“Where do I go first?” she breathed, her own eyes swimming. “Where, Cousin?”
“Ahh,” he said, leaning forward to put his hand on her shoulder. “To Wilderbrook Abbey, child. Precious Wind will go with you, of course, and others you know and trust. Bear will go with you, at least as far as the abbey, though he’ll probably leave you there for a time while he scouts the trail south. It’s been decades since we’ve heard from anyone who has actually traveled that route, and we feel it needs to be reconnoitered before you set out on it.”
“If he will go, may I ask Abasio, the traveler, to come along?” begged Xulai.
“Traveler?” He seemed dumbfounded. “Who?”
“The man with the dyer’s wagon,” she said. “He’s staying in the yard. I wanted you to meet him today, but there was no occasion for it. He tells the most wonderful stories, and he told me the other day he wanted to see the great falls.”
“How could he have come here without seeing them?” he asked sharply, with a suspicious glance out the window that looked down upon the castle yard.
“He came through the northern forests, then down along the south side of the highlands to Ragnibar Fjord, through the Stoneway, and from there down the road that comes past the gard. He has told Bear all about it. They have exchanged a good deal of information about the northern forests.”
He stared into a dusty corner, thinking for a time. “That’s amazing. I’d like to talk with him. We’ve had no visitors coming that way for a long time. Did he mention trolls?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Trolls, Cousin. He did, indeed. He says there are far too many of them past the Stony Mountains but that they do not seem to reproduce. I always thought they were mythical.”
He laughed, a brief bark, half amusement, half self-mockery. “So I’ve always thought, but some years ago my birds brought me word that an age of myth had begun again in the east.”
“East, where?”
“Beyond Norland, over the Great Stony range, on the far side, where the plains begin. Oh, it was some years ago. I was told there were trolls, and giants, and griffons, and . . . any other creature you might care to mention. We here in the west heard of a great evil building in that area. It was said a great sorceress had flown into the sky to retrieve the secrets of the ease machines and return them to earth. I confess, some of us were more than a little worried over that possibility. There seemed to be a dreadful kind of inevitability to it, but either she never went or she never returned.
“Of course, that was when I was much younger. Before . . .” Before she died. He blinked back a tear and cleared his throat. “Later we heard the evil had somehow been vanquished, though it seems to have left a hole to be filled by the next dreadful thing.”
“Trolls?”
“I haven’t been there. Perhaps your traveler has. Ask him if he would talk with me. He is your friend?”
“More like family, I think,” she murmured. “He seems very close, as though I had known him before, somehow. He says he would love to see your birds.”
The duke smiled at this, thinking: If Precious Wind says the man is harmless, and if the child enjoys his company, why not? She’ll have others around her to guard her. Surely, quickly, she must be taken to the abbey. Too much danger gathers here.
“If he wants to see the birds, send someone to bring him to the bird towers tonight, or come with him yourself. And let him accompany you to the abbey, if he likes. The place is known to be kindly and hospitable. They have a wonderful school there; the teachers are drawn from everywhere in this world, even from Tingawa. You will have youthful companions. It will be pleasant for you, I pray.”
“When do I go?”
“Day after tomorrow, early in the morning. And, dear child, should anyone meet you on the trip and ask how old you are, you will say you are seven . . .”
“Is that how old I am?”
“It is how old you look, though you may be . . . a little older. I am told that Tingawan women age very slowly. Though some girls here in Norland marry as early as twelve or thirteen, Tingawan women do not become marriageable until they are around twenty years old. I want you to look and act as young as possible for your own protection. The younger you are believed to be, the more inconsequential you will seem.”
They sat quietly for a time, hand in hand, before Xulai murmured, “If Princess Xu-i-lok died of a death curse, Cousin, it took a long time achieving its purpose.”
His hand clenched around hers, hurting her, and she cried out.
“Ah, I’m sorry, child, but it hurts to hear you say it. Yes, it took years. We fought it, Xu-i-lok and I. It may be that she fought it in ways I don’t know of. I have friends who comprehend these things, and they tell me the princess had powers and strengths of her own. The curse could not be broken, but it could be resisted, so we fought endless sorties against it, countless divagations, continual feints and retreats. I let it be known at the beginning that Xu-i-lok was my betrothed and my beloved, that I
