Our path would lead us up the banks of the Buckriver, which we would ford at its wide shallows near where the borders of Buck and Farrow Duchies touched. From there we would journey across Farrow’s wide plains, in baking heat I had never encountered before, until we reached Blue Lake. From Blue Lake, we would follow a river named simply Cold whose origins were in the Mountain Kingdom. From the Cold Ford the trading road began, that led between the mountains and through their shadows and up, ever up, to Storm Pass, and thence to the thick green forests of the Rain Wilds. But we would not go so far as that, but would stop at Jhaampe, which was as close to a city as the Mountain Kingdom possessed.
In some ways, it was an unremarkable journey, if one discounts all that inevitably goes with such journeys. After the first three days or so, things settled into a remarkably monotonous routine, varied only by the different countryside we passed. Every little village or hamlet along our road turned out to greet us and delay us, with official best wishes and felicitations for the Crown Prince’s wedding festivities.
But after we reached the wide plains of Farrow, such hamlets were few and far between. Farrow’s rich farms and trading cities were far to the north of our path, along the Vin River. We traveled Farrow’s plains, where people were mostly nomadic herders, creating towns only in the winter months when they settled along the trade routes for what they called the “green season.” We passed herds of sheep, or goats, or horses, or more rarely, the dangerous, rangy swine they called haragars, but our contact with the people of that region was usually limited to the sight of their conical tents in the distance, or some herder standing tall in his saddle and holding aloft his crook in greeting.
Hands and I became reacquainted. We would share food and a small cook fire in the evenings, and he would regale me with tales of Sevrens’s nattering worries of dust getting into silk robes or bugs getting into fur collars and velvet getting chafed to pieces during the long trek. Grimmer were his complaints about Rowd. I myself had no fond memories of the man, and Hands found him an oppressive traveling companion, for he seemed to constantly suspect Hands of trying to steal from the packs of Regal’s belongings. One evening Rowd even found his way to our fire, where he laboriously delivered a vague and indirect warning against any who might conspire to steal from his master. But other than such unpleasantness, our evenings were peaceful.
The fair weather held, and if we sweated by day, it was mild by night. I slept atop my blanket and seldom bothered with any other shelter. Each night I checked over the contents of my trunk and did my best to keep the roots from becoming completely desiccated, and to keep the shifting from putting wear on the scrolls and tablets. There was one night I awoke to a loud whinnying from Sooty and thought that the cedar chest had been moved slightly from where I had placed it. But a brief check of its contents proved all was in order, and when I mentioned it to Hands, he merely asked if I was catching Rowd’s disease.
The hamlets and herds we passed frequently provided us with fresh foods and were most generous in their allocation of it, so we had little hardship on the journey. Open water was not as plentiful as we could have wished as we crossed Farrow, but each day we found some spring or dusty well to water at, so even that was not as bad as it might have been.
I saw very little of Burrich. He arose earlier than the rest of us and preceded the main caravan, that his charges might have the best grazing and the cleanest water. I knew he would want his horses in prime condition when they arrived at Jhaampe. August, too, was almost invisible. While he was technically in charge of our expedition, he left the running of it to the captain of his honor guard. I could not decide if he did this out of wisdom or laziness. In any event, he kept mostly to himself, although he did allow Sevrens to tend him and share his tent and meals.