C. J. Cherryh - Fortress 05 (11 page)

“Aye,” Paisi said reluctantly and with a deep heave of his shoulders. “Aye, that’s so.”

v

OTTER REACHED THE STABLES AND SLIPPED IN BY THE

LITTLE SIDE DOOR. Inside, there was only the one boy, dozing in a stall. Otter padded softly past that gate, with the bundles he brought from their chambers—two blankets too fine for rough use, good woolen blankets to keep one warm; and Paisi’s razor, and his working knife, all wrapped in Paisi’s heavy outdoor cloak, along with the short sword Paisi had had since the war. Paisi was making his own trip to the kitchens, in indoor clothing, saying he was to fetch up a breakfast for a peevish young master, but in fact taking a spare shirt to wrap up several rolls and a sausage from whatever tray they provided.

Otter’s mission was to provide grain, a lot of grain, against the cold and hard going—they had learned on their journey here what an appetite a horse had when there was no time nor chance for grazing, and this snow, covering what grass there was, would make matters worse. He carefully eased up the latch on the granary door—it was well gated against hungry strays. He had brought a sack of sorts, a fine handworked pillow casing; but he discovered instead several rougher, sturdier bags on a nail beside the door, and took two of those for the purpose instead. He slid up the little slat and filled the bags as full as he dared, as much as he hoped might see Feiny and his immense appetite down the road. He tied the two together with twine saved on a peg, the stable’s thrifty habit.

Then he slipped back out and latched the granary door, having by stealth ruled every need that might raise particular questions. He soft-footed it back to the outer door and this time let it thump loudly shut, as if he had just come in, setting the grain down in the shadow beside him.

Horses stirred in their stalls. The stableboy waked. Otter couldn’t quite see Feiny, whose stall was down at the end of the row. He waited, grand as any lord, and the stableboy came out, straw clinging to his hair and his coat in the white light of dawn.

“Your lordship?” the boy asked.

“I need my horse.”

A little stare. The boy scratched his head, and his ribs, still sleepy, and not as inquisitive as Otter might have been in his place—but he had often enough come here at odd hours to see Feiny, he and Paisi both, they being farmerfolk and missing the goats and geese. Having Feiny to fuss over and feed had been a warm and familiar thing for them, and the stableboy never minded their doing his work, once he’d understood they truly wanted to feed and water and curry one of his charges. It was surely only a small step more to say he wanted to ride out at this gray hour, and it would not pose a problem, Otter hoped, that would make the stableboy wake the stablemaster.

“Aye, your lordship.” Still scratching, the boy walked on toward Feiny’s stall and the tack room, in a murk so thick at that end of the stable that only the posts and fronts of the stalls were visible.

Otter picked up his heavy sacks and followed after.

“All his tack, if you please,” Otter said. He had learned that word.

“The bardin’, too, your lordship?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Aye, your lordship,” the boy said, never asking where they were going, or why the odd hour, or any such thing. It was all too easy, and Otter restrained himself with difficulty when the boy went after the tack and hauled it back to the stall-side, piece by heavy piece. On any other day he would have found it hard to stand and not help, but now the safety of their plan rested on the boy’s doing what he asked with no asking questions in return, and standing in the shadow assured the boy had no one to ask. The boy gathered everything, the heavy quilted-felt barding and all. Then he led Feiny out, Feiny with his rest disturbed, and in no particularly good spirits at this hour.

The boy simply put on the bridle and left the halter hanging on the fence, whence, when the boy ducked down to get the saddle, Otter simply lifted it and tucked it and its lead rope up with the blanket bundle he carried.

The saddle went on, all in silence, the boy quite content to be let alone at his work, and the buckles were buckled and the cinch was tightened—Feiny let out a deep, discontented sigh and shook his neck until all the loose parts flew.

“That’s good,” Otter said, and took Feiny’s bridle. “That’s very good.” He began to lead Feiny about and down the aisle toward the outside, hauling everything he had under one arm and with one straining hand, under his cloak, and trying not to let his burden appear heavy. The boy murmured a courtesy and went to open the door for him, letting him out into the breeze and the gray dawn.

Feiny put his ears up and back again as the cold wind blew into his face. He began to dance about on the cleared and sanded cobbles outside.

“Shall ye need a hand?” the boy asked.

“No, no, it’s quite enough, thank you. Go back in and stay warm.”

“Thank ye, your lordship.” The boy bowed and ducked back into the warmth, and Otter drew the reins close and steadied Feiny by the old stone border that gave him a convenient step for getting up.

Feiny decided not to stand at all, nor give him a convenient way to get the baggage onto Feiny’s back. It became a circular chase, him and Feiny, until from around the corner Paisi showed up, himself cloaked and laden with improvised baggage, to lend a hand.

“Did you have any trouble?” Otter asked, trying to get the heavy grain sacks across Feiny’s neck.

“None,” Paisi said. He was wearing his field boots, and his good heavy cloak, and showed a flour sack he had gotten. “Sausages, a good white loaf, and cheese, white an’ yellow. I said ye was fussy an’ out of sorts, so’s ye know your state when ye get back to your rooms, m’lord.”

“Hold him,” Otter said, and with Paisi’s help got the grain sacks across the saddlebow, at which Feiny sidestepped and threw his head, stamping one shod rear hoof like the crack of doom.

“Stop it,” Paisi said, shortened up the reins, and slapped Feiny sharply on the shoulder. “Don’t you kick, ye rascal.”

More baggage went up. Otter struggled with the saddle ties atop the quilted barding, hoping not to have the blankets and sacks spilling in opposite directions, and he stood on the stone curb to tie the knots. It was a poor job. It made no orderly bundle, but it stayed, at least, until he could get his foot in the stirrup and get into the saddle.

Paisi handed him up the reins. It was their plan to go out like man and servant—young lords were prone to errands at the edge of dawn and dark, not the sort, Paisi said, that the gate-guards were apt to question, and if asked, he had to say he was visiting a friend.

Lies, again, but the sort that would get Paisi on his way. Beneath his cloak, Paisi had all the coin they had but his lucky pennies, the small hoard that Gran had given them—“Which I won’t need,”

Gran had said, pressing her savings on them, “but who knows, in the city?”

Who knew, indeed? But with the pennies, Paisi could stop at farmhouses and buy a place for him and Feiny to sleep, out of the wind, and perhaps buy more grain than what he had, if Feiny ate it all.

Feiny started to move—the horse was inclined to move the moment he had someone on his back, never mind where, and frequently in an inconvenient direction. Otter anxiously drew the reins in to the least freedom Feiny ought to have, and pressed him with his knee, and turned him toward the gate, a direction not to Feiny’s liking. But he let Feiny know with his knee and his hands that he was bent on that gate ahead of them, and that Feiny shouldn’t throw his head and try to shoulder Paisi down. He had never been inclined to hit the horse, as the grooms said he should; but this morning he desperately gave Feiny a sharp kick and a short rein, and with a sigh, as if it had been a mere annoyance, Feiny went toward the gate.

It was shut at this hour. Paisi went first to the gate warden’s post and rapped at the little oaken door. “The watch, there!”

Otter bit his lip and kept Feiny still while Paisi talked to the gatekeepers and requested the gate open. The gatekeeper came out, carrying a lantern nearly useless in the growing dawn, and held it aloft for a passing look at Otter’s face. Then: “Ye better watch that

’un,” the guard muttered, he hoped regarding the horse, which was backing and stamping a hind foot, and signaled the other man to run the chain back on the iron gates.

The gates moved quietly on their hinges, well-kept gates, opening just a little earlier than ordinary, and Paisi walked by Otter’s stirrup as they moved briskly through, Feiny turning a wary and misgiving eye to the gate wardens.

They went out onto the high street and along the stone wall where the great Quinaltine hulked against the dawn sky ahead of them. There, under that vast and disapproving stone presence, they crossed the square and took the downward street as the light grew.

Merchants opened their shutters and began to set out their wares.

Housewives swept their steps clean of snow, and stared at their passage with more curiosity than Otter liked.

Perhaps the stablemaster would wake and ask where Feiny had gone. Perhaps soldiers would come to stop them before they got to the gate.

But no one spoke. Merchants stared as they passed and looked up the gray and lonely street as if they expected to see more than two riders.

Paisi, walking briskly at Feiny’s head, said not a word, not all during the long way down, not when they began to see a few other people coming up the hill toward the market square, one man with a mule, several men carrying bundles behind him. There began to be more such, and Otter breathed more easily. They had passed the delicate moments in which they were the only travelers on the street, and become less conspicuous, to Otter’s way of thinking.

It was the western gate they chose, the lower end of Market Street, where a sparse weekday market was spreading its canvas, only three merchants as yet beginning to offer wares on a threatening and snowy morning, and those the sort of goods that might fare best on such a day: knit goods, dyed wool, and hot cider.

The city gates beyond were open, now, a fresh scrape in the snow to show where they’d moved, not long ago at all. And blocking those gates, a small outbound company of pack mules and packhorses milled about. A pair of merchants, wrapped up in cloaks, were talking with the gate wardens.

Here was the place Otter chose to get down, screened by the small caravan, the two of them afoot and anxious.

“ ’Ere might be a lucky thing,” Paisi said in a low voice. “Wait an’

look wise.”

Otter opened his mouth to ask what Paisi intended, but Paisi ducked away from him, walked in among the mules, and a few moments later came back with one of the merchants, a respectable-looking graybeard hooded against the snow.

“This is indeed your man, your lordship?” the merchant asked.

Look wise, Paisi had said, and Otter had stood lookout for Paisi in little mischiefs before, in Amefel. His part was to be the lord, and he stood as tall as he could and pretended he was Aewyn. “He is, sir.”

“As they’re goin’ by way of the monastery at Anwyfar, m’lord,”

Paisi said, “an’ they’ll feed me an’ the ’orse for as long as I ride alongside, it bein’ safer wi’ another rider in the company. A pack train, an’ all mounted, can move right along in this snow.”

There were now and again robbers to fear on the roads, when the weather made men desperate. It was a handsome offer, good for both parties, and the merchants clearly took Paisi for a lord’s personal messenger.

“As they’ll break any drifts wi’ them big mules, and switch the lead about,” Paisi said, “an’ it’ll be far easier an’ faster.”

Far faster. Otter found his heart beating hard, perhaps simply because their plan was finding great good luck, and he nodded. “A good idea,” he said, taking Paisi’s word as law. He handed over Feiny’s reins. “Excellent.” It was one of the king’s own words, in the king’s tone. “Be safe.”

The last words were not lordly: they were desperate. Paisi’s gloved hand took the reins.

“M’lord,” Paisi said, with a huskiness in his voice. “I’ll be quick as I can.”

“Do,” Otter said, then it was the plan, clearly, that he keep on being the lord and simply walk away, leaving the details to Paisi, who would travel far, far more safely by reason of the merchants.

Luck. Happenstance. Everything had fallen into place so neatly—

everyone who could have opposed them had just not happened by, had not looked out their windows, or turned up in the stable early, and the gate wardens had showed no suspicion at all. It was done, and now Paisi would do what he promised and see to Gran, in the hopes that all their good fortune was just that.

Gran could bend luck. She claimed to bend it ever so little, being only a hedge-witch, but that they had been so lucky might be good news, that Gran’s witchery was working; or bad news, that Gran was in direst need and bent luck around them, who were hers, in great desperation to get help.

All Otter could do now was to wrap his cloak about him, keeping the hood up, and trudge uphill in an increasing snowfall that misted the high hill. White made the great Quinaltine into a hazy ghost of itself and all but obscured the Guelesfort and its walls and towers.

Only the streets were real, and those cold, snow-edged brown beams and gray stone. The walks and cobbles were all snowed over in a sheet of scarcely tracked white, except the few open shops, and traffic down the center of the street. Newly swept and sanded porches began to be covered again. People were at breakfast, generally. Only the baker enjoyed a brisk traffic of young boys and housewives, an area which he skirted, unremarkable, brown-cloaked, and curtained by the snow.

He was lonely already, but—he said to himself—he had to be a man. For the first time he was altogether on his own, and for the interval between now and having the king’s help, he would not have Paisi telling him do this or do that. Manhood began with getting through the day without giving anything away, sleeping alone for the first time in his life, and seeing himself fed and bathed and dressed for Festival tomorrow.