Now that it was too late—now that she had accepted the compact formally tendered by the Chancellor, now that she had been proved honest by yon strange bitch—she rued the bargain. Mostly what she thought of was how Thorin would look with his pants off, his legs white and skinny, like the legs of a stork, and how, as they lay together, she would hear his long bones crackling: knees and back and elbows and neck.
And knuckles. Don’t forget his knuckles.
Yes. Big old man’s knuckles with hair growing out of them. Susan chuckled at the thought, it was that comical, but at the same time a warm tear ran unnoticed from
the comer of one eye and tracked down her cheek. She wiped it away without knowing it, any more than she heard the clip-clip of approaching hoofs in the soft road-dust. Her mind was still far away, returning to the odd thing she had seen through the old woman’s bedroom window—the soft but somehow unpleasant light coming from the pink globe, the hypnotized way the hag had been looking down at it…
When Susan at last heard the approaching horse, her first alarmed thought was that she must get into the copse of trees she was currently passing and hide. The chances of anyone aboveboard being on the road this late seemed small to her, especially now that such bad times had come to Mid-World—but it was too late for that.
The ditch, then, and sprawled flat. With the moon down, there was at least a chance that whoever it was would pass without—
But before she could even begin in that direction, the rider who had sneaked up behind her while she was thinking her long and rueful thoughts had hailed her.
“Goodeven, lady, and may your days be long upon the earth.”
She turned, thinking: What if it’s one of the new men always lounging about Mayor’s House or in the Travellers’ Rest? Not the oldest one, the voice isn’t wavery like his, but maybe one of the others . . . it could be the one they call Depape…
“Goodeven,” she heard herself saying to the man shape on the tall horse. “May yours be long also.”
Her voice didn’t tremble, not that she could hear. She didn’t think it was Depape, or the one named Reynolds, either. The only thing she could tell about the fellow for sure was that he wore a flat-brimmed hat, the sort she associated with men of the Inner Baronies, back when travel between east and west had been more common than it was now. Back before John Farson came—the Good Man—and the bloodletting began.
As the stranger came up beside her, she forgave herself a little for not hearing him approach—there was no buckle or bell on his gear that she could see, and everything was tied down so as not to snap or flap. It was almost the rig of an outlaw or a harrier (she had the idea that Jonas, he of the wavery voice, and his two friends might have been both, in other times and other climes) or even a gunslinger. But this man bore no guns, unless they were hidden. A bow on the
pommel of his saddle and what looked like a lance in a scabbard, that was all. And there had never, she reckoned, been a gunslinger as young as this.
He clucked sidemouth at the horse just as her da had always done (and she herself, of course), and it stopped at once. As he swung one leg over his saddle, lifting it high and with unconscious grace, Susan said:
“Nay, nay, don’t trouble yerself, stranger, but go as ye would!”
If he heard the alarm in her voice, he paid no heed to it. He slipped off the horse, not bothering with the tied-down stirrup, and landed neatly in front of her, the dust of the road puffing about his square-toed boots. By starlight she saw that he was young indeed, close to her own age on one side or the other. His clothes were those of a working cowboy, although new.
“Will Dearborn, at your service,” he said, then doffed his hat, extended a foot on one bootheel, and bowed as they did in the Inner Baronies.
Such absurd courtliness out here in the middle of nowhere, with the acrid smell of the oil patch on the edge of town already in her nostrils, startled her out of her fear and into a laugh. She thought it would likely offend him, but he smiled instead. A good smile, honest and artless, its inner part lined with even teeth.
She dropped him a little curtsey, holding out one side of her dress. “Susan Delgado, at yours.”
He tapped his throat thrice with his right hand. “Thankee-sai, Susan Delgado.
We’re well met, I hope. I didn’t mean to startle you—”
“Ye did, a little.”
“Yes, I thought I had. I’m sorry.”
Yes. Not aye but yes. A young man, from the Inner Baronies, by the sound. She looked at him with new interest.
“Nay, ye need not apologize, for I was deep in my own thoughts,” she said. “I’d been to see a … friend … and hadn’t realized how much time had passed until I saw the moon was down. If ye stopped out of concern, I thankee, stranger, but ye may be on yer way as I would be on mine. It’s only to the edge of the village I go—Hambry. It’s close, now.”
“Pretty speech and lovely sentiments,” he answered with a grin, “but it’s late, you’re alone, and I think we may as well pass on together. Do you ride, sai?”
“Yes, but really—”
“Step over and meet my friend Rusher, then. He shall carry you the last two miles.
He’s gelded, sai, and gentle.”
She looked at Will Dearborn with a mixture of amusement and irritation. The thought which crossed her mind was If he calls me sai again, as though I were a schoolteacher or his doddery old great aunt, I’m going to take off this stupid apron and swat him with it. “I never minded a bit of temper in a horse docile enough to wear a saddle. Until his death, my father managed the Mayor’s horses … and the Mayor in these parts is also Guard o’ Barony. I’ve ridden my whole life.”
She thought he might apologize, perhaps even stutter, but he only nodded with a calm thoughtfulness that she rather liked. “Then step to the stirrup, my lady. I’ll walk beside and trouble you with no conversation, if you’d rather not have it. It’s late, and talk palls after moonset, some say.”
She shook her head, softening her refusal with a smile. “Nay. I thank ye for yer kindness, but it would not be well, mayhap, for me to be seen riding a strange young man’s horse at eleven o’ the clock. Lemon-juice won’t take the stain out of a lady’s reputation the way it will out of a shirtwaist, you know.”
“There’s no one out here to see you,” the young man said in a maddeningly reasonable voice. “And that you’re tired, I can tell. Come, sai—”
“Please don’t call me that. It makes me feel as ancient as a . . .” She hesitated for a brief moment, rethinking the word
(witch)
that first came to her mind. “. . . as an old woman.”
“Miss Delgado, then. Are you sure you won’t ride?”
“Sure as can be. I’d not ride cross-saddle in a dress in any case, Mr. Dearborn—not even if you were my own brother. ‘Twouldn’t be proper.”
He stood in the stirrup himself, reached over to the far side of his saddle (Rusher stood docilely enough at this, only flicking his ears, which Susan would have been happy to flick herself had she been Rusher—they were that beautiful), and stepped back down with a rolled garment in his hands. It was tied with a rawhide hank.
She thought it was a poncho.
“You may spread this over your lap and legs like a duster,” he said. “There’s quite enough of it for decorum’s sake—it was my father’s, and he’s taller than me.” He looked off toward the western hills for a moment, and she saw he was handsome, in a hard sort of way that jagged against his youth. She felt a little shiver inside her, and wished for the thousandth time that the foul old woman had kept her
hands strictly on her business, as unpleasant as that business had been. Susan didn’t want to look at this handsome stranger and remember Rhea’s touch.
“Nay,” she said gently. “Thankee again, I recognize yer kindness, but I must refuse.”
“Then I’ll walk along beside, and Rusher’ll be our chaperone,” he said cheerfully.
“As far as the edge of town, at least, there’ll be no eyes to see and think ill of a perfectly proper young woman and a more-or-less proper young man. And once there, I’ll tip my hat and wish you a very good night.”