We did have to stop three more times before we finally crested the hill. The second time I actually had to vomit, a deeply unpleasant sensation and a part of human existence I had no wish to repeat. Belis was impatient with me, her eyes darting behind us to check for pursuit. When I was retching for the second time she yanked the pack from where I had dropped it beside me, adding it to her own bag. I wanted to complain, to insist that I could manage it, but the weight of it had ground welts into my shoulders even through the thick woollen cloak and I doubted I could have carried on with it.
We passed no one on the slopes but a young boy, minding a small flock of wiry sheep. He nodded warily at us and I watched his hand go to the knife in his belt. I pointed uphill and he relaxed, watching us go. As we scrambled over the crest of the hill I paused. I bent down and began to scrape away at the grass. It was thinner here and it took me only a moment to expose the soil. I brushed it away, revealing the bright white chalk beneath. I pressed my hand against the soft rock, trying to feel for the power I knew was trapped there. The Chalk is made of the bones of old creatures which lived before even the giants walked these lands. Their life is in this rock, a source of strength to those who remember to claim it. When I had walked here before it had felt as if I was paddling on the banks of a great river, full of a senseof life and movement and power. I called for that power now, trying to remake myself or even to soothe my aching muscles.
Now there was nothing. I sighed and picked my hand up. Chalk dust traced the lines of my palm, the creases in my fingers. I brushed it off against my leggings.
I looked out grumpily at the increasingly picturesque view in front of me. We were high enough now that I could see for miles. The Chalk was ringed with thick woodland, but beyond that small fields and villages had been cleared. Smoke trickled into the air from the east, above a plain flashing with steel. I was grateful for the westerly wind that would keep the smell away. Belis had paused to look back. She stood there, gazing down at the plains, her face carefully immobile.
I called her and she turned from her lookout and began walking towards me.
“Hurry up, I don’t want to linger in the open this close to the battlefield. We need to make better time,” she said as she caught up.
“I’m walking as fast as I can,” I snapped. “These legs are less than a day old. I’d like to see you climb up the Chalk when you were a babe.”
“For certes I could hardly have been slower,” she jibed. “We’ll have to adjust our travel time. That or I’ll have to steal a cart and push you.”
“I don’t need to be pushed like some mortal grandmother,” I said. “I can make it. It would be easier if I had a little support from you.”
“I gave you socks and boots, put my own mother’s cloak around your shoulders, took the pack from you and now I’m standing around waiting for you to get your breath back hoping that a cohort of Romans don’t appear. How could I be more supportive?”
“You could stop snapping at me,” I said. “It is most impolite and I don’t have the breath to argue and walk at the same time.”
“You seem to have plenty of breath to complain but, fine, we’ll walk in silence.”
She turned on her heel and strode off up the hill. Mutteringunder my breath, I followed, trying my best not to fall too far behind. As we climbed, the grass grew still thinner underfoot and the wind picked up. It whistled as it rushed past me, pressing my tunic to the back of my legs and trying to snatch Belis’s scarf from her head.
Walking on the crest of the Chalk was a little easier on my legs, the pain in my calves easing, but that merely allowed me to think more about how much my feet were hurting. The wind, which I had dearly loved to feel on my skin, was beating at my ears, rubbing them raw. My tunic and leggings had not shrunk with me. The tunic, which had finished just above my knees, now flapped irritatingly at my ankles and I kept having to stop and roll up the leggings as they sagged.
Worse still, I just could not seem to keep my hair out of my face. Usually it wafted delicately behind me like a sheet of spider silk, well behaved even in a thunderstorm. Now it seemed to be constantly buffeted around my head, strands flying into my mouth, my nose, my eyes. I glared at Belis, tramping away in front of me. Her curls had seemed much more unruly than mine, but the braids had tamed them and the headscarf kept even the few loose tendrils out of her face. I paused to catch my breath again and pushed my hair back for the thousandth time.
I staggered on. Belis was clearly reining her pace in, walking slowly so that I wouldn’t lose sight of her. It didn’t make me feel any better. All of this mess was her fault. I was tired and sore and miserable and sick of humans. Their endless infighting and murdering and battling had led to this. I could have been bathing in the crystal streams of the Eryri mountains by now, playing with the dogs. Instead, I was actually sweating! Me, sweating, like some common dwarf, and panting like one, too. Even my eyesight seemed to blur as I swayed back and forth, tramping along on this endless walk.
The sun was beginning to dip below the western horizon when we approached a wooden hut, tucked into the lee of a hill. It was small and squat, no more than a few wide planks nailed together, with a shallow leaning roof.
“We may as well stop here for today,” Belis said, sliding off her packs. “I don’t think you’ve got any more steps in you, and this is as good a place as any to camp for the night. We’re lucky to have found it.”
I peered inside the hut. There was a three-legged stool in the corner, with a carved cup sitting on it. Beside the stool stood a rough bucket and a small pile of chopped logs. The rest of the single room was completely bare except for the ashes of an old campfire and the faint but unmistakeable scent of ferrets.
“Maybe I’ll just sleep outside,” I said doubtfully. I was already starting to feel the evening chill close in around me, but the hut looked very small for two people. Especially if one of those people was a large Iceni warrior who looked as if she might snore.
“Up to you,” the large Iceni warrior said, ducking into the hut and throwing her packs into the corner. She leaned her spear against one of the walls and picked up the bucket. “You’ll freeze outside, though. It’ll be much warmer in here, especially once I’ve got a fire going.”
I sniffed and stepped inside after her, aiming to nab the stool before she got ideas above her station. Belis shoved the bucket at me before I could sit down.
“Here, go and fill this. I saw a well not fifty yards back down the way. I’ll start the fire.”
I looked at the bucket with derision. I did not fetch or carry for humans. I wasn’t a common brownie.
“You go. You’re better at heavy lifting. I can start the fire.”
She glanced up from the log pile where she was already pulling out smaller pieces of wood and kindling with an expert hand.
“How? Have you ever lit a fire without magic?”
I didn’t want to answer that so I grabbed the bucket and stomped off, grumbling not quite under my breath. The well was closer to a hundred yards away, which gave me a long time to complain to myself. It was an old-fashioned ring of stones, built up in a cylinder with a rope to tie the bucket to and a handle to pull it back up. I checked the rope before I threw the bucket in,not wanting to have to slink back without it. The rope looked newish, the hut must be popular among the local shepherds in the spring and summer. We were lucky that it was empty now, though I supposed it was near the end of the grazing season. Soon the lowlands would be burnishing from green to gold as autumn passed through the island.
I tied the bucket carefully and lowered it into the darkness until I heard a faint splash. I jiggled at the rope a bit until I judged the bucket was full and then began hauling it up. It was incredibly heavy work for such a small bucket, and I felt fresh sweat break out over my forehead and slide into my eyes. My arms were pretty much the only part of my body that hadn’t been sore from the day’s walking, but by the time I got the bucket out of the well they were screaming at me just as much as my legs, and my palms were scraped raw. I inspected the bucket.
Unbelievably, it was only about three-quarters full. That would have to do. I wasn’t starting the whole ordeal again.
