‘Father! We scarcely know him!’ Honey objected.
‘I could have said the same to you when you left the loft last night,’ he observed to her mildly.
‘Father, all we did was talk.’ She flashed a look at me, as if I had betrayed her. My tongue had turned to leather in my mouth.
‘I know,’ Josh agreed. ‘Blindness seems to have sharpened my hearing. But if you have judged him someone safe to talk to, alone, at night, then perhaps I have judged him someone safe to offer our company to as well. What say you, Cob?’
I shook my head slowly, then, ‘No,’ I said aloud. ‘Thank you all the same. I appreciate what you are offering, and to a stranger. I will travel with you as far as the next town, and I wish you well in finding other companions to travel with you from there. But … I have no real wish for …’
‘You lost someone dear to you. I understand that. But total solitude is not good for any man,’ Josh said quietly.
‘Who did you lose?’ Piper asked in her open way.
I tried to think how to explain without leaving myself open for more questions. ‘My grandfather,’ I said at last. ‘And my wife.’ Saying those words was like tearing a wound open.
‘What happened?’ Piper asked.
‘My grandfather died. My wife left me.’ I spoke shortly, wishing they’d let it be.
‘The old die in their time,’ Josh began gently, but Honey cut in brusquely with, ‘That was the love you lost? What can you owe to a woman who left you? Unless you gave her cause to leave you?’
‘It was more that I did not give her cause to stay,’ I admitted unwillingly. Then, ‘Please,’ I said bluntly. ‘I do not wish to speak of these things. At all. I will see you to the next town, but then my way is my own.’
‘Well. That’s clearly spoken,’ Josh said regretfully. Something in his tone made me feel I had been rude, but there were no words I wished to call back.
There was little talk the rest of that evening, for which I was grateful. Piper offered to take first watch and Honey second. I did not object, as I knew Nighteyes would prowl all about us this night. Little got past that one. I slept better out in the open air, and came awake quickly when Honey stooped over me to shake me. I sat up, stretched, then nodded to her that I was awake and she could get more sleep. I got up and poked at the fire, then took a seat by it. Honey came to sit beside me.
‘You don’t like me, do you?’ she asked quietly. Her tone was gentle.
‘I don’t know you,’ I said as tactfully as I could.
‘Um. And you don’t wish to,’ she observed. She looked at me levelly. ‘But I’ve wanted to know you since I saw you blush in the inn. Nothing challenges my curiosity quite as much as a man who blushes. I’ve known few men who turn scarlet like that, simply because they’re caught looking at a woman.’ Her voice went low and throaty, as she leaned forward confidentially. ‘I would love to know what you were thinking that brought the blood to your face like that.’
‘Only that I had been rude to stare,’ I told her honestly.
She smiled at me. ‘That was not what I was thinking as I was looking back at you.’ She moistened her mouth and hitched closer.
I suddenly missed Molly so acutely it was painful. ‘I have no heart for this game,’ I told Honey plainly. I rose. ‘I think I shall get a bit more wood for the fire.’
‘I think I know why your wife left you,’ Honey said nastily. ‘No heart, you say? I think your problem was a bit lower.’ She rose and went back to her blankets. All I felt was relief that she had given up on me. I kept my word and went to gather more dry wood.
The first thing I asked Josh the next morning when he arose was, ‘How far is it to the next town?’
‘If we keep the same pace we struck yesterday, we should be there by tomorrow noon,’ he told me.
I turned aside from the disappointment in his voice. As we shouldered our packs and set off, I reflected bitterly that I had walked away from people I had known and cared about to avoid the very situation I was now in with comparative strangers. I wondered if there were any way to live amongst other people and refuse to be harnessed by their expectations and dependencies.
The day was warm, but not unpleasantly so. If I had been alone, I would have found it pleasant hiking along the road. In the woods to one side of us, birds called to one another. To the other side of the road, we could see the river through the scanty trees, with occasional barges moving downstream, or oared vessels moving slowly against the current. We spoke little, and after a time, Josh put Piper back to reciting ‘Crossfire’s Sacrifice’. When she stumbled, I kept silent.
My thoughts drifted. Everything had been so much easier when I had not had to worry about my next meal or a clean shirt. I had thought myself so clever in dealing with people, so skilled at my profession. But I had had Chade to plot with, and time to prepare what I would say and do. I did not do so well when my resources were limited to my own wits and what I could carry on my back. Stripped of everything I had once unthinkingly relied on, it was not just my courage I had come to doubt. I questioned all my abilities now. Assassin, King’s Man, warrior, man … was I any of them any more? I tried to recall the brash youngster who had pulled an oar on Verity’s warship Rurisk, who had flung himself unthinkingly into battle wielding an axe. I could not grasp he had been me.
At noon Honey distributed the last of their waybread. It was not much. The women walked ahead of us, talking quietly to one another as they munched the dry bread and sipped from their waterskins. I ventured to suggest to Josh that we might camp earlier tonight, to give me a chance to do a bit of hunting or fishing.
‘It would mean we would not get to the next town by noon tomorrow,’ he pointed out gravely.
‘Tomorrow evening would be soon enough,’ I assured him quietly. He turned his head toward me, perhaps to hear me better, but his hazed-over eyes seemed to look inside me. It was hard to bear the appeal I saw there, but I made no reply to it.
When the day finally began to cool, I began to look for likely stopping places. Nighteyes had ranged ahead of us to scout when I sensed a sudden prickling of his hackles. There are men here, smelling of carrion and their own filth. I can smell them, I can see them, but I cannot sense them otherwise. The distress he always felt in the presence of Forged ones drifted back to me. I shared it. I knew they had once been human, and shared that Wit spark that every living creature does. To me, it was passing strange to see them move and speak when I could not sense they were alive. To Nighteyes, it was as if stones walked and ate.
How many? Old, young?
More than us, and bigger than you. A wolf’s perception of odds. They hunt the road, just around the bend from you.
‘Let’s stop here,’ I suggested suddenly. Three heads swivelled to regard me in puzzlement.
Too late. They’ve scented you, they are coming.
No time to dissemble, no time to come up with a likely lie.
‘There are Forged ones ahead. More than two of them. They’ve been
