I’d hoped a week of growth might have undone some of the damage, but apparently it hadn’t. I silently cursed the chirurgeon to whatever fate awaited bad hairdressers.
“I’m surprised to see you up so early,” Sam added, “and, um, so freely out and about.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “And I didn’t want to wait for permission.”
He chuckled. “Rule breaker.”
“Sometimes. Not when my stepmother gives me an order.” I changed the subject. “What about you? Why are you here before the break of dawn?”
“Nerves, I suppose.” He patted the flank of a drowsy horse. “We’ve been doing well so far by never taking the same route twice, but there’s always the chance we’ll run into something nasty.”
“You’re not wrong about that. I had…” I hesitated. My family seemed a bit too difficult to explain, especially for Clover the handmaiden. “I had an oracular dream. Something is going to happen, on one of these hunts. The ground will shake.”
“An earthquake?” His hand went still, until the horse nuzzled his ear, and he resumed his attentions toit.
“Not necessarily.” I didn’t want to overinterpret, not when fairy prophecies carried the risk of double meanings. If I definitively stated it would be an earthquake, then holes full of jagged teeth might open beneath our feet instead, as I remembered had happened to one of Gervase’s brothers. Although if I said the prophecy meant that, it would probably turn out to be an earthquake.
“Should we call off the hunt for today?” Sam asked.
“Only if you want to risk being killed by your own son in twenty years.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I just meant trying to avoid it would be a bad idea.”
Sam frowned. “It doesn’t sound like the prophecy is a very useful one, then.”
“That’s how they go sometimes.”
“Well,” Sam said philosophically, “if there’s nothing to bedone about it, there’s no use in worrying.” He nodded toward the horse he was stroking. “Have you met your trusty steed yet?”
“No. Is this her? She’s pretty. What’s her name?” The reddishbrown of her coat shaded into black at her mane and tail, with a broad white blaze trailing down her muzzle from the forehead.
“She’s called Poma,” Sam said. “It’s the old Tailliziani word for apple. She loves them.”
“I wish I’d brought one.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bright red pippin. “Saved it from my dinner. I always like to have treats for them.”
He carved off a slice with a knife and handed it to me. I grinned and held it out in the palm of my hand. Poma grabbed it with her lips and eagerly chewed. The dinners in Castle Tailliz were a bit spare these days, so I was glad the mare appreciated Sam’s sacrifice.
The sky outside was still dark. It would be a while yet before the hunt began.
“You know,” I said, “you never finished that story you were telling me.”
“You fell asleep.”
I dragged a bale of hay over and sat on it as if it were a bench, then looked up at him with wide, expectant eyes; I was clearly awake now. He laughed and handed the knife and apple over to me so he’d have his hands free to gesture as he talked.
“So, where did we last leave our heroes?” he asked.
“The duchess had just challenged you all to a death race, and Jack had accepted.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
Poma’s eyes were fixed on the apple in my hand. I cut another slice for her while Sam resumed the tale.
Chapter Sixteen
