The woman, the children, the others—stopped and looked at him. He was afraid for a moment, remembering the violence that had surged across these stones; but they showed no disposition to threaten him. They only watched.
He turned toward the pens and the stables, where their horses waited. Cattle lowed in the pens to his right, beasts well cared-for, better than the Shiua. The roofs of the shelters on his left were blackened, the windows eaten by fire. Folk still lived there; they watched him from doorways, furtively.
He looked behind him when he reached the stable doors, fearful that more might have gathered at his back; the same few stood in the distance, still watching him. He dismissed them from his concern and eased open the stable door, entered into that dark place, that smelled pleasantly of hay and horses.
It was a large, rambling structure, seeming to wind irregularly about the keep wall, with most of the stalls empty, save those in the first row. On the right side he counted nine, ten horses, mostly bay; and on the left, apart from the others, he saw Siptah’s pale head, ears pricked, nostrils flaring at the presence of one he knew; in an empty stall farther stood a shadow that was his own Andurin gelding.
Racks at the end of the aisle held what harness remained: he saw what belonged to Siptah, and reckoned his own horse’s gear would be near it. He delayed at the stalls, offered his hand to Siptah’s questing nose, patted that great plate of a cheek, went further to assure himself his own horse was fit. The black lipped at his sleeve; he caught the animal by the mane and slapped it gently on the neck, finding that someone had been horseman enough to have rubbed both animals down, when he had not. He was glad of this: Kurshin that he was, he was not accustomed to leave his horse to another man’s care. He checked feet and found them sound: a shoe had been reset, not of his doing; it had been well-done, and he found nothing of which to complain, though he searched for it.
And then he set himself to prepare them. There would be need of grain, that as much as the supplies they would need for themselves: their way was always too uncertain to travel without it He searched the likely places until he had located the storage bins, and then cast about to see whether there was, amid all the gear remaining, a packsaddle. There was nothing convenient. At last he filled his own saddlebags with what he could, and took Morgaine’s gear and his own, and slung it over the rails of the respective stalls, ready to saddle.
Something moved in the straw, in the shadows. At first he took it for one of the other horses, but it was close. The sudden set of the gelding’s ears and the sound at once alarmed him: he whirled, reaching for the Honor-blade, wondering how many there were, and where.
“Lord,” said a small voice out of the dark, a female voice, that trembled.
He stood still, set his back against the rails of the stall, though he knew the voice. In a moment she moved, and he saw a bit of white in the darkness at the racks, where the windows were closed.
“Jhirun,” he hailed her softly.
She came, treading carefully, as if she were yet uncertain of him. She still wore her tattered skirt and blouse; her hair showed wisps
of straw. She held to the rail nearest with one hand and kept yet some distance from him, standing as if her legs had difficulty in bearing her weight
He slid the blade back into sheath, stepped under the uppermost rail and into the aisle. “We looked for you,” he said.
“I stayed by the horses,” she said in a thin voice. “I knew she had come. I did not know whether you were alive.”
He let go a long breath, relieved to find this one nightmare an empty one. “You are safe. They are Hiua that have this place now: your own people.”
She stayed silent for a long moment; her eyes went to the saddles on the rails, back again. “You are leaving.”