Jasmine had peeked into the gaping holes, disregarding the warnings they had had, into vertiginous depths of blackness and rising mists. She drew her eyes away with difficulty, and focused them on her horse’s neck. Mum-lil, riding with her, murmured, ‘It is like looking into night, Jasmine. Except there are no stars.’
‘I will not look again,’ she said. ‘Do you believe that the sword of Sud-Akwith was brought out of that depth?’
Mum-lil shrugged. ‘If something lived there, then it might come out. If it might come out, it might bear a sword.’
‘But what manner of thing might live there?’
‘I would rather not think of it. No healthy thing, I am sure of that.’
They came down from the bridge as night fell to see the lights of Seathe spread a carpet of sequins before them. There was a noise in the city, a human, humming, hivish noise unlike any they had heard for years, a noise without bells or the clatter of iron wagons or the harsh chanting of black robes. Great rents were torn in the walls of the city. As they passed, more chunks of the wall fell into a cloud of dust and a sound of young voices cheering. Women leaned from high windows, naked-faced, staring at the travellers with eager curiosity, and those who walked the streets did so with the hoods of their orbansin thrown back.
‘When did the Gahlians go?’ Dhariat demanded of a passerby.
‘The last went ten days ago. Wagons have been coming from the north; almost all went south with the wagons.’
‘Almost all?’ They had seen no black robes in Seathe.
The passerby patted the long knife at his side. ‘All left Seathe. One way or another.’
‘Rebellion,’ Sowsie whispered to Lain-achor. ‘The people of the city rose up against the black robes.’
‘When all but a few had gone,’ he replied in a sombre voice. ‘When they return in thousands … what then?’
They jostled through the crowd searching for an inn. They wanted to rest, bathe, and find food tastier than that which they had eaten for too many days. Eyes followed Thewson as he rode, towering over the others both in his own height and the height of the great horse. While Jasmine was not surprised, she grew uneasy, commenting to Dhariat, ‘Who are the pale-faced men in green leather? Three times now I have seen them, always looking at Thewson, whispering.’
Daingol, hearing the question, leaned toward them to say, quietly, ‘The dress is that of the northlanders. Those who dwell in the wastes beyond Tranch, which is beyond Tanner at the edge of the unknown.’
‘They have a noble look,’ said Jasmine.
‘They are proud,’ he agreed. ‘And no one knows how they live, there in the cold north.’
‘Come,’ said Sowsie. ‘It is no farther north than the Fales, and men live well enough there,’
Thewson’s quick ears had caught every word of the conversation. ‘To go into the north, one must find men of the north. Good. I will find one dressed in these green leathers.’ He spied an inn down a side street and led them out of the crush toward its courtyard gate. They pressed within, to find more open space than they could have hoped for into which they could dismount, unload the horses, see to the hand feeding of the foal.
‘Ah, Tin-tan,’ murmured Jasmine. ‘So long a way, and weary. Such trembling legs it has, my little one.’
‘Tin-tan?’ came a lazy voice from the shadows. ‘Tin, tan, zara san. Do you speak the old tongues, Lady?’
They turned to confront one of the green-clad men, a long, pale face with curving locks of yellow hair, firm, level brows over eyes of dark cloudy grey. Daingol stepped, forward. ‘We can count the little horse’s legs, or the fingers of a hand.’
‘Would you know the word for two hands, twice?’
Jasmine cocked her head at him. ‘Let me remember. That is a “ris,” is it not?’
‘A strange word,’ the stranger murmured. ‘Ris. Almost, it might be the name of something else, or someone, perhaps.’
Thewson stepped forward, his brow furrowed in thought. ‘A riddle, Northlander? Ris. Rhees. The name of one we know – a prince, he says. Maybe that, wa’osa?’
‘Maybe that.’ The stranger bowed. ‘Are there any among you who need guides to the north?’
Thewson stared at him, meeting the grey eyes without blinking. At last, he said, ‘That may be. When morning comes, we may see.’
The stranger bowed and disappeared into the shadows. Jasmine shivered, not with horror or fear but with a sudden twitch of excitement. ‘What did he mean with his riddle? Will you go with them?’
He stroked her hair absently. ‘I do not know, bright flower. The gods know. When they must, they will tell me. I grow weary, sometimes, waiting for them to say this or that thing.’
‘At least they do tell you, eventually.’
He shouldered his pack and hers, strode toward the inn, Doh-ti and Po-Bee lost in his shadow, Mum-lil and Hanna-lil close behind, the others gathering as the stable boy led their mounts away. ‘Sometimes,’ he agreed as he opened the door into a smoky common room that smelled of bacon. ‘Sometimes they do.’
‘Ask them,’ whispered Jasmine, ‘where Leona is. Ask them if she is well, if the children are well….’
He gave no sign that he heard her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE SOUTHERN WAY
Day 7, Month of Thaw –
Day 15, Month of Wings Returning
Leona led the wagons east from the Hill, heedless of noise or confusion, like one who hears alarm bells ringing. Within her the gryphon roused, hearing again the sound of Murgin, Her skin felt the black robes approaching from the north; and though the children and young women in her charge meant little to her as persons, they meant much as a sworn charge. So they fled away to the east and south, harness creaking, hooves clattering, with no regard for stealth. ‘Find us the swiftest road to the Del,’ she demanded of the scouts. ‘One which
