“Word to the wise,” said the librarian, who had laid his hand lightly upon her shoulder as the abbot disappeared into the crowd. “The abbot really doesn’t know where the troops are. If I drew him a map, he wouldn’t be able to show me where they were, or how many. He’s a good domestic organizer, and he manages people quite well because he’s kindly and fair, but strategic matters are not his interest or his strength. He feels safe because his commanders tell him he is. I feel safe here at the abbey because I know the commander of the abbey home force. He’s the one who commands the men on the walls that protect me. If I left the abbey, however, I’d want a word with the other commanders, just to know where I could get help if I needed it.”
“So the abbot may either have been lying, though I think he’s incapable of lying,” said Xulai to Abasio, “or he may have been telling me what he has been told is the truth.”
The rest of the day Xulai spent taking her things, a few at a time, to Abasio’s wagon. Underwear. Shoes. Boots. She had two cloaks, undifferentiated as to gender. Books, three or four. She couldn’t take the cats, obviously, and this caused some pain that she sat down and cried over for a time, even though she knew they would be perfectly all right. Oldwife, Nettie Lean, and Precious Wind would look after them. All of them were fond of cats. There was the little box from the forest. She would keep that in the deep pocket of her cloak to remember her mother by. It was remarkable, considering all the freight they’d brought, that she was taking away so little.
During her last visit to Abasio’s wagon, Fisher told her he’d brought the blue thing that had been hidden under the wain. “I may have snagged something inside that crate, because I had to burrow around to find something besides cloth, and it’s all gold embroidery and whatnot in there. The only thing that wasn’t cloth was a package, just a tiny one. I wasn’t sure it was blue until I got here and Abasio said it was. Fishers don’t see color.”
Abasio said, “I’ve made a little space under the wagon floor and hidden it there, right behind an axle.” He showed her where it was and how to get up the board that covered it. “Have you brought everything?”
“All I could think of,” she said. “See you in the morning.”
“You’re crying.”
“Am I?” Her face was wet, but she hadn’t known it.
“What is it, Xu?”
“It started when I knew I couldn’t take the cats . . .”
“Perhaps I’ll be an acceptable substitute. I’ll practice my purr.”
She shook her head. “Then it’s Oldwife and Precious Wind and Nettie. They’ll worry so. I hate doing this to them.”
He held her close, thinking. “Who here is completely trustworthy?”
There was only one name she could think of. “The librarian. Wordswell.”
“I’ve made a sort of friend out of Brother Solo Winger. I’ll ask him to lend me a few of the abbey birds and a little cage to carry them in. I’ll tell him it’s so I can send a message to Oldwife and the rest of you telling you about my trip. I’ll tell him if I send a message he shouldn’t give it to anybody unless Bear has already left the abbey . . .”
“Tell him it’s because you and Bear don’t get along!”
“Right. We don’t get along and I’d just as soon he didn’t know where I’m going. Then, when we’re well on our way, we’ll send a note to Wordswell to deliver to Precious Wind, telling her . . . something. It can’t be the truth because someone might get it out of her.”
“We’ll say I’ve learned there’s a threat against my life and I’ve gone into hiding.”
“If you know as much as you seem to about armament, you must have good survival skills. Precious Wind would know that, wouldn’t she?”
“Even Precious Wind says she worries because I’m untested. She’s right. I know what I should do, but I don’t have the habits of doing it. Oldwife will worry, too.”
“And you’ll be armed when you ride to meet me, promise.”
“Of course I will.” They sat for a long moment, side by side, Abasio thinking of things he knew very well he wanted to say to Xulai, she thinking of things she wanted to say to Abasio. Neither of them spoke. If they began they would not stop the telling, and there was too much else going on.
The following morning, they exercised the horses once again, then parted, casually, where others could see them, and again privately with much the same wrenching, uprooted pain Xulai had felt on leaving Woldsgard. Abasio went to visit Brother Winger with a bottled gift for the old man and couple of messages to be sent “later.” He left with a supply of grain and three abbey pigeons in a cage. Brother Winger had no difficulty in promising not to deliver any message he received from Abasio if Bear was still at the abbey. Bear had not endeared himself to the residents to begin with, and of late it had been rumored that he was named Bear not for his valor in battle but because he had a temper like one.
Abasio spent the rest of the day greasing axles, packing odds and ends, tying things down. Toward evening, he said he thought he’d travel on south, see what the country was like down there, and since he liked traveling by moonlight, he’d go this evening. He said good-bye to this one and that one, drove out the gate just before the night watch locked it for the night, and jingled away down the road. Once out of sight, he tied down everything that jingled and went on quietly. By morning, he and Blue had maneuvered the wagon into the old, wrecked house, masked
