The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [36]
“When we get there. Ye gods, how far away is the place?”
“Well over a fortnight’s ride, alas. We have the lovely choice of traveling straight and slowly through the mountains, or roundabout but a more rapid pace along the coast. I can’t scry while they’re crossing the sea because of the …”
“The blasted elemental what’s-it … veils of astral force.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“You told me yourself, lackwit.”
“You needn’t be so nasty. Look, at least we’ll know we’re on the right track. We might have been rambling, roaming, and generally tramping about to no purpose at all.”
“True spoken, and I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just that this new owner could be taking him anywhere at all … I mean, hundreds and hundreds of miles for all we know.”
Salamander’s face sank like warm wax into despair.
“Alas, ‘tis true, little eaglet. Fortunately, ships sail all year long across the nicely sheltered Inner Sea, and so we shall be able to follow them wherever they go. We have tarried long enough. Let us pack up our gear and head for the market place, so we may bend our course for glorious Daradion, winged with sails and so on and so forth. Myleton has enjoyed the pleasure of our presence long enough.”
During the slow trip across the Inner Sea to the island of Surtinna, Rhodry was quartered down in the hold in a stall next to the horses and mules, although he was allowed abovedecks to eat his meals with the other slaves. The arrangement suited him well enough, giving him the privacy to think a good distance away from Pommaeo’s ill-temper. Or at least he tried to think; most of the time he slept, drowsing in the warm straw with Wildfolk heaped around him like a pack of dogs. It did occur to him once that he probably had been a soldier if his body would insist on taking every chance it got to stock up on sleep, but try as he might, he never had another flash of insight like the drugged dream that had given him back his real name.
They left the ship at Ronaton and spent another two days riding northwest to the hill town of Wylinth, where the widow Alaena lived. Pommaeo was so arrogant and demanding that, by the time they finally arrived, Rhodry had decided that the shame of being a courting gift was a small thing compared to the joy of getting away from him. All white stucco and flowering trees, Wylinth spread out over clustered hilltops behind walls of pink sandstone. After he paid the toll at the city gates, Pommaeo led his minature caravan to a long, sprawling inn in the center of town and hired a suite. The main chamber had a floor tiled in blue and green, and a marble fountain splashed lazily in the center of the room. The two slaves carried up the mounds of luggage; then Pommaeo gave Miko a string of orders, while Rhodry spread Pommaeo’s embroidered blankets on the bed instead of the innkeep’s plain ones.
“I’m going to the market,” the master said. “Rhodry, do what the boy tells you.”
Miko’s orders were welcome enough. Apparently the master was going to give Rhodry away that very night, and he wanted him presentable. Rhodry was more than willing to go down to the slave’s corner of the bathhouse and get truly clean for the first time in weeks. He even let the boy cut his hair for him with only a minimum of grumbling. Pommaeo returned from the market shortly after, and in a few minutes, when a slave arrived with an armful of purchases, Rhodry noticed with some interest that