Tony looked at his mother, as though for permission. Father James was already mounting once more. With a sigh, Brother Mainoa heaved himself up, struggling to get his leg across the horse. Brother Lourai helped him. Sylvan was still atop Irish Lass.
“Go,” Marjorie said.
Blue Star moved into the shallow water, picking her way among towering trunks and through thickets of reedlike growths. The others followed. The mare took a winding path, turning abruptly to take new directions. “Follow her closely,” Brother Mainoa called hoarsely. “She is avoiding dangerous places” So they went, a slow, splashing game of follow the leader, with Blue Star following who-knew-what.
When they had come into the swamp far enough that they could no longer see the prairies, Blue Star stopped her twisting path and led them straight along a shallow channel between two impenetrable walls of trees. This watery aisle seemed to go on for miles. At last a gap appeared in the endless line, and the mare struggled up a shallow bank and onto solid ground. “An island?” Marjorie asked.
“Safety,” Brother Mainoa said, sighing and half sliding, half falling off his horse and lying where he fell. “How? Safety?”
“The Hippae will not come in here. Nor the hounds.” He spoke from the ground, staring up through the trees to far-off glimmers of sunlight, like spangles. Like gems. His eyes would not stay open. “One did,” she contradicted. “We saw the trail.”
“Only as far as the swamp,” he acknowledged. “And then, I think, perhaps it went along the side…” His mouth fell open and a little sound came out. A snore.
“He’s old.” Rillibee said to them defiantly, as though they had accused the old man of some impropriety. “He falls asleep like that a lot.”
Sylvan had dismounted. “What do I do for her?” He asked Marjorie as he stroked the mare.
“Rub her down with something,” Marjorie said. “A clump of grass, a fistful of leaves, anything. If we’re going to stay here awhile, take the saddle off.”
“We can’t go on until he wakes up,” said Tony, indicating the supine form of Brother Mainoa.
“We can’t go on until the horses rest a little anyhow,” Marjorie sighed. “They had quite a workout. About a day and a half a night of steady walking plus a mad run. Don’t let her have much water,” she cautioned Sylvan. “Walk her until she’s cool, then let her have water.”
“Otherwise what?” Sylvan asked. “Would it kill her?”
“It could make her sick,” Tony answered him, looking up as Mainoa had done before he fell asleep. Sun spangles, very high. Something else up there, too. Something high that blocked the sun. Tony pointed. “What’s up there?”
Sylvan turned to look. “Where?”
“Right up in the top of this tree, running over to that other one…”
“This island is quite sizable,” said Father James, rejoining the group from among the trees “There’s a grassy clearing through these trees. Enough pasture there for the horses to have a good feed.”
Rillibee/Lourai pulled the saddles from Blue Star and Her Majesty and stacked them against the root buttresses of a tree. “The sun is low. It’ll be dark before long. Too dark to ride.”
“How long will Brother Mainoa sleep?”
Lourai shrugged. “As long as he needs to. He’s been up since the middle of the night, on a horse most of that time. I told you, he’s an old man.”
Marjorie nodded. “All right, then. If he rests, we will all rest. Tony?”
The boy pointed upward. “We were just trying to figure out—”
“Figure out whether there’s any firewood, while it’s still light. Sylvan, please help him. We need enough wood to last all night. Father, if you’ll find the clearest water possible and fill this bucket—”
“What about me?” Brother Lourai asked.
“You and I will be chief cooks,” she said, burrowing in the capacious baskets Irish Lass had carried. “When we have eaten we will talk about what we do next.”
Tony and Sylvan wandered toward the nearest thicket, Tony taking out his laser knife. When he used it to cut an armload of dried brush, Sylvan exclaimed, “What’s that?”
Tony gave it to him, explaining.
“Is this something new?” Sylvan asked.
“Of course not. They’ve been around forever.”
“I’ve never seen one before,” Sylvan marveled. “I wonder why.”
“Probably because they wouldn’t let you,” Tony said. “It would make a handy weapon.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Sylvan said, turning the device over and over in his hand. He sighed, gave it back to Tony, and turned his attention to carrying wood. Still, he thought of the knife with wonder. Why hadn’t he known about such things?
Brother Mainoa awoke about the time the food was ready, quite willing to interrupt his rest to join them for supper When they had eaten, when the utensils were cleaned and put back in the panniers, they sat around the fire, waiting.
Marjorie said, “Well, Brother Mainoa. So, we are here.”
He nodded.
“Are we any closer to Stella than when we set out?”
“The trail led along the swamp-forest,” he said. “Outside it, unfortunately. We could not have stayed there.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Perhaps If the Hippae have gone. Tonight we would be unable to see anything.”
She sighed.
Tony said, “Mother, it’s just as well. The horses couldn’t have gone much farther.”
Marjorie was still looking at Brother Mainoa “You know something,” she said. “You obviously know much more than you have told us.”
He shrugged. “What I know, or think I know, is not something I can share with you, yet. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Will you decide?” she asked with a percipient glare.
“No,” he admitted. “No, the decision won’t be mine.”
“What does it — they — want? To look us over?”
He nodded.
Tony asked, “What are the two of you talking about?”
“Yes, Marjorie. What are you — ?” Sylvan asked.
Father James gave Marjorie a percipient glance and said, “Let it alone, Sylvan. Tony. For now. Perhaps Brother Mainoa has already presumed upon his acquaintance with… well, the powers that be.”
Mainoa smiled. “A way of saying it, Father. If you can bear it, Lady Westriding, I would suggest that we rest. Sleep, if possible. We are quite safe here.”
Safety was not what Marjorie wanted, if she had been in danger of her life, at least she would have felt she was doing something. To sleep in safety meant that she was slacking while Stella was in danger, but there was no argument she could make. It was already too dark to find a trail. She rose from her place beside the fire and made her way among the trees to the grassy area where the horses grazed. There she sought the comfort from them which she did not receive from those in her company. It was only when she leaned against Quixote’s side that she realized how desperately tired she was.
Behind her the others made their beds near the fire. Tony put his mother’s bed to one side, screened from the others by low brush, where she would have some privacy. When she returned, he pointed it out to her, and she went to it, grateful for his help. Silence came then, broken by Mainoa’s low, purring snores, the cries of peepers distant upon the prairie, and the cries of other less familiar things in the swamp around them.
Marjorie had thought she would lie sleepless. Instead, sleep came upon her like a black tide, inexorably. She went down into it, dreamless and quiet. Time passed, with her unconscious of it. The hand that was laid upon her arm did not wake her until it shook her slightly.
“Ma’am.” said Rillibee Chime. “I’m hearing something.
She sat up. “What time is it?”
