‘Tell Jandria I am not quite the monster she fears. Not quite. That will be all.”
And as she left the room, Romilly wondered, shaking to her very toenails, what else does this man know?
CHAPTER THREE
When Romilly delivered the message from Lyondri Hastur to Janni – “Tell her I am not the monster she thinks me, not quite,” Jandria said nothing for a long time. Romilly sensed, from her stillness, (although she made a deliberate effort, her first, not to use her laran at all) that Jandria had several things she would have said; but not to Romilly. Then, at last, she said, “And he gave you the medical supplies?”
“He did; and a pack animal to carry them.”
Janni went and looked them over, saying at last, tight-lipped, “He was generous. Whatever Lyondri Hastur’s faults, niggardliness was never one of them. I should return the pack animal – I want no favors from Lyondri – but the sober truth is that we need it. And it is less to him than buying his son a packet of sweets in the market; I need suffer no qualms of conscience about that.” She sent for three of the women to look over the medical supplies, and told Romilly she might return to her horses. As an afterthought, as Romilly was going out the door, she called her back for a moment and said, “Thank you, chiya. I sent you on a difficult and dangerous mission, where I had no right at all to send you, and you carried it off as well as any diplomatic courier could have done. Perhaps I should find work better suited to you than working with the dumb beasts.”
Romilly thought; I would rather work with horses than go on diplomatic missions, any day! After a minute or two she said so, and Jandria, smiling, said, “Then I will not keep you
from the work I know you love. Go back to the bones, my dear. But you have my thanks.”
Freed, Romilly went back to the paddock and led out the horse she was beginning to break to the saddle. But she had not been at the work very long when Mhari came out to her.
“Romy,” she said, “saddle your own horse and two pack animals, at once, and Jandria’s riding-horse. She is leaving the hostel tonight, and says you must go with her.”
Romilly stared, with one hand absent-mindedly quieting the nervous horse, who did not at all like the blanket strapped to his back. “To leave tonight? Why?”
“As for that, you must ask Janni herself,” said Mhari, a little sullenly, “I would be glad to go wherever she would take me, but she has chosen you instead, and she bade me make up a packet of your clothes, and four days journey-rations too.”
Romilly frowned with irritation; she was just beginning to make some progress in gentling this horse, and must she interrupt the work already? She was sworn to the Sisterhood, but must that put her at the mercy of some woman’s whim? Nevertheless she liked Jandria very much, and was not inclined to argue with her decisions. She shrugged, changed the long lunge-line for a short leading-rope and took the horse back into the stable.
She had finished saddling Jandria’s horse, and was just putting a saddle-blanket on her own, when Jandria, cloaked and booted for riding, came into the stable. Romilly noticed, with shock, that her eyes were reddened as if she had been crying; but she only asked “Where are we going, Janni? And why?”
Jandria said, “What Lyondri said to you, Romy, was a message; he knows that I am here; no doubt he had you followed to see where the Sisterhood’s hostel was located outside the walls of Hali. Simply by being here, I endanger the Sisterhood, who have taken no part in this war; but I am kin to Orain and he might somehow think to trace Orain through me, might think I know more of Orain’s plans – or Carolin’s – than I really do. I must leave here at once, so that if Rakhal’s men under Lyondri come here to seek me, they can say truthfully, and maintain, even if they should be questioned by a leronis who can read their thoughts, that they have no knowledge of where I have gone, or where Carolin’s men, or Orain, may be gathered. And I am taking you with me, for fear Lyondri might try to lay hands on you, too. These other women – he knows nothing of them and cares less; but you have come under his eyes, and I would just as soon you were out of his field of notice … I would rather not have you at the very gates of Hali. Besides-” her smile was very faint, “Did you not know? A woman of the Sisterhood does not travel alone, but must be companioned by one, at least, of her sisters.”