To Romilly’s sore senses it seemed that Jandria was taunting her with her inattention, that she was away somewhere sharing the kill with her hawk and thus leading her horse to its death. She wrenched her arm free of Jandria’s and said bitterly, “I don’t have any choice, do I? A ves ordres, mestra,” and began wrenching at the pack-loads of the other chervine. In her mind, aching, accusing, was the memory of the sentry-birds for whom she had spied out carrion. Now her horse would fall prey to the kyorebni, and perhaps that was as it should be, but she felt she could not bear to see it, knowing her own carelessness had cost the faithful creature his life.
As if for comfort she looked into the sky, but Preciosa was nowhere in sight.
Perhaps she too has left me…
Toward nightfall the land changed; the green fields gave way to sandy plateaus, and the roads were hard-baked clay. The chervines were forest and hill creatures, and walked laggingly, little rivulets of sweat tracing vertical lines down their thick coats. Romilly wiped her forehead with her sleeve and took off her thick cloak and tied it in a bundle on her saddle. The sun was stronger here, it seemed, and blazed with cloudless intensity from a clear, pale sky. Twilight was beginning to fall when Jandria pointed.
“There lies Serrais,” she said, “and the hostel of the Sisterhood where we shall sleep tonight, and perhaps for a span of tendays. I shall be glad to sleep in a proper bed again – won’t you?”
Romilly agreed, but secretly she was sorry that the long journey was coming to an end. She had grown fond of Jandria, and the thought of living in a houseful of strange women really frightened her. Furthermore, she supposed, now she was in a regular dwelling-place of the Sisterhood, she would be required to go back to the frightening lessons in swordplay and unarmed combat, and she dreaded it.
Well, she had chosen to swear to the Sisterhood, she must do her best in that place in life to which she had been guided by providence. Bearer of Burdens, help me to bear mine then as you bear the world’s weight! And then she felt surprised at herself. She could not remember, before this, thinking much about prayer, and now it seemed that she was forever turning to such little prayers. I wonder, is this what the Book of Burdens calls Dhe shaya, a grace of God, or is it only a kind of weakness, a sense born of loneliness, that I have nowhere else to turn? Jandria was her friend, she thought, but she would not share her fears, Janni enjoyed the life of the Sisterhood and was not terrified at the very thought of wars and battles; such things as the village blighted with bonewater-dust enraged and horrified her, but they did not fill her with that kind of terror; Janni seemed quite free of that kind of personal fear!
They rode into the city when dusk had already fallen, and made their way through the strange wide street, the old houses of bleached stone that shone with pallid luminescence in the moonlight. Romilly was almost asleep in her saddle, trusting the path to the steady plodding pace of her chervine. She roused up a little when Jandria stopped before a great arched gate with a rope and bell hanging from it, and pulled on it. Far away inside, she heard the sound, and after a time a drowsy voice inquired, “Who is it?”
“Two women of the Sisterhood come from Hali,” Janni called, “Jandria, Swordswoman, and Romilly, apprentice Swordswoman, oathbound and seeking shelter here.”
The door creaked open, and a woman peered out into the street
“Come in, Sisters,” she said. “Lead the beasts into the stable there, you can throw them some fodder if you wish. We are all at supper.” She pointed to a stable inside the enclosure, and they dismounted, leading the tired animals into the barn. Romilly blinked when she saw the place by the faint lanternlight; it was not large, but in a couple of loose-boxes at the back she saw crowded horses, some of the finest horses she had ever seen. What was this place, and why did they crowd so many horses into so small a stable? She felt full of questions, but was too shy to speak any of them. She put her chervine into one of the smaller stalls, led Jandria’s horse into another, then shouldered her pack and followed the strange woman into the house.