'Well enough,' I said quietly.
'Good, then, we're ready to go. My cousin Hank was to drive, but he's breathing like a bellows this morning, took a cough in the night. His wife won't let him go. But if you can drive a cart …'
'He'll expect you to adjust your fee,' Starling broke in suddenly. 'By driving a horse for you, he's saved you the cost of a horse for himself. And what your cousin would have eaten.'
Nik was taken aback for a moment. He glanced from Starling to me. 'Fair is fair,' I observed. I tried not to smile.
'I'll make it right,' he conceded, and hastened out of the kitchen again. In a short time he was back. 'The old woman says she'll try you. It's her horse and wagon, you see.'
It was still dark outside. Torches spluttered in the wind and snow. Folk hurried about, hoods up and cloaks well fastened. There were four wagons and teams. One was full of people, about fifteen of them. They huddled together, bags on their laps, heads bowed against the cold. A woman glanced toward me. Her face was full of apprehension. At her side, a child leaned against her. I wondered where they had all come from. Two men loaded a cask into the last wagon, then stretched a canvas over the whole load.
Behind the wagon loaded with passengers was a smaller two wheeled cart. A little old woman swathed all in black sat erect on the seat. She was well bundled in cloak, hood, and shawl, with a traveling blanket thrown across her knees as well. Her sharp black eyes watched me carefully as I walked around her rig. The horse was a speckled mare. She didn't like the weather and her harness was binding her. I adjusted it as best as I could, persuading her to trust me. When I was finished, I looked up to find the old woman watching me closely. Her hair was glistening black where it peeped from her hood, but not all of the white in it was snow. She pursed her lips at me but said nothing, even when I stowed my pack under the seat. I gave her 'Good day' as I climbed up on the seat beside her and took up the reins. 'I think I'm supposed to be driving for you,' I said genially.
'You think. Don't you know?' She peered at me sharply.
'Hank has been taken ill. Nik asked if I would drive your mare. My name is Tom.'
'I don't like changes,' she told me. 'Especially not at the last minute. Changes say you weren't really ready in the first place, and now you're even less ready.'
I suspected I knew why Hank was suddenly feeling poorly. 'My name is Tom,' I introduced myself again.
'You already said that,' she informed me. She stared off into the falling snow. 'This whole trip was a bad idea,' she said aloud, but not to me. 'And no good is going to come of it. I can see that right now.' She kneaded her gloved hands in her lap. 'Damn old bones,' she said to the falling snow. 'If it weren't for my old bones, I'd not need a one of you. Not a one.'
I could think of nothing to reply to that, but was saved by Starling. She reined in beside me. 'Will you look at what they've given me to ride?' she challenged me. Her mount shook her black mane and rolled her eyes at me as if demanding that I look at what she was expected to carry.
'Looks fine to me. She's Mountain stock. They're all like that. But she'll go all day for you, and most of them have sweet tempers.'
Starling scowled. 'I told Nik that for what we're paying, I expected a proper horse.'
Nik rode past us at that moment. His mount was no larger than Starling's. He looked at her and then away, as if wary of her tongue. 'Let's go,' he said in a quietly carrying voice. 'It's better not to talk, and it's best to stay close to the wagon in front of you. It's easier to lose sight of each other in this storm than you might think.'
For all his soft voice, the command was instantly obeyed. There were no shouted commands nor calls of farewell. Instead the wagons in front of us rolled silently away from us. I stirred the reins and clucked to the horse. The mare gave a snort of disapproval, but stepped out to the pace. We moved forward in near silence through a perpetual curtain of falling snow. Starling's pony tugged restlessly at her bit until Starling gave her her head. Then she trotted swiftly up to join the other horses at the front of the group. I was left sitting by the silent old woman.
I soon found the truth to Nik's warning. The sun came up, but the snow continued to fall so thickly the light seemed milky. There was a mother-of-pearl quality to the swirling snow that both dazzled and wearied the eye. It seemed an endless tunnel of white that we traveled through with only the tail of the other wagon to guide us.
Nik did not take us by the road. We went crunching off across the frozen fields. The thickly falling snow soon filled in the tracks we left. In no time, there would be no trace of our passage. We traveled cross-country until past noon, with the riders dismounting to take down fence railings and then restoring them in our wake. I glimpsed another farmhouse once through the swirling storm, but its windows were dark. Shortly after midday a final fence was opened for us. With a creak and a jolt, we came out of the field onto what had once been a road but was now little more than a trail. The only tracks on it were those we made ourselves, and the snow swiftly erased those.
And all that way, my companion had been as chilly and silent as the falling snow itself. From time to time, I watched her from the corner of my eye. She stared straight ahead, her body swaying to the motion of the wagon. She kneaded her hands restlessly in her lap as if they pained her. With little else to amuse myself, I spied upon her. Buck stock, obviously. The accent of my home was on her tongue still, though faded by many years of travel in other places. Her headscarf was the work of Chalced weavers, but the embroidery along the edges of her cloak, done black on black, was totally unfamiliar to me.
'You're a long way from Buck, boy,' she observed abruptly. She stared straight ahead as she said it. Something about her tone set my back up.
'As are you, old woman,' I replied.
She turned her whole face to look at me. I was not sure if I glimpsed amusement or annoyance in her bright crow eyes. 'That I am. Years and distance alike, a long way.' She paused, then asked abruptly, 'Why are you bound for the Mountains?'
'I want to see my uncle,' I replied truthfully.
She gave a snort of disdain. 'A Buck boy has an uncle in the Mountains? And you want to see him enough to put your head at risk?'
I looked over at her. 'He's my favorite uncle. You, I understand, go to Eda's shrine?'
'The others do,' she corrected me. 'I'm too old to pray for fertility. I seek a prophet.' Before I could speak, she added, 'He's my favorite prophet.' Almost, she smiled at me.
'Why don't you travel with the others in the wagon?' I asked her.
She gave me a chill look. 'They ask too many questions,' she replied.
'Ah!' I said, and grinned at her, accepting the rebuke.
After a few moments, she spoke again. 'I've been a long time on my own, Tom. I like to go my own way and keep my own counsel and decide for myself what I'll eat for my supper. Those ones, they're nice enough folk, but they scratch and peck like a flock of chickens. Left to themselves, not a one of them would make this journey alone. They all need the others to say, Yes, yes, this is what we should be doing, it's worth the risk. And now that they've decided it, the decision is bigger than all of them. Not a one of them could turn back on their own.'
She shook her head at that, and I nodded thoughtfully. She said nothing more for a long time. Our trail had found the river. We followed it upstream, through a scanty cover of brush and very young trees. I could scarcely see it through the steadily falling snow, but I could smell it and hear the rush of its passage. I wondered how far we'd go before we tried to cross it. Then I grinned to myself. I was certain Starling would know when I saw her this evening. I wondered if Nik was enjoying her company.
'What are you smirking about?' the old woman demanded suddenly.
'I was thinking of my friend the minstrel. Starling.'
'And she makes you smile like that?'
'Sometimes.'
'She's a minstrel, you say. And you? Are you a minstrel?'
'No. Just a shepherd. Most of the time.'
'I see.'
Our talk died off again. Then as evening began to fall, she told me, 'You may call me Kettle.'
'I'm Tom,' I replied.
'And that's the third time you've told me,' she reminded me.
I had expected we would camp at nightfall, but Nik kept us moving. We halted briefly while he took out two lanterns and hung them from a couple of the wagons. 'Just follow the light,' he told me tersely as he rode past us.
