‘How long?’ Sowsie asked.
‘Three or four days. Face it, Sowsie. The black robes had some monstrous beasts in those wagons.’
That night for the first time in weeks Thewson spent hours honing the edges of his spear blade, that great, leaf-shaped blade, arm-long, which he had carried from the jungles of the south throughout all his wandering.
They rode out in the morning to see the black wings of carrion birds rising in clouds from a glade at the edge of the trees. They did not need to go near to smell what Lain-achor had described. Jasmine made a face and rode ahead of the others, trying to get upwind. Thus she was alone when she heard the sound, a kind of soprano trembling of the air, a childlike sound. Her horse’s ears went up, and it began to amble toward the noise, head cocked. There in a hollow where trunks of fallen trees made a sort of pen stood a very young foal, head down, legs spraddled wide. Jasmine was off her mount and into the pen without thinking about it, and the others found her there cuddling the foal and talking to it in baby talk.
‘Help me get it out,’ she demanded, restating this more urgently when the others seemed to delay. ‘Now! Poor thing, so hungry and tired trying to get out. Its mother must have been killed.’
‘We have nothing to feed it, Jasmine,’ objected Sowsie. ‘The little thing is too young to survive without its mother.’
‘Ah, poor thing, poor baby. It must have run away when the whatever-it-was killed the horses, run away and got itself caught. Ah, poor baby.’ She struggled to lift the foal. Thewson stepped across a fallen trunk to take it from her. ‘Now, what is this about its not surviving?’
‘Milk, Jasmine. The foal is not weaned yet.’
‘So? We will buy goat’s milk at a village.’
‘The villages are closed, Jasmine. Everything is closed. No trading. No selling. I doubt we can get anyone to talk to us.’
Jasmine was thoughtful for a long moment, then said, 6 Goats cannot be closed, Dhariat. They need forage, and I doubt the herders are out in the field cutting grass for them when the goats do it so easily for themselves. We will steal one.’
Daingol snorted. ‘So much for Laklandish morality.’
‘There is nothing moral about Gahl,’ retorted Jasmine. ‘Nothing at all. Nothing moral about closing up villages and not talking to people. We need a goat and will steal one, that’s all. We can leave something in payment if you like.’
Thewson rumbled with wry acceptance. ‘I will get her a goat, trail finder. We will see if Thewson remembers his youth among the herds of his enemies.’
They rode westward, the foal across Jasmine’s saddle pad, too weak to protest, head and forefeet dangling disconsolately on one side, hind feet kicking in occasional reproach on the other. By midmorning they had come to the entrance of the pass where long meadows opened to fall away in green undulations to the silver glimmer of the Sals. They skirted it at the northern edge, among the trees. Villages lay to the west in the folds of the hills, bright as scattered blocks, children’s toys, tethering the open sky with pale ropes of smoke. Thewson sought a movement of livestock on the slopes and, when he found it, rode away from them to rejoin them later with pounding hooves, grunts, and a bleating captive across his thighs. The goat was indignant, half terrified, but content finally to take small sheaves of grass from Thewson’s hands as they tried to persuade the foal to nurse from the bulging udder. Finally they improvised a nursing bottle from a flask and leather glove which Lain-achor donated reluctantly to the project. The foal drank greedily.
Three times they went down the slopes toward the glimmer of the Sals where the riding would be easier along the river banks. Three times they withdrew into the screen of the trees as clots of black-robed Gahlians, some with wagons, some without, came along the river heading south. They stopped for the night high on the slopes under cover of a tumble of stone, and they set watches throughout the hours of darkness.
When morning came, the little foal struggled to his feet and approached Jasmine and the bottle with determination.
‘See, Thewson. He knows me already.’
‘He knows food,’ Thewson replied. ‘Better than he knows his feet.’
It was true. The foal could hardly stand. Each time his feet were collected beneath him, one would give way and leave the little animal struggling once more.
‘He has to count them,’ offered Daingol. ‘Here in the valley of the Sals the children still play the old counting games in the language of D’Zunalor. They say, “Tin, tan, zara, san, zos, zem, komek, dan, zarazara, tansoz.” So the foal does, see? Tin, tan, zara, san …’
‘Tin-tan,’ echoed Jasmine. ‘Well, that’s a good name. We will call him Tin-tan, and soon he will be big enough to stop counting his feet; you’ll see.’
Though it was still late winter on the eastern side of the mountains, here on the western slopes the warm winds from the sea summoned spring. On the south sides of rock walls, where warmth collected during the days, small heads of lavender and yellow poked through the dried grasses and spikes of blue lady’s lily shook their hanging bells. ‘Jaer slept us through winter,’ Thewson remarked. ‘Spring comes now.’
‘Is there spring in the Lion Courts, Thewson?’
‘When the flame trees bloom, we say that is spring. The rains stop then. Then is the time when the trees-eat-their-shadows, the time for buying wives.’
‘I would not want to be a bought wife.’
Thewson laughed, reached out to touch her as he had formed the habit of doing. ‘Only the Chief really buys wives. All other men must find someone who wishes to be bought. I would come to your house, Jasmine flower.
