Slate might have been inclined to suspect something other than chivalry—after all, a lot of men might enjoy being climbed on by a woman—but he then went over and did the exact same thing for Brenner.
This was quite a sight. Learned Edmund stopped even pretending to pay attention to the mules.
The assassin eventually got into the saddle, and Caliban—looking distinctly the worse for wear, and with boot prints crossing his new tabard—went back to his own horse.
“Is the circus ready to leave town, then?” asked Learned Edmund.
They rode out.
Twelve hours later, Slate was praying for the sweet release of death.
Her legs felt like…like…possibly there weren’t words in the language for what they felt like.
They had been riding for hours. They left the city, the suburbs, the fields. They crossed several bridges. They passed more fields. Trees swept in from the sides and swept out again. Farmers went past in carts. Brenner clung to his mare like grim death, and with much the same expression.
Caliban tried to talk to her once or twice, either to tell her that he’d forgiven her for what she’d said last night, or to tell her that he’d never forgive her for what she’d said last night. Slate bounced along in the saddle, sneezing, and had to ask him to repeat himself so many times that he gave up. The knight-champion rode ahead and talked to Learned Edmund instead. Apparently the two religious types had found something in common.
Well, the one hates women in general and the other one hates me in particular. Maybe that’s a conversation starter.
This would have annoyed Slate, but she had other things to worry about, like whether her legs were going to fall off.
Fortunately, her horse seemed inclined to follow the other horses, or steering would have been an issue.
She was covered in sweat. Dust stuck to the sweat and made a thin layer of grey grime that covered her from head to toe. Everyone else was also the same vague dust color. Caliban’s cloak had gone dingy grey practically before they were out of the courtyard.
She would have found that amusing if she’d had the strength.
She discovered that whoever had packed her horse had thoughtfully included a waterskin. She aimed a stream of water into her mouth. It tasted like ambrosia.
How would you know? You’ve never had ambrosia.
It couldn’t be better than this.
Hours passed, like a kidney stone.
Slate stopped thinking, stopped feeling anything. It was easier to do that. If she wasn’t there, she wasn’t feeling the horrible chafe against her thighs, the ache in her hip joints, the dryness of her eyes and nose and tongue. She went away inside her head for a while, in a kind of meditative misery.
There was nothing but the horse. There had never been anything but the horse. Possibly she had been born on a horse. She was undoubtedly going to die on one.
When she came back, it was because Caliban was tapping her on the knee and saying, “You going to get down, or are you posing for an equestrian statue?”
“Huh?” She looked around. They were at a ferry station on one side of the Highmelt River, a little town of a few small houses, a tradehouse, and a stable. Judging by the light, it was early evening. They seemed to be in the stable yard of the tradehouse. “Are we crossing?”
“Not tonight. We’re stopping here.”
“Oh.”
He waited. She looked at him.Surely he’s not waiting for me to get down from this thing.
Learned Edmund appeared out of the gloom, his arms full of saddlebags. “They’ve got two rooms. There’s enough stable space, though. Barely.”
The fact that he was addressing Caliban and not her was not lost on Slate, but she really didn’t care at the moment. Her hip joints appeared to have locked in place like blocks of cement.
“Excellent,” said the paladin, nodding. He turned back up to Slate. “Madam?”
“Get him out of here,” she hissed under her breath.
His eyebrows arched.
