beneath his cloak.
‘Give me your old clothes,’ he said. ‘We’ll cache them outside the city, though
I don’t think we’ll be needing them.’
She did so, and he stuffed them into the belt-bag.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
She didn’t follow him to the door. He turned and said, ‘What’s the matter? Your
liver getting cold?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Only … mother’s very short-sighted. I’m afraid she’ll be
cheated when she buys the food.’
He laughed and said something in a foreign tongue.
‘For the sake of Igil! When we return, we’ll have enough to buy out the farmers’
market a thousand times over!’
‘If we get back…’ she murmured. She wanted to go to Looza’s room and kiss the
children goodbye. But that was not wise. Besides, she might lose her
determination if she saw them now.
They walked out while old Shmurt stared. He was the weakest point in their
alibi, but they hoped they wouldn’t need any. At the moment, he was too
dumbfounded at seeing them to say anything. And he would be afraid to go to the
soldiers about this. He probably was thinking that two priests had magically
entered the house, and it would be indiscreet to interfere in their business.
Thirty minutes later, they mounted the two horses which Smhee had arranged to be
tied to a tree outside city limits.
‘Weren’t you afraid they’d be stolen?’ she said.
‘There are two stout fellows hidden in the grass near the river,’ he said. He
waved towards it, and she saw two men come from it. They waved back and started
to walk back to the city.
There was a rough road along the White Foal River, sometimes coming near the