Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [259]
It wouldn't come to it, of course. I had a considerable income and estates of my own, despite the fact that I neglected them. I'd never cared about wealth or status. I'd gladly cede it all if it meant getting out of Vralia.
Because all I really wanted in the world was to go home and make love to my girl.
Chapter Fifty-Six
By the time I found Miroslas, it was well and truly winter in Vralia. Even in Terre d'Ange, the frost must have been thick on the ground. Summer had passed and autumn had come and gone since I began my quest.
If it hadn't been for the war, I daresay my luck would have been worse. I bypassed the first village I encountered, but I couldn't afford to bypass the second. I'd been two days and the better part of three nights on the road, with naught to eat but a quarter-loaf of bread. If I chanced waiting for another, farther village and it proved more than a day's ride, I'd starve. As it was, hunger made a knot in my belly, and I was starting to feel dizzy. I'd pushed myself and my stolen mount, trying to stay well ahead of any pursuit.
Luck was still with me.
Unlike in Terre d'Ange, gossip in Vralia didn't spread swiftly from town to town. The distances were too vast, and the commonfolk had little cause to travel during the cold months. No one in the small farming village I entered had heard news of a D'Angeline spy in Tarkov. The village was a quarter empty, for many of the young men had gone to enlist in Micah ben Ximon's army. The people I did encounter were curious and kind, especially the women. There was no inn, but a generous widow put me up for the night. She fed me and let my horse shelter in her cow byre. When I left the next day, she gave me three loaves of bread, a wheel of cheese, and a fur hat and mittens that had belonged to her husband.
I paid her with Tadeuz Vral's coins, feeling guilty. I might not be a spy, but of a surety, I was deceiving everyone I encountered. It was a feeling that stayed with me during my journey. I tried to avoid inhabited places, but when the snow began to fall in earnest, I had little choice. And too, there was the small matter of getting lost, which happened several times when I took a wrong turn and cost myself days. If I had pursuers, all I could hope was that it confused them.
Miroslas wasn't easy to reach. It lay several days' ride past the nearest village. If I'd been on foot, I might have given up. There had been heavy snowfall, and the path—it wasn't even a proper road—was nearly invisible. If it hadn't been for the peaks of the Narodin Mountains visible toward the east, I would have gotten lost. I spent half my time making camp; trampling snow before I could build a fire, breaking off pine branches to build a makeshift pallet, rigging windbreaks for my stolen mount, melting snow in a small iron pot I'd purchased from a family wealthy enough to have one to spare.
When I did find Miroslas at last, it seemed almost a mirage. A yeshiva of sorts, Ethan had called it, but it looked more like a castle hidden in the woods; except that there were no walls, no defenses. Only an open courtyard, where an elderly man was sweeping snow.
Somehow, it seemed disrespectful to ride. I dismounted and approached on foot, leading my horse. The man paused, leaning on his broom and watching. "Shalom, father," I said in Habiru. "I'm seeking—”
"So the avenging angel has arrived," he interrupted