“So,” he returned briskly to his narrative, “I’ve been exploring as I was told to, and heading in your general direction, as I was told to, only I expected to be here long before this! My word, but I’m tired, and no one knows how much further I’ve got to travel before I get where I’m going.”
“I thought you were coming here.”
“Yes, but I’ve to go on … eventually.” He raised his left leg, the one which he’d been favoring, and squinched his face up in a grimace of pain. “Shards, but I can’t go another step for a while! This leg’s been walked half off, now, hasn’t it, Sharra?”
Still elevating the leg, he swiveled in the sand toward the healer who was looking quite concerned. Deftly she unwound the shreds of what had probably been Piemur’s cloak, and uncovered a long but recently healed scar.
“I can’t walk any farther on that, now can I, Sharra?”
“No, I don’t think you should, Piemur,” Jaxom said, critically examining the healed wound. “Do you, Sharra?”
She looked from one to the other and then began to shake her head, her eyes dancing.
“No, positively not. It needs soaking in warm salt water, and plenty of sun, and you’re a terrible rascal, Piemur. Just as well you’re not a posted harper! You’d scandalize any sensible Holder!”
“Have you kept any Records of your traveling?” Jaxom asked, keenly interested and just a shade jealous of Piemur’s freedom.
“Have I kept Records?” Piemur snorted derisively. “Most of what Stupid packs is Records! Why do you think I’m wearing rags? I haven’t room to carry spare clothes.” His voice lowered and he leaned urgently toward Jaxom. “You don’t just possibly happen to have any of Bendarek’s leaves down here, do you?
There are a couple of-”
“Plenty of leaves. Drawing tools as well. C’mon!” Jaxom was on his feet, Piemur not a second behind him with only a trace of a limp, following him to the shelter. Jaxom had not intended Piemur to see his bumbling attempts to map their immediate vicinity. But he’d forgot the young harper’s keen eyes missed little, and Piemur had spotted the roll of neatly connected leaves and, without so much as a by-your-leave, laid it open. He soon was nodding his head and muttering under his breath.
“You haven’t been wasting your time here, have you?” Piemur grinned, an oblique compliment to Jaxom’s work. “You used Ruth as measure? Fair enough. I’ve taught my queen, Farli, to pace her flight. I count by the second, watch for her dip at the end of the run and record the distance by seconds. I figure it up later when I’m charting. N’ton double-checked the measure when he worked with me, so I know it’s reasonably accurate, as long as I allow enough for a wind factor.” He whistled as his gaze fell on the tall stack of fresh sheets. “I might need ‘em, I might, to map what I’ve traveled over. If you’d give me a hand…”
“You do have to rest that leg, don’t you?” Jaxom kept his face expressionless.
Piemur caught his eye in surprise and then they both burst out laughing until Sharra, joining them, wanted to share the joke.
The next few days passed most agreeably for the three, starting with Ruth’s assurances about the Harper’s continued improvement. The first morning, noticing that Stupid had cropped all the ground greens in the area, Piemur asked if there was any grassland nearby. So Jaxom and Piemur flew Ruth to the river meadows that lay south and east of the cove, a good hour’s flying inland. Ruth willingly helped harvest the tall waving grain grasses which Piemur pronounced fine fodder that might even put poor Stupid into condition. Ruth told Jaxom that he’d never seen such a hungry-looking runner.
“We’re not fattening him up for you,” Jaxom said, laughing.
He is Piemur’s friend. Piemur is my friend. I do not eat the friends of friends.
Jaxom couldn’t resist repeating this rationalization to Piemur, who howled with laughter and thumped Ruth with the same rough affection he used on Stupid.
They packed half a dozen heavy sheaves of grass on Ruth and were airborne when Piemur asked Jaxom if he’d been to the peak yet.