Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

Yes, but

“Mommy, I’m hungry!”

“She is hungry,” Ylo said, conceding defeat. “Those cows have calves.”

“So?” he said.

“You think of me as an impress still? Sir, I am but a humble grocer’s daughter and granddaughter of farmers. I can milk a cow even if you can’t, Signifer Ylo!”

He laughed. “I catch ‘em, you milk ‘em?” Cheer faded “We have no bucket.”

Eshiala’s eyes glinted angrily. “We have two soft leather bags! We can put the gold back later. We can leave it lying in the grass for all I care! Saddle up, Signifer!”

The cows were reluctant and a couple of times Ylo thought he was about to be gored. He had no experience with cattle, but desperation was always the mother of innovation and he was prepared to wage all-out war. The taking of hostages had always been one of the army’s preferred strategies, and it worked with calves. In the end the cattle paid ransom of enough warm milk for breakfast and morning showers, also, for the bag leaked. When the day grew hot the fugitives would all reek of sour milk. Nonetheless, the world brightened when hunger was banished, at least for a while.

Maya was very tired of riding. She wanted to go home, she said, although she probably could not remember a home. She became difficult when Ylo wanted to lift her.

“Give her to me,” Eshiala said. “You can ride with Mommy for a while today, pet.”

Ylo was worried about the roan. The previous evening he had suspected it was favoring its right foreleg, and although he could detect no trouble now, he wanted to keep careful watch on it. He mounted Eshiala on the sorrel with Uomaya before her. He kept the roan for himself, thinking he might dismount later and walk for a while.

Eshiala smiled down at him triumphantly. “Eastward ho!” she said.

“Eastward it is,” he agreed, swinging into his saddle. It had been eastward all along-always eastward, as if they were some strange birds that migrated at right angles to all others, as if they fled the sunset.

They set off over the pasture at an easy trot, staying close to a hedgerow as high as a small forest, alive with dog roses, figwort, and golden cinquefoil. Eshiala was an accomplished rider, well tutored by the experts of the palace. She rode without apparent effort, laughing and coaxing her daughter to good spirits. Ylo stole miserly glances at her face. His realization earlier that she must soon be taken from him made him greedy for more memories of it, and yet he already knew every jot of it better than he knew anything in the world.

He had seen that face inflamed with passion and racked by ecstasy. He had seen it gentle, adoring her child. He had seen it kind, winning worshipful aid from peasants. Back in the palace days he had seen it coldly imperious and known that the spirit within was terrified beyond reason, but hiding that terror from all but the most perceptive. In Yewdark he had seen it desperate but unvanquished. He had never seen it sulk, never petty or spiteful or selfish.

And now their danger was greater than ever. He did not say so, and he had not argued against this new course, because their cause was now so hopeless that any risk was worth taking. True, the next valley might grant them a few hours’ or days’ more freedom. Yes, but

Travelers on the road were inconspicuous to anyone except their pursuers. Cutting across country attracted everyone’s attention, and the farmers’ ire. To leave the roads was always a fugitive’s last resort. This was the final lap.

His concern was well founded. They had ridden hardly a furlong over the pasture before their way was blocked by another hedge, its thorny tendrils reaching higher than a horseman and thicker than a wagon. They turned aside to flank it and with surprising good fortune soon found a place Ylo thought they might break through. He dismounted and persuaded the roan that if he could do it, a horse could follow. There was hawthorn in the hedge, and wild roses, and stinging nettles. Both man and horse got well scratched, but not fatally. The far side was pasture. He looped the reins round a branch and went back to fetch the sorrel.

A flash of light far-off caught his eye and he knew at once that it was sunlight on armor. They were distant, two fields away, but he could make out the dust they were kicking up. He counted eight or nine riders, already spread out as if they had been in hot pursuit for some time.

“There they are,” he said numbly. “See, darling?”

Eshiala must have seen. With a wild scramble her horse exploded through the hedge, screaming in alarm. Ylo leaped back out of the way. Maya, clasped tight before her mother, uttered a wail and lifted tiny hands to fend off trailing branches. The sorrel catapulted into a gallop.

Common sense said that the game was over. The hounds had their quarry in sight at last and now they could run it down.

Common sense be damned-Eshiala’s maternal instincts had taken over. Her child was in danger.

“Ride, Ylo!” she shouted, her voice fading into the distance. ”Ride like the wind!”

2

Archon Raim built his own furniture with adze and chisel. The exiled king of Krasnegar preferred sorcery. Rap had constructed two admirably debauched lounging chairs to adorn the lawn outside his cabin, outfitting them with comfy pallets in an eye-catching purple. They would have swallowed a pixie whole, but they let him stretch out to his full length and degenerate in comfort. They were on the large side for Inos, and she had made some fitfully disparaging remarks about his color sense. If the Gods were truly insistent that he must wither away into senility in this gilded prison, then he would have ample time to do something about such matters.

But not now. Now was still for talking, and smiling, and strange feelings of thankfulness. It was only two days since he had brought Inos to the Rap Place at dawn, feeling much less like a romantic knight rescuing his lady than a plowman carrying his peasant bride home to his hovel. Years ago she had given him a palace; now he had landed her in a two room cabin. Being Inos, she had sensed his mood and praised the quarters beyond reason. Being Inos, she made that hovel feel more homelike than any castle.

Two days were not enough to wipe out eight months of separation, eight months of not-expecting-ever-to-see-again. Two days were not enough to exchange tales of all their strange adventures. Two days were not enough to erase the feelings of miracle upon waking to find the wanted one lying alongside, or looking up to meet the remembered eyes again. Two days were nothing and yet infinitely precious.

Now they lay under the shade of the elm and smiled at each other in bone-deep contentment.

“What was the worst?” she said suddenly.

He shrugged. “When the sorceress caught me in Casfrel, I suppose. Or when we had to let Olybino die. But he must have known that would happen. I feel guilty that I always underestimated him.”

“He probably underestimated himself until he needed to be more than he had been. And the best part?”

“Silly question.” She chuckled. Later, she sighed. “What happens next, Rap?”

“Here? Nothing. The Keeper will see to that.”

“Can she? Can she really keep the Covin away for ever?”

“She thinks so. Or says she does. It is in the laps of the Gods. If anything brings Zinixo’s full attention to bear on Thume, he will realize that it is not what it seems. Otherwise . . .

Otherwise the two of them remain here in exile for ever, moldering away into old age.

“No escape?” Inos asked, knowing what he had not said. “Not without her consent. I expect she has bespelled us so that we cannot escape. She probably foresaw what happened in the djinn camp, or else she had a prophecy to guide her. She knew I would return. She knew—you can bet on that. I don’t think the Keeper takes any risks at all.” He glanced around. “We have company.”

Kadie and Archon Thaile came strolling across the grass. One had short fawn hair, one long black hair, but they wore identical skirts of blue and green, identical white blouses, identical sandals. Gold eyes and green eyes, but their smiles were equally strained.

Kadie had elected to remain at the Thaile Place. She came to call twice a day, but she never stayed long. She was improving, yes, but even her mother had failed to effect a cure. That was going to take time, and Rap had an uneasy hunch that Kadie made those visits only because Thaile sent her. Today she had brought her instead.