Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [184]
“I will ask, if I see them as I pass,” Arian said. “It would be more help to her if I had the names, or something from which she might infer the names. If not, it may be no use at all. Tell me all you remember—how many, what age they seemed—”
“Six. Two appeared to be in their forties or more, a few strands of gray in their hair, but still strong. One looked well grown but younger, perhaps late twenties or thirties. Three were younger again: perhaps twenty, a few years more or less. All male. They wore Verrakai blue under rough peasant clothes, and all bore Liart’s symbol somewhere.”
“It’s snowing,” Cuvis said, coming in with an armload of wood. “If you’re not in a hurry, Arian, stay here with us another day.”
She still could not feel the taig, she’d realized, and without that could scarce tell one direction from another without sun to guide her. “I will,” she said. “And thank you.”
“You can repay us by telling us what roiled the taig yesterday and why it’s so reticent today.”
“Yesterday—” She could think of no way to tell it that did not distort it. “The king and the Lady quarreled.”
“Quarreled!” They looked as horrified as she felt. “Why? About what?”
“Me,” Arian said. “The Lady is wroth with my father, an elf, and through him wroth with me. And the king is angry with her, for assuming I am like my father.”
Forlin blinked. “That … does not seem enough to upset the taig …”
“You were not there,” Arian said. “They were in the King’s Grove, in the heart of it, and angry—”
“Ah. Well. But what had you done to anger the Lady?”
They were all looking at her now, appraising her as they would anyone. “It is a matter of the king’s honor,” she said. “And not something I should speak of, but to say his honor is unstained.”
“And it affects the taig,” Forlin said, not quite a question.
“It could, but it will not, hereafter,” Arian said.
“Will you be back at court for Midwinter?” Cuvis asked, breaking the long silence that followed Arian’s words.
“I don’t know,” Arian said. “It’s unlikely, late as it is, and if snow comes. Perhaps I’ll be in Vérella of the Bells or—if my mission takes me on—in Fin Panir. The paladin who came with our king told me about the High Lord’s Hall there.” They asked nothing more.
Snow fell all day, silencing everything but their talk, mostly rangers’ gossip. Sometime that night the snow ceased, and the following morning, though not clear, showed the high clouds that meant no snow for a time.
Forlin sniffed the air. “You should have a fair day’s travel, Arian. If you need provisions—”
“You have fed me a day and more,” Arian said. “I have enough to make it to the next village, and they’ll have supplies. I’ll clean up for you—I have the horse, after all.”
“Thank you,” Forlin said. “Last time we had a horse here, we fed winterwards.”
The rangers filled their packs and left, their footprints showing clearly on the snow-covered trail. Arian packed her own gear, tied her mount outside the lean-to horse shelter, and cleaned that, leaving a shovel of manure under each of the trees on the summerwards side of the clearing. The others had already raked the coals out and dumped snow on them. She scoured the pot they’d made porridge in, gathered more wood and stacked it with the rest in the hut, and brought in a bucket of water from the spring. By then the coals were cool; she ran her hand over the fire-pit and found no warmth that could kindle into dangerous flame.
With the camp tidy and ready for the next visitor, she had nothing more to do, but felt reluctant to leave. She leaned against a yellowwood tree, ungloved hands open on its broad-furrowed bark, hoping the taig would open to her. That tree responded, but when she tried to reach the larger taig, once more she could not.