We had a second problem, one which had slowed this band of fugitives from the first. Martine, who had been wedded only last fall to the son of the village headman, was heavy with child, her time near upon her. I knew we must find, and shortly, a place wherein we could not only camp for a space, but also have food. Yet nowhere in this rugged land did there seem any welcome.
On the fifth day of our frighteningly slow travel, Rudo and Timon, scouting ahead, returned with brighter faces. We had not cut across any invader trail now for more than a day and so we had a faint ray of hope we had gotten beyond their ranging. What our scouts offered us was a camping ground. And none too soon, I believed, for Nalda, who had kept an eye on Martine, looked very sober.
If we turned a little south, Rudo reported, we would find a valley with not only water but game. He had also discovered a thicket of pla-plums fully ripe. And there was no sign of any visitors.
“Best foot it there, Lady Joisan.” Nalda spoke with her usual frankness. “That one” – she nodded at Martine, who sat on the nearest pony, her head dropping, her hands pressed to her swelling belly – “is nigh her time. I do not think she is going to get through this day before her pains come.”
We came into the valley. As Rudo promised, it had many advantages. And the men, though Insfar could use only one arm and Angarl one hand, set about hacking down saplings and setting up lean-tos-the first of which Nalda took for Martine.
She had foreseen rightly. By moonrise our party had gathered a new member, squalling lustily, and named Alwin for his dead father. Thus also our staying here for some time was ordered.
It was the next morning I set my will against Yngilda’s. If we were to survive, we must gather all the food we might find, keeping ourselves on spare rations while we dried or otherwise prepared the rest for the trail ahead.
I was learned in the provisioning of a keep, but here where there was no salt, no utensils with which to work – nothing but hands, my memory, and what I could improvise – it seemed I faced an impossible task. Yet it was one I must master.
The village women made no murmur, and even the two children did as they were bid at their mother’s side. It made me hot with anger when Yngilda did not bestir herself from the lean – to or make any move to join our foraging party.
I went to her, a bag roughly woven from grass and small vines in my hand. Coaxing would not stir her, that I was sure. This was a case for the rough of one’s tongue, and that, exasperated and driven as I was, I could easily give.
“On your feet, girl! You will go with Nalda and take heed of what she says – “
She looked at me stony-eyed. “You are bondswoman to us, Joisan. If you would grub in the dirt with fieldwomen, that is your choice. I do not forget my blood – “
“Then live upon it!” I bade her. “Who hunts not food does not eat by another’s labor. And I am no bondswoman.”
I threw the bag to her, and she spurned it with her foot. So I turned and tramped away to join the others. But I swore that I would hold to my promise. She was able – bodied and young – I would share with the Lady Islaugha, but not with her.
Of the Lady Islaugha I thought now impatiently. She had sunk into herself: for no better way could I describe her appearance since I had reported Toross’ death. As with Dame Math at the last, age had settled upon her in a single day; so, though she was still in middle years by reckoning, she was to all eyes an aged woman.
She had retreated into her own thoughts, and sometimes we could not rouse her, even to eat what was put into her hand, without a great effort. Now and then she muttered in whispers of which I could not catch more than a word or so, and from these I guessed that she spoke with those I could not see and who, perhaps, were long gone from this world.
I hoped that this was a temporary state born of shock and that in time she would be herself. But of that I could not be sure. If I could only get her to Norstead Abbey where the Dames were learned in nursing, perhaps she might be brought back to the world. But Norsdale seemed farther from us each day.
Yngilda had no such excuse, and she must take upon herself a share of our hardships. The sooner she learned that fact, the better! It was with no pleasant feelings that I went out to hunt.
I had a long bow and three arrows. At Ithkrypt in practice shooting I had proven myself marksman. But shooting at a target and at living prey were, I knew, two different matters, and I must not waste any more of those arrows. So my greater hope this morning was fixed on the river.
With patience and care I had worked at the edge of my mail shirt and broken off a couple of links, shaping them roughly into hooks, raveling my cloak hem and twisting together fibers for a cord. It was poor equipment for a fisherman, but the best I had. And as the foragers separated, the men heading for the grassland where rabbits might be found, the women for the plum thicket, I kept on along the river bank. Only necessity made it possible for me to bait the first hook with a living insect. I had always shrunk from hurting any creature, and this use of a small life was to me another horror to be added to those of the immediate past I found a place where I could wade out to a square rock around which the water washed. There were trees here, and it was cool, shadowed from the sun. But it was still so warm that I shed my mail and the padded jacket under that, keeping on only my undershift, but wishing I might drop that also and slide into the water to wash clean, not only from the dust and sweat of our journeying, but from memory also. The gryphon swung free, but it held none of the life it had shown the night when Toross and I fled together. I studied it now. It was marvelously wrought. Where had it come from? Overseas – a fairing bought from some Sulcar trader? Or – was it a talisman of the Old Ones?
Talisman – my mind played with that thought. Had it served us as a guide on our flight from Ithkrypt to the star place in the wood? That had been of the Old Ones, and this – could it be, I speculated, that such baubles as this had connection with remains of the Old Ones? It was an interesting thought, but not one to produce food. I had best attend to the reason for my being here. I dropped my baited line into the water.
Twice I had a strike, but the fish got away. And the second time it took my hook. I had never possessed great patience, but that morning I forced myself to cultivate it as I never had before.
I gained two fish with the second hook. But neither was large. And I feared that unless luck changed, this was no way to replenish our supplies. Leaving my rock, I trudged farther along the stream and, to my joy, found in a side eddy a bed of watercress I plundered.
As the sun turned westward, I turned back to camp. I had eaten some berries and chewed on a handful of my watercress. But I ached with hunger as I went, hoping that the rest had had better luck. When I struck away from the river, I came across the first piece of real fortune I had had all day.
There was a snarl and a deeper answer. Dropping my hag of fish and watercress, I put arrow to bow string and stole forward past a screen of brush.
On the body of a fresh-killed cow crouched a half-grown snow cat, its ears flattened to its skull, its teeth bared in a death-promising grin. Facing it was a broc-boar.
These grim scavengers were meat eaters, but this one must have either been wild with some private fury, or ravening with hunger, or it would not have challenged the cat over its own kill. And it would seem that the cat was wary of the boar, as if it sensed that the other’s challenge had a double element of danger.