Finally, with the sun clear of the horizon, a crew arrived. From her horse’s back, Varia watched the oarsmen clomp down the wharf and board the ferry, muscular men in short, open, canvas vests, gibing each other, laughing and roughing. Shortly, chains rattled as two of the ferry’s crew lowered the end gate, which became a ramp for loading. Led by Caerith, she rode her mount out onto the ferry, hooves clopping on the wooden deck. Then Caerith dismounted and tied her reins to a rail. She watched oarsmen unship their oars, heard commands shouted, saw them lowered, dip, pull, and they moved away from the wharf, a dull drum beat regulating the strokes.
“It’s a fine sight, the river,” Caerith said.
She looked coldly at him from within her hood. She had nothing against the half-ylf. He was decent and patient with her. But four or five days’ westward was Ferny Cove. She didn’t doubt it held the dangers Cyncaidh had implied. But neither did she doubt that, with care and stealth, she could be within dashing distance of the gate when next it opened. Now she’d get farther from it every day.
The crossing did not take many minutes. When they were firmly docked, the gate at the shore end was lowered. Then the riders untied their mounts, and Caerith led his horse and Varia’s off the craft. Again they waited on the shore, while the half-ylvin soldiers roped the pack string and remounts into an orderly file. When they were ready, Cyncaidh, instead of mounting and giving the order to move out, walked over to his captive and reached up to her.
“Let me help you down, my lady.”
For a moment his offer and form of address unsettled her. Then she turned, leaning sideways a bit, and he took her under the arms, lifting her down. “Your wrists, please,” he said, and when she’d extended her hands from the cloak, he removed first the manacles, then the gag.
“We’re entirely safe here, my men and I. And you.”
He turned and walked to his horse. Caerith stepped up to help her mount, but she shook her head. “Thank you, Caerith,” she told him, “I can do for myself now,” and raising a foot to the stirrup, swung into the saddle.
A moment later, Cyncaidh gave the command, and men, horses, and captive started up the road from the river bank, Varia looking ahead at him with a new unease. Dismounting had been difficult with manacles, and Caerith had usually helped her. But that had been simply a soldier helping a lady from her horse. When Cyncaidh’s large hands had lifted her down, it had triggered her heart, speeded her blood. The feeling was one she hadn’t wanted; not in this world.
She set her jaw, concentrating on the easy movement of the mare beneath her.
They rode no farther than a livery stable at the north edge of Parnston, for their horses were worn out from long use and no grain. The proprietor brokered a sale with a local breeder, and before noon they had new mounts. Not especially good animals, but adequate, well fed, and rested. Meanwhile, the travelers actually ate breakfast at an inn, and an early lunch. Varia had thought they might lay over a day, but Cyncaidh didn’t even give his men time to fall asleep at the table before ordering them back into the saddle.
It threatened to be a long afternoon, not having slept the night before, and in the pleasant warmth, Varia dozed off and on in the saddle. Clearly Cyncaidh’s method of changing from night travel to day travel was to ride all day. They were seasoned riders; no one would fall out of the saddle simply because he dozed. And when they did camp, no one would have trouble falling asleep.
The country here was as much open farmland as woods, but even where the road passed through fields, maples, oaks, or tuliptrees shaded it. It was a better road than any she’d seen in the Rude Lands, ditched through low stretches, with a bridge or white oak culvert where it crossed a stream. In the soft stretches, rock and clay had been dumped, covered with gravel and leveled, to prevent miring and rutting.