completely made no sense They should have either killed me or taken me hostage. I tried to put myself in their position, to imagine a reason to leave your prey walking freely about. I could think of nothing. By the time I reached the gates of the keep, there was a thick carpet of snow on the road, and the wind had begun to whistle in the treetops. The weather brought an early darkness. It was going to be a foul night. I would be glad to spend it inside.
I stamped the clinging wet snow from my feet outside the entrance to the hall that went past the kitchens and the guardroom. I smelled hot beef soup and fresh bread and wet wool as I went past the guardroom. I was tired and wished I could enter and share their simple food and rough jokes and casual manners. Instead I straightened my shoulders and hastened past and up to Lord Golden’s chambers. He was not there, and I recalled he said he might be gaming with the Queen’s favoured. I supposed I should seek him there. I went into my chamber to be rid of my damp cloak and found a scrap of parchment on my bed. There was a single word on it. ‘Up.’
A few moments later, I emerged in Chade’s tower chamber. There was no one there. But on my chair waited a set of warm clothing, and a green cloak of heavy wool with an overlarge hood. The outside bore the otter badge, unfamiliar to me. An unusual feature of the cloak was that it reversed to plain homespun, in servant blue. Beside it was a leather travel-bag with food and a flask of brandy in it. Beneath it, folded flat, was a leather scroll-case. This heap of gear was topped with a note in Chade’s hand. ‘Heffam’s troop rides out on highway patrol tonight from the north gate at sunset. Join them and then divert to your own goal. I hope you will not mind missing the harvest feast. Return as swiftly as possible, please.’
I snorted at myself. Harvest Fest. I had so looked forward to it as a boy. Now I had not even recalled that it was nigh. Doubtless the Prince’s betrothal ceremony had been intentionally scheduled to precede Buckkeep’s celebration of plenty. Well, I had missed it for the last fifteen years. Once more would not bother me.
On the end of the worktable was a hearty meal of cold meat, cheese, bread and ale. I decided to trust that Chade had arranged my disappearance from Lord Golden’s service. I had no time to seek him out and relay the information, nor did I feel comfortable leaving him a note of any kind. I thought regretfully of my delayed-again meeting with Hap, and decided that I’d already warned him I might not be there. And the sudden opportunity to take some action on my own appealed mightily to me. I wanted to banish the hanging suspicion that the Piebalds had located my den. Even to discover that they had would be better than wondering fearfully.
I ate, and changed clothes. By the time the sun was setting, I was mounted on Myblack and approaching the north gate. My hood was pulled well forward to exclude the biting wind and blinding snow. Other anonymous green-cloaked riders were gathering there, some complaining bitterly about drawing road patrol while the betrothal festivities and harvest celebration were at their height. I drew closer and then nodded silent commiseration to one talkative fellow who was regaling the night with his woes. He began a long tale of a woman, the warmest and most willing woman imaginable, who would wait in vain for him at a Buckkeep Town tavern tonight. I was content to sit my horse beside him and let him talk. Others congregated about us. In the gathering dark and swirling snow, indistinct riders huddled in their cloaks and hoods. Scarves and darkness swathed our faces.
The sun was down and the night dark before Heffam appeared. He seemed as disgruntled as his men, and announced brusquely that we’d ride swiftly to First Ford, relieve the guard there tonight, and begin our regular tour of patrol of the highways in the morning. His men seemed very familiar with this duty. We fell in behind him in two ragged lines. I took care to take a place well to the back. Then he led us out of the gate and into the night and storm. For a time, our road led us steeply downward. Then we turned and took the river road that would lead us east along the Buck River.
When we had left the lights of Buckkeep far behind us, I began to hold Myblack in. She was not pleased with the weather or the dark, and was just as glad to go more slowly. At one point I pulled her in completely and dismounted on the pretext of tightening a cinch. The patrol rode on without me into the cloaking storm. I mounted again and rejoined it, now the last man of the troop. As we travelled, I held my horse back, letting the distance between us and the rest of the troop gradually lengthen. When at last a bend in the road took them out of sight, I pulled Myblack to a halt. I dismounted and again began to fuss with saddle straps. I waited, hoping that my absence would go unnoticed in the foul weather. When no one returned to see why I tarried, I turned my cloak, remounted Myblack and headed her back the way we had come.
As Chade had bid me, I hastened, yet there were inevitable delays. I had to wait for the dawn ferry across the Buck River, and then the winds of the storm and the ice that coated the lines and the decks slowed our loading and passage. On the other side, I discovered that the road was wider and better tended, as well as more travelled, than I recalled. A prosperous little market town clustered alongside it, the taverns and houses built on pilings to be beyond the reach of both ordinary and storm tides. By midday I had left it far behind.
My journey back to my home was uneventful in the ordinary sense. I rested several times in smaller, nondescript inns along the way. At only one was my night’s rest disturbed. At first the dream was peaceful. A warm fireside, the sounds of a family at their evening tasks.
‘Umph. Off my lap, girl. You’re far too big to sit on me now.’
‘I’ll never be too big for my papa’s lap.’ There was laughter in her voice. ‘What are you making?’
‘I’m mending your mother’s shoe. Or trying to. Here. Thread this for me. The firelight makes the needle’s eye dance until I cannot find it. Younger eyes will do better.’
And that was what had awakened me. A sudden wash
