DragonKnight - Donita K. Paul [31]
Bardon stopped and turned to face her. “So, do you want to go look for your father or stay here and dally with a farmer’s son?”
N’Rae crossed her arms over her chest, swinging the basket recklessly. A squeak of protest came from within. “I want to find my father, of course. You can be so prickly. Whatever happened to ‘Maturity wears well in soft words and even temper.’ Principle thirty-something?”
“How do you know the principles?”
“My mother taught me. I told you I wasn’t ignorant.”
Bardon stomped down the lane toward the smaller barn. N’Rae and Granny Kye had to hurry to catch up. “We need a few basic supplies, transportation to Ianna, and that map.”
“You need,” spouted N’Rae, “a bath and clean clothes.”
Bardon turned abruptly into the barn.
“Where are you going?” asked N’Rae.
“I owe a man some money.”
“Our money?”
“His money. If it were our money, I wouldn’t owe it to him.” He paused inside the door. Several farm workers busied themselves with taking care of the kindia stock. “Ilex?”
“I’m here.” Ilex stepped out of Ten’s stall, a brush in his hand.
“Where can I find that man who gave up his chance to ride in the race?”
“Blosker. His cabin is down the east road just past the puny monarch tree. It drops a limb every time there’s a wind. He ought to cut it down.”
Bardon touched his forehead in a gesture of goodwill. “Thanks.”
He turned to leave, but Ilex had one more thing to say.
“You’ll be passing Cise’s place as well.”
“Who’s Cise?”
“The breaker Mig broke.”
Bardon looked into the old man’s eyes for a moment. “I’ll see to it.” He walked more slowly out of the barn.
Ilex called after him. “There’ll be a passel of kids in the yard and a swaybacked, piebald horse tethered under a trang-a-nog tree.”
Bardon waved without turning. Not far from Hoddack’s gates the road came to a crossing.
Bardon paused. “I have some errands to run before I go back to the inn. You ladies needn’t walk the extra way. You can go back to Norst, and I’ll be along in a little while.”
“I want to come,” protested N’Rae.
The older emerlindian nodded. “A walk is good for the soul.”
Bardon cocked an eyebrow at the basket N’Rae carried.
“Perhaps Mistress Seeno is tired of being jostled.”
“She sleeps when we travel,” N’Rae said. “In fact, she sleeps more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Granny Kye touched her arm. “You’ve met very few outside of the ropma, infant.”
“That’s true. But isn’t it also true, Grandmother, that Mistress Seeno sleeps a great deal?”
“I think she sleeps when we are awake, and she stands guard while we are sleeping.”
“Really?”
“Of course. She is your protector.”
N’Rae nodded. Bardon shook his head. He still found it absurd that the tiny minneken thought she could defend anyone. He led the way down the darkening road, beneath ancient trees rattling their leaves in the light gusts of air.
A clutch of o’rant children clambered in and around the trang-a-nog tree and over and under the swaybacked, splotchy horse.
Bardon asked the group in general, “Is your father at home?”
“He’s sick-a-bed,” answered one.
“Can’t get up,” said another.
“I’ll fetch Ma,” said a scrawny boy whose twin nodded vigorously and then raced the slightly smaller child to the door.
The slender woman with graying hair took the five hundred grood gratefully.
“It’s half of what I won in Hoddack’s race today,” explained Bardon. “If Mig hadn’t trounced your husband, he might have been riding the winning kindia.”
She wrapped the coins in a scrap of cloth and tucked them into her apron. “You could step in for a bit of supper,” she offered.
Bardon smiled. “Thank you, Mistress, but we have another errand and then some work to be done in town.”
As they walked away, N’Rae said, “The horse and the dog were content but hungry.”
Granny Kye looked back over her shoulder. “I imagine the children are the same.”
“Did you not mindspeak?” Bardon asked the granny. He knew Kale might have used her talent to gather as much information as needed from the poor