Emeth tapped the parcel gently. “Toriat, the farm of Ioan Wheelwright. West of the mill.”
She recited with the same air that her lover had, which made Vivian smile and ache at once.
“Precisely,” she said and held out her hand. “I can’t thank you enough, either of you, and for more than these present duties. You know that.”
Emeth grasped Vivian’s forearm firmly. “Things have to be done, so we do them. Be careful out there.”
“I’ll pray for you,” said Katrine when it was her turn for the arm-clasping. “Not that I doubt the gods will be paying you plenty of attention as things stand, but I prefer to believe I’ll help.”
“If they use you as a focusing lens, I’m sure they’ll do as much as remotely possible,” said Vivian.
She let go, turned, and picked up her pack. The mission didn’t let her stall. She was glad of it. There would always have been something else to say, one final question, a last check, but it was time to go.
* * *
“No,” said Olvir. “The impulse is generous, but I can’t travel with too much weight, and I wouldn’t want to take too many provisions away from the front. Honestly, we have a better chance of hunting food, or finding it, than you all do.”
Nahon couldn’t really argue that point. Foraging parties ventured a little way into the forest at times, when Emeth’s bird scouts said that the twistedmen were nowhere near, but only for brief periods.
“This side of the mountains, perhaps,” he said. “I don’t know that much grows on their peaks. As for the Battlefield, I wouldn’t eat any plant or animal within three days’ ride of that spot.”
The storm had stopped. Spring had reasserted itself quickly, with blue skies above the yard where Olvir packed, and warm breezes carrying birdsong to his ears when Nahon stopped speaking. Over near the base of the palisades, a few purple buds showed that crocuses had made it through. Olvir wanted to take all those things as good omens, but he understood too much to let himself.
He understood, also, both layers of what his commander was really saying. One he knew from his own command:Let me do something. I can’t protect you from your fate, I can’t share it, but there must be a way I can help.
Nahon tried to hide the other, but the knights had never been good at subterfuge. It had been a day since the meeting in the yurt. Olvir’s commander had spoken with him a few times, always putting more distance between them than he ever had before, then moving a few inches closer when he realized it.
They’d known each other since Olvir had started his training, a lad with weedy arms and a constantly cracking voice, and the marshal had been a rawboned young knight with the first shine remaining on his armor.
Now it was an effort to look each other in the face.
Nahon wanted him gone, hated himself for it, hated the practicality of it more—and so kept making the offer.
Olvir would have said yes, whatever the motive, under normal circumstances. Extra supplies were never really a bad thing. There were the other soldiers to consider, though. As Gwarill had said, they’d still be facing the twistedmen if Olvir succeeded. If he failed, food would be worth more than gold.
“Two days’ extra, then,” he said, compromising. “And thank you for it.”
“It’s an important mission,” said Nahon. “I wouldn’t spoil a good horse with old shoes.”
“I suppose there’s a reason they put you in charge here,” said Olvir, his own throat thicker than he’d have liked. He glanced down at the bag he was packing, once again going through his mental list to be sure he hadn’t left some important item behind.
He was taking few belongings. Cleanliness—illness could be as deadly as the twistedmen, and some of them tracked by smell—dictated a few changes of linen, a flask of liquor for cleaning wounds, and another skin of fairly sour wine for purifying any water they found. Nahon’s extra rations would make five days’ worth of food. Then there were light blankets that rolled up into a small bundle, a few bandages, flint, steel, and a short coil of rope. The marshal had given him two maps as well, both painstakingly constructed copies of those that had been drawn a hundred years earlier.
Olvir would wear his light armor, the chain muffled with strips of cloth, and carry his sword, shield, and knives as well as a short bow and a quiver of arrows. He’d already painstakingly dulled the shield he’d equally painstakingly polished a few nights before the storm.
He had checked all the details, keeping his mind clear while he did so. He’d been a warrior and a knight. Now it was time to be human. He met Nahon’s eyes squarely, seeing the tears standing there and letting his own fill in response.
“You know how much I owe you, I hope,” he said. “For leading here, for helping me along my path. For being my friend. Tinival’s blessed me, but I couldn’t have come so far in his service, or lived so long, without you.”
He couldn’t sayI don’t blame you, orI wouldn’t trust me entirely either. Tinival valued truth, but some truth would only cause more trouble than it was worth. On Nahon’s face, he saw all the words the marshal couldn’t speak. Nahon embraced Olvir quickly instead, his mustache rasping against Olvir’s cheek with the kiss of friendship.
The knights’ missions weren’t as regularly deadly as the Sentinels’ or the Blades’, but they went into danger often enough. Olvir had said goodbye to friends when none of them had been certain they’d meet again. He’d only known the odds against it to be nearly so long once before, at Oakford, and that had just been his body at risk.
He didn’t know what it would mean to return from this mission.
All the same, that departure was very nearly the same as others had been when one or all of the people involved was going into danger. Words could never fully contain love, fear, or grief, and all three mingled at such moments. Tinival had given speech to mortals, but even his knights couldn’t say all that was in their hearts.
So Olvir reached for the old phrases that everybody made do, and which, by virtue of everybody knowing that they would never be sufficient, went as far as speech ever could. “Silver Wind be at your back, my friend and comrade.”
