“I do not,” Ilsit snapped. “And I havenevercalled that thing darling.”
“Yes, you have,” Jade said with a hand on Ilsit’s arm. “We all do it.”
Ilsit let it go. No one could argue with our Jade.
My tears came when we had to leave. Everything we could manage was packed into the wagon, our new horses yoked in front with Zara tied in back. On my last trip to the wagon, bringing yet one more crate to stack nearly to the tops of the bows over which the tarp was stretched, I turned back and saw the old house and its little stable, henhouse, orchard, and gardens. I saw the tree line of Nyossa that ran along one side.
“My man is laid to rest in this land,” I choked out and felt Jade’s arm come around me. “My Avery is here.”
“I know it,” she said.
I turned to her. “You’ve spent nearly the whole of your life in that forest. I shouldn’t complain to you of this. You must grieve this too.”
She kissed my cheek. “Who better to complain to than someone who has the same heartache?”
13
NOW: SCOUTS
We reported, as the army had instructed us, to the fields outside the keep on the day of departure. When we arrived, we were taken aback. Other than Tessa having grown up in the citadel of Eccleston, I doubted any of us had seen that many people gathered in one place. There were several hundred men from the Perpatane army, what seemed to be the whole of our neighboring settlement, Carver, and all of Sheridan.
We waited in a long line of wagons for a man from the army to tell us what formation to take. There were dozens of men shouting and waving “come” or “halt” to different groups of people. And though it seemed like mayhem due to the vast amount of people, the organization was strategic and strict. We would be ordered to travel in one place along the caravan and expected to keep that place and the general pace of everyone else. It would be slower going as the infantry was marching and most people planned to take turns walking so as to relieve their horses.
I refused to ride Zara. She was so old, and I worried about taxing her day after day. But I could not bear to think of leaving her behind.
As we idled, anxious and bored, all of us dismounted from thewagon to stretch our legs, none of us saying aloud that we had only been in the wagon for an hour or so, how that was nothing to the moons it would take to reach Perpatane.
Do you think my family will be amongst the penitents from Carver?Fox asked me.I know they never sent word or visited all this time.
I frowned. “We will keep an eye out.”
“Sirs!” Ilsit suddenly shouted from her lean against the wagon.
We all looked up to see four men mounted on big, sleek horses riding past at a walk towards the head of the line, where most of the army was gathered. They brought their mounts to a halt at Ilsit’s call.
The one-eyed man was one of them.
He was riding with a man near to his age with a head full of rich, black hair he wore in a braid down his back. Next to the man with the braid was a bear of a man, thick in his chest and arms. His head was shaved and his body was covered in patterns of blue ink, even on his face. Their fourth member was not a man, but a tall woman with a head of curls and an easy grin on her face. They all wore the same brown leathers as the one-eyed man.
“Tell us. For how long do we have to stand here like idiots?” Ilsit asked.
“What makes you think we know?” said the man with the braid, but he winked and smiled at Ilsit, and I noticed then he was particularly good-looking.
“You’ve all got gobs of weapons on you,” my friend explained. “They’ve been prickly about folks having blades meant for anything but kitchen work. They took my companion’s dagger from her.” She bent her head towards Tessa.
I winced and let my eyelids fall shut. I had so many things deemed contraband on me, I had forgotten about my two tools nestled inside my trunk along with my banned book, stacked next to crates that contained mother’s moss. When I looked up, the one-eyed man was watching me from under his hood.
I raised a brow at him.
“Well, we aren’t penitents, that’s for sure,” the lady warrior said.
“Then what are you?” I asked before I could stop myself. The one-eyed man and I continued to watch each other.
“We are hired scouts,” said the man with the braid. “The lord’s son hired us. Not the older one who seems like a prick. The bastard one who owns half these wagons. We’re sort of like his private guard.”
“Thank you for explaining,” Jade said, her stable, serene voice a contrast to Ilsit’s bark. “Do you have an answer to our question? How long until we depart?”
The man with the braid sat staring at her from his horse. His smile was for her and her alone. “Until you spoke, lady, if I speak in truth, I was going to dismiss your friends. But when that pretty of a mouth asks a question, a man has got to answer it.”
