The day was already appreciably lighter than when he'd gone in, but the world was still the ghostly no-color of false dawn. Out in the forest, wisps of fog drifted among the trees, like spirits. Idalia had led both animals up to the door while he'd been dressing. She'd just finished tightening Coalwind's girths, and Kellen set the packsaddle on the ground and held the mare steady while Idalia soothed her into accepting the bit and bridle. Coalwind was fascinated by Idalia's trader hat, and kept trying to seize it and pull it off Idalia's head; Idalia finally let her have it for an instant, taking it back once the last buckle was tight.
'There you are, my girl. I'm afraid you'll be less frisky by the end of the day.' She sighed. 'Of course, so will I.'
'Me too,' Kellen offered. 'It's not like either of us have done a lot of riding lately.'
'True enough,' his sister replied. 'Maybe there'll be a village inn up the road; Greenpoint is supposed to be about a day's ride from here. If we're lucky, we'll sleep indoors tonight, but we can't count on doing that very often.'
He nodded, but he couldn't help thinking: And maybe less often the closer it gets to the time that the City is planning on sending in their flunkies. Travelers wouldn't exactly be welcome at that point, when more and more fugitives would be on the road. And any one of them might be a City spy.
Idalia tethered the mare once more, and turned to help Kellen with the packsaddle. Prettyfoot accepted it with good grace; the mule was an experienced campaigner, and was used to early-morning departures.
Once both animals were tacked up, Idalia and Kellen made several more trips back and forth into the cabin to load the mule with their supplies. Kellen's discarded buckskins joined Idalia's in the pack reserved for last-minute things; they might well need them again sometime. Idalia tied everything in place with a speed and efficiency that led Kellen to believe that she'd done this before.
'It's easy enough, really,' she said when she caught him looking. 'You'll learn it yourself, with time. Balance the weight evenly from side to side for the beast's sake, also make sure that there's nothing that can dig or press or gall; just as if you were carrying the load yourself—and just as if you were carrying the load yourself, don't ask them to carry beyond their strength. A mule won't do it, and a donkey can carry a pack bigger than it is, but a horse will try for you until it kills itself. Heavier to the front than the back, just as you would want the weight higher than lower in your own pack. Make sure nothing can shift or crumple. Put the things you'll need on the way where you can get at them without unpacking everything. Make the whole easy to load and unload fast. All it takes is common sense and a little experience. You've got the one, and you'll have plenty of opportunity to get the other.'
At last the packing was done, and Idalia went back inside one last time to see if they'd missed anything. She came out with two steaming wooden cups, and a second hat tucked under her arm.
'Hot cider to wake us up—we'll stop in a few hours for a better breakfast—and your hat. Now you can be a proper Mountain Trader.'
Kellen took the hat and placed it on his head. It was thick felt, dyed a deep green to match his clothes—the only other time he'd seen such fabric was in the winter boots some of the City laborers wore—and quite the most outlandish item he'd ever seen. It had two long dangling leather cords that could apparently be used to tie the hat upon the head, so that despite its enormous brim—quite as wide as a cartwheel, in Kellen's untutored opinion—it could not be blown off. It was like wearing one of those round sunshades that fine ladies of the City carried on sticks to protect their lily-white complexions from the sun.
It was rather dashing, actually.
Kellen decided he liked it.
Hat in place, Kellen drank the cider—quickly, before it cooled. He set the cup down on the doorstep, realizing with a pang that it was all real. They were leaving here, now, and they were never coming back.
'Let's go,' Idalia whispered; there was a harsh tone in her voice that startled him, and he turned to peer at her.
He could see by her face that she was trying hard to be calm, not to give in to the same sense of loss that he felt. She swung quickly up into the mare's saddle and started off. Kellen walked behind, leading the mule.
It might have been some last spell of the Wild Magic, or simple kindness on the part of those revelers who remained, but no one called after them to wish them a final good-bye.
THEY headed along the path away from the clearing and into the Wildwood in silence as the sky continued to lighten and the morning birds started the dawnchorus. Fog still lingered in hollows and low-lying ravines, but it was dissipating. When Kellen looked up through gaps in the trees to the hills, he saw sunlight gilding the tops of them, and the sky was a pleasant blue dotted with white, puffy clouds.
Eventually Shalkan would join up with them, and Kellen hoped it would be soon: his new boots didn't hurt yet, but that didn't mean he wanted to walk any great distance in them.
The cabin was long out-of-sight, and they were past the farthest point Kellen had ever been to on this road, when Idalia reined in.
