The Fall of Neskaya (26 page)

Voices filtered through from the main corridor, growing louder as the speakers approached. The accents were those of Ambervale soldiers. Taniquel froze, her heart racing. She strained to catch the conversation, something about extra requisitions of food from the village below.

“Peasants are the same everywhere,” one said. “They always complain they have nothing left, when you know they’re hoarding sacks of grain in the usual places.”

“Aye, that’s the truth,” the other laughed, his voice already receding in the distance. “. . . teach them a lesson . . . like those
ombredin
in Verdanta . . . remember that time . . .”

Slowly Taniquel let her breath out. She tightened her grip on her bundle and went on. The
slither-hush-slither
of soft boots over stone rang in her ears. The passageway narrowed and twisted so that sometimes she was forced to turn sideways. As a child she had not minded the closeness of the space, but now the walls closed in upon her, compressing the very air. Twice she brushed away cobwebs from her face and hair, and once a many-legged creature which scurried along her hand. She was glad she couldn’t see what it was.

She hurried down three floors, along twisting narrow stairs and a ladder which creaked maddeningly under her weight, to emerge into a corridor by the pantries. Fortunately, the area was mostly deserted at this hour, since the cooks and their helpers had already finished the last of the scouring and gone to bed. They would rise well before dawn to get the day’s baking started. She took a quarter-round of cheese still in its sealant wax, a double handful of honeyed dried peaches, and what was left of a loaf of brown bread, all wrapped up in a dish towel that looked as if it had escaped last month’s laundry.

Durraman’s own luck was with her, for the outer kitchen door was unlocked and unguarded. No one challenged her as she crossed the courtyard, head lowered against the rain.

The Ambervale forces had set up tents in the open space, with all the attendant equipment and stench. One of the gates stood open, with more encamped men and picket lines beyond. Sentries looked outward, clearly still awake and alert.

Taniquel tiptoed through the gate, hugging the wall, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

“Hey, you! Girl!” one of the guards called out. “Get back inside!”

What would a woman of the village do? Keep going, make a break for it? Obediently creep back, hoping for a better time? Taniquel had no idea.

“Let her be,” said one of the others. “Can’t you see how scared she is? She’s just a little village tart who got caught inside when the fightin’ started. Goin’ back to her own people, most likely. Why else would she be out in this muck?”

“Or maybe she’s out to have some fun,” the first said, laughing coarsely. “Come here, girl.”

“
Vai dom
. . . please. . . .” Taniquel pulled the folds of her hood tighter around her face as she shrank away.

“Give us a kiss.” Hands like huge steel paws tightened on her shoulders and pulled her close. Before she could draw breath, the sentry planted his lips on hers. His clipped beard prickled her face, his skin cold and damp with rain. He pushed his tongue between her slack lips. For a long moment, Taniquel hung in his grip, unable to move. She felt a curious nothing, neither pleasure nor, surprisingly, any sense of revulsion. The man’s breath was sweet enough, nor had he been drinking. She simply waited until it was over.

He released her so suddenly she staggered backward. “No juice there. I’d as soon kiss a frozen prune.” The others laughed. He spun her around and pushed her stumbling toward the village. “Go on home to mama, girl. Come on back when you’re ready for a real man.”

Taniquel scurried away, half-unbelieving of her good luck. It wasn’t until she was well past the camp that she wiped the wetness from her mouth.

Mud dampened Taniquel’s boots by the time she reached the village. Droplets beaded on her wool cloak and hood. The rain had let up slightly, the clouds thinning so that two of the four moons shone with diffuse, multi-hued light. She kept to the outskirts, heading for one cottage which stood, with its paddocks of sheep and ponies, isolated from the rest. Like the others, it was silent and dark except for the faint glow of a banked fire.

Three brindled hounds bounded from the yard at her approach. One, the younger bitch who did not know her, yipped once and then subsided. The oldest dog thrust his muzzle into her hand, searching for remembered treats. She stroked their ears and scratched the itchy places at the base of their tails, whispering that she had no food for them.

It was an easy enough matter to catch the old horse with a handful of oats. The beast came to her readily, as if it also remembered her from happier days, and rubbed its bony head against her shoulder. Padrik had left it here at pasturage, the sedate half-cart horse which had been his first mount after he’d outgrown ponies.

Taniquel grasped a handful of forelock and led the horse to the shed where the gear was stored. Moonlight shone through the opened door, gleaming on the lovingly polished saddle which had been Padrik’s. As much by feel as by sight, she put it on the horse along with the second bridle, then tied on her bundles.

Behind the almost-empty grain bin, she found sacks which she identified by smell as barley and more oats. These were seed stock for the second planting or in case the first should fail, as sometimes happened with late ice-storms. She hesitated, one hand on the smallest barley sack. The food from the kitchen would not last long and she had no bow for hunting. If Deslucido’s men had found the store, they would have thought nothing of taking it all.

That was no excuse. They might not find it. They might not find all of it.

Sighing, she tucked the sack back into its hiding place.

A muffled sound made her jump. She was not alone in the shed.

L
amplight struck Taniquel’s eyes, fell on the seamed features of the cottager. She searched her memory for a name. Ruyven. Painfully aware of how it all must appear—her own disheveled dress, the saddled horse, the uncovered cache of seed grain, she got to her feet.

“Lass.” The single word held a paragraph of questions.

“You have not seen me!” she cried. She dug out the small purse and placed it beside the oat bin. “I never left this here. You have no idea where the horse wandered off to.”

He crossed the space between them, lifted out a sack of barley and one of oats, laid them with deliberate care on the dirt floor. “That old horse, always sticking his fool nose into the feed.” The next moment, he was gone.

Taniquel, wasting no time, gathered up the sacks of grain and tied one on either side to the saddle. She swung up on the horse, tucked her skirts around her legs, and spread her cloak over her precious bundles.

The old horse moved off with a spring in its step. Perhaps it remembered other moonlit rides, years ago.

They would look for her on the road, if they looked for her at all. Taniquel did not know how good their trackers were, to pick out the prints of a single unshod farmhorse amid the churned-up muck of many.

She cut across the pastures and then the orchards, heading for higher, rocky ground. When the last moon set, leaving the sloping hills in darkness, she kept going, trusting to the horse’s instinct and the stars. The old beast had lost its first bloom of energy by then, but she could not let it rest, not yet.

Taniquel awoke with a start, half-slumped over the pommel. The first gray tinge of dawn showed nothing familiar; she must have passed the outermost orchards. The horse trudged on, head lowered, ears flopping. It had apparently found its stride, an easy amble broken only by the occasional dip of the head to gather up another mouthful of spring grass. Around her stretched eroded hills strewn with boulders, fit only for goat pastures. Stunted ashleaf trees huddled together, their leaves still softly gray. From afar, a fox barked. Something stirred in the heathery brush—a lone
chervine
, wild by the way it shook its antlers and bounded off. There was no sign of human habitation.

She pulled the horse to a halt, kicked free of the stirrups, and with some difficulty slid to the ground. The stirrup leathers had rubbed the inside of her knees, her hips ached, her face and hands felt half-frozen, and her nose dripped. She slipped the bit from the horse’s mouth, leaving it to graze in earnest, and took out the bread and a portion of cheese.

Settling herself on a stony outcrop, Taniquel considered her situation. She had no way to kindle a fire, even if she found dry wood. Although her cloak was still damp, it was wool and would hold her body heat. Worst, she had only the vaguest idea where she was. She had meant to cut across country and join with the main road that led in one direction to Neskaya and the other to the lowlands and Thendara.

Well and enough,
she told herself, sniffing and fighting back tears of weariness,
you’ve gotten away from Belisar. Almost anything would be better than marrying him.

Using the position of the new-risen sun for her marker, she headed out in the approximate direction of the road. As the sun climbed above the horizon, frost melted on the grasses and rose in waves of mist. She urged the horse into a trot along a smoother stretch of road. She saw no other living thing except for an occasional hawk.

Late in the day, Taniquel stopped again along an eroded cliff face to water the horse at the waterfall which came tumbling over the rock face and into a pool. She debated staying where she was for the night, for the water and the brief shelter of the overhang. The air quivered with the promise of cold. She had, after all, seen no sign of pursuit. That meant nothing. How did she know they would not be waiting for her at the road—no, they would not have traveled that far with no sign of her passage. She was too tired to think clearly, and if she expected the old horse to carry her all the way to Thendara, she had better let it rest. While she made up her mind, she unsaddled the beast, hobbled it, and poured out a measure of grain on the saddle blanket. Her stomach roiled at the idea of eating.

Taniquel wrapped herself in her cloak, her back against the rock face. What an idiot she’d been, to take off with so little forethought. No way to make fire, no weapons, only a little food. But what else could she have done?

It would be all right; she would find the road and on it would be a travel shelter, with wood and tinder and dry blankets, maybe some food. And then, Thendara and her uncle’s castle. A blaze in the enormous marble fireplace in the central hall. Hot spiced wine, meat pastries, spice cakes. A down comforter with a heating brick at her feet, no, two comforters, and a mound of pillows. . . .

Within a few minutes, her body felt soft and heavy. Her thoughts drifted, slower and sleepier with each passing breath.

A tenday later, Taniquel found a road. She had long since finished her own food and the last of the horse’s grain, soaked overnight in a rain-filled rocky cup and chewed slowly. Fernheads and dry, over-wintered wild lady-apples had furnished several meager dinners, although she dared not spare the time to gather the more nutritious nuts. The road wasn’t much, a slender thread of beaten-down earth cleared of stones, winding through the steepening hills. She went dizzy with relief.