Then Sigurd balked, very slightly, and Sigmund was forced to echo him. The team carefully detoured around a heap of objects in the road. One tall wheel bit gently into deep moss as the team skirted the obstacle. Ki glanced down to see what they passed, expecting to see a basket of produce tumbled from some farmer's cart, or the like. Her involuntary start of surprise tugged the reins and brought the team to a halt. Ki stared down, leaning over the side of her wagon. Habit made her set the wheel brake and wrapthe reins about it before she dismounted. The shield of a Rouster stared up at her.
It was like a sprinkle of water on a dreamer's face. She found herself dragged unwillingly back to the edges of her normal world. Before her were all the accouterments for a warrior and horse. It was a riddle she didn't wish to consider. Yet here it was, too strange to be ignored.
Dubiously she lifted the padded chemise from the top of the pile. It unfolded from her hands and fell past her knees. A large warrior. Ki glanced about the empty night, expecting to hear someone cry out to leave the things alone. Nothing moved; no one spoke.
Beneath the creamy chemise was a light but finely wrought mail shirt, a sweet jingling ringing from it as it swung from her fingers. Here were heavily padded leather trousers and padded tubelike garments that Ki deduced to be arm protection. Spurred boots leaned against a saddle of black leather. The saddle's peculiar design made it look singularly uncomfortable. A bridle of matching design was looped over the cantle. Other strapped items and metal pieces beneath the saddle appeared to be light armor for a horse. The sword was a stiff and heavy affair, made in an unfamiliar style; its stained and worn scabbard of dark leather banded with metal testified to regular use. And the shield burned with the hated Rouster symbol.
Ki let the bridle slip from her fingers. She backed away from the pile. But before she put a hand on her wagon to hoist herself up, she stopped. It was offensive. Not just to herself. That pile of warrior's gear, so foreign to this peaceful world, was a blot upon the smooth roadway. Like a dead pig in a fountain.
She rubbed the back of her neck uneasily. It belonged to someone. It must. But there was no one in sight, and she knew no reason why a warrior would pause, strip self and horse, and then proceed again. She couldn't even conceive of a warrior being on this road.
She couldn't leave the armor there in a heap. Again she peered about, feeling strangely guilty. She gathered up the pieces and dumped them in the wagon's freight bed. Not stealing; tidying up, she told herself firmly. Let no filth from Jojorum pollute this countryside. She wiped the smell of them from her hands and mounted her wagon. The journey resumed, the team pulling effortlessly as the wagon began a very gradual downgrade. The road, so long straight, bent now into a gentle curve. Ki lifted her eyes to find the lights on the horizon still directly in front of her and beckoning. So it was all right. She was still on her way to the Limbreth lights, and Vandien would meet her there. She had only to follow the road, just as the Keeper had said.
But the road was blocked. A hulking shape stepped from the darkness to bar the way. Bigger by far than a Human, it loomed silent upon the road before her; but it was the wrongness of the creature that overwhelmed her. She couldn't identify it. She studied its dim outline as they approached, totally perplexed by it. A deep trepidation stirred in her.
First Sigurd and then Sigmund raised whinnies of greeting to it, and as the creature answered them it became only a horse. It didn't gallop off at their approach, but advanced, as if it found itself lonely and as strange to this place as to Ki's eyes.
As the wagon drew abreast of it, two thoughts occurred to her. This animal was hard to see, as dark as her own beasts in the soft perpetual twilight; it possessed no inner luminescence to mark it a creature of this place. The second thought was more unnerving. This was the horse whose tracks she had followed; and it wasn't Vandien's.
It was a heavy beast, a strayed plow animal perhaps. A closer inspection showed fine legs, built strongly but not as chunkily as her own horses'. Its back and sides bore none of the marks of a pulling harness,but only one long and narrow white scar against its black coat. A scar such as a glancing spear might leave. Here was the naked warhorse whose trappings were in the back of the wagon.
Not Vandien's. The thought was strangely hard to absorb. She glanced over at the horse that kept pace with her team as they went on. If it wasn't Vandien's, then ... Ki struggled to focus her mind on what it meant. Then it meant Vandien had gone to Limbreth's on foot. She frowned to herself. That didn't seem right. There was something wrong with that solution, something that chafed her mind. Why would Vandien go ahead without her when he could have waited and ridden in comfort? When she caught up with him, she would ask him. But she would have to hurry now to catch him. She slapped the reins on the greys' backs and they obediently lengthened their strides. The black horse still kept pace.
It was a relief to go back to watching the black road uncurl before her. She found herself breathily humming an old Romni tune that blended pleasantly with the cadence of her team's hooves. The strange horse beside her seemed pleased with it as he flicked his ears to catch her voice; the darkness glinted off his rolling black eye.
The tune died in her throat. She listened to a peeping chorus that came from one side of the road. There the flat surface gave onto a boggy stretch of reedy grasses and white and yellow flowers. The standing water about the reeds was a shining black mirror for the sky. Beyond the bog was a rolling field, and at the back of it a hut. Ki watched a figure emerge from it, stooping to clear a low doorway and standing up straight and tall.
Man or woman, she couldn't tell at this distance, but it was Human. Or close enough. Shimmering hair with a yellowish sheen reminded her of the woman she had glimpsed at the Gate. The figure took a tool from the wall of the hut and started toward the fields. She was suddenly seized with a desire to speak to someone, and she reined in her team and leaped up to stand on the seat.
'Halloo!' she called, swinging her arms over her head. Her voice sounded thin and improbable in the dark; Ki felt suddenly foolish. Here she was, standing on her wagon and waving as if she were not the only visible object on the flat smooth road. Anyone who looked her way would have to see her. She sank back onto the seat, but kept a hand raised in greeting. The figure advanced toward the field and the wagon. Its long robe fell past its knees and caught the strange light of this place and cast it back with every step. But it didn't speak to her, or even turn eyes that way.
'Hey!' she called again. She meant it to be louder than her first call, but somehow it came out fainter, as if her own shyness conspired with the peace of the night to still her voice. The person had reached the first row of the hummocky lines of crops. The tool rose and fell, rose and fell, with a steady beat. She heard the scrape of it across the soil.
'Hey!' Ki called again, as loud as she could muster. Slowly it turned to look at her. The gleaming yellow hair fell back from its face and the light of eyes fastened on her. For a moment the glowing eyes regarded her as she waved, an idiot smile upon her face. Then they dropped back to the soil and the hoe began to rise and fall again.
Her raised hand fell to her lap. So eloquent a dismissal needed no words. She felt a sudden pang of rejection, such as she had felt as a child when village children had been called away from her, shooed off by parents that didn't want their youngsters around a wild Romni girl. This was the same, again; she was visible but not to be recognized. Tears stung in the inner corners of her eyes. She slapped the reins on the horses' backs. The riderless beast beside her again matched the team's pace. What was this nonsense? she scolded herself. Had she not outgrown this vulnerability before she was even a woman? This midnight road had stripped away her protections as easily as it exposed her to the long ago simple joy of beingalive. Did the two always have to balance one another?
A sudden thirst assailed her. She slid open the cuddy door, reaching for the waterskin that always hung just within. Then she remembered the cool silver of the flowing water and could be satisfied with no other. She stirred the reins, hastening the team again. Bog water such as rimmed the road now she would not touch, no matter what her thirst. Bog water, the Romni said, was fever and flux water, waiting for the unwary. But where there was bog there must be soon found the streams and trickles that fed it. And such moving water, she thought, would be cold and silver and helpful. As wine was sometimes helpful, and the more potent and spicy Cinmeth. Ki, who did not often yield to cravings, felt a pang of unease. She silenced it quickly. So she desired the cool and clear water of a flowing stream. Did that make the impulse somehow dangerous?
'You spend your days denying yourself, fearful that if you take joy in something, you will not be able to endure life without it afterwards.' Was not that how Vandien constantly chided her? But look at him, that marvel of self-indulgence. Money in pouch was money gone. How many times had she seen him empty his purse at some roadside fair and come away with no more to show for it than a sweet cake and the memories of tumblers and minstrels? She envied him that, in a way she could never admit to him. She wished she could forget all caution, her wary habits, for an afternoon and be a child that did not have to plan for the morrow. So generously he spent his life and coins, how amazed and absorbed he was by all things. The seasons of their companionship had taught her that his giving to others never diminished what he had for her. At times it seemed as if half her feeling for him was a joy that he existed as he did, moving so carelessly through the world, taking no precautions, but always landing on his feet. He balanced her. She liked the way his life wove through hers and affected it, led her into dares she would ordinarily refuse, even as she defended her stability against his foolhardiness.