She got her bearings by the climbing sun, and set off again toward the north. Sooner or later she must meet with someone who would give her the right road for Nevarsin City, and from there she could inquire the way to Tramontana Tower.
She rode all that day without setting eyes on a single person or a single dwelling. She was not afraid, for she could find food in this country and while the weather kept fine, she would be safe and well. But before there was another storm, she must find shelter. Perhaps she could sell the horse in Nevarsin, bartering him for a stag-pony and enough in ready money to provide herself with food and a few items of clothing she should have in this weather. She had thrust her feet into her boots in such haste, she had left her warm stockings.
She sighed, put her knife away, and swallowed the last of the tough meat. A few withered winter apples clung to a bush; she pocketed them. They were small and sour, but the horse would like them. High above in the sky she heard the cry of a hawk; as she watched it, circling, she thought of Preciosa. It seemed to her for a moment – but surely it was only memory or imagination? – that she could feel that faint tenuous touch she had felt with Preciosa, as if the world lay spread below her, she saw herself and her horse as tiny specks . . . Oh, Preciosa, you were mine and I loved you, but now you are free and I too am seeking freedom.
She slept that night in a long-abandoned travel-shelter, which had not been kept up since the Aldarans declared their independence of the Six Domains of the lowlands; there was not much coming and going across the Kadarin between Thendara and Nevarsin these days. But it kept the rain off, and was better than sleeping under a tree. She managed to make a fire, too, so she slept warm, and roasted some of the rabbithorn. She hoped she would find some nuts – she was tired of meat – but while she was fed, however coarsely, she could not complain. Even the dog-bread she could eat, if she must, but the horse would get more good of it than she would.
So she travelled alone for three more days. By now, she supposed, they must have abandoned the search for her at home. She wondered if her father grieved, if he thought her dead.
When I come to Nevarsin, I will leave a message for him, I will get word to him somehow that I am safe. But no doubt it will be with me as it was with Ruyven, he will cast me off and say I am not his daughter. She felt a tightness in her throat, but she could not cry. She had cried too much already, and had gained nothing from her tears except an aching head and aching eyes, till she left off crying and acted to help herself.
Women think tears will help them. I think men have the right idea when they say tears are womanish; yes, women cry and so they are helpless, but men act on their anger and so they are never without power, not wasting time or anger in tears….
She finished the last of the rabbithorn, and was not sorry – toward the end, she supposed even a dog would have to be fiercely hungry to eat it, and certainly any hawk would have turned up its beak at the stuff. On the fifth night she had only some nuts, found on an abandoned tree, and some woody mushrooms, for her supper. Perhaps tomorrow she could snare some birds, or she would meet with someone who could tell her if she was again on the road to Nevarsin – but she thought not, for this road grew ever poorer and worse-kept, and if she were nearing the biggest city in these hills, she would certainly have come to some travelled roads and inhabited parts before this!
The dog-bread was gone too, and so she stopped several hours before sunset, to let her horse graze for a while. Fortunately the weather kept fine, and she could sleep in the open. She was very tired of travelling, but reflected that she could not now return to her home even if she wished – she had no idea of the road to Falconsward. Well, so much the better; now she could cut all ties with her home.