Lioness Rampant (10 page)

Buri shrugged. “In plain talk, it still means they ran.” Thayet glared at her companion.

Smoothing his mustache, Liam said, “Coram's right, you need us. We'll get you to the Mother of Waters.”

Buri wasn't willing to accept this. “We don't
need
them!” she told Thayet hotly. “We don't even know if they're on our side …”

“Don't be silly, Buri,” Thayet replied. “I haven't heard Alanna's name, but I know about Liam Ironarm. People like this don't prey on people like us.”

“There's a first time for everything,” the K'mir muttered.

Thayet's response was in K'mir. Buri looked away, and Thayet turned to Alanna with a smile. “Please understand. Buri's family has served my mother's family for generations. That means I can't tell her to do anything. She'll always say what's on her mind—no matter how much it embarrasses me—and she behaves as she pleases.”

Alanna looked at Coram, who hid a grin. “I understand, Princess Thayet,” the knight said dryly. “I, too, suffer from old family servants.”

“If this is settled, I want to set up camp,” Liam interrupted. “The little ones are asleep on their feet.”

Alanna and Buri exchanged looks for a moment—Alanna's measuring, Buri's sullen. Finally Buri nodded. “If that's the way it has to be.”

“It is,” Thayet snapped.

They camped where they were, the men settling the children after they'd been fed. Alanna took the first watch, enjoying the quiet. She had a feeling she wouldn't have too much quiet to enjoy for a week or so.

“Me and Thayet were fine before you came.” Buri spoke unexpectedly, and Alanna jumped. Hadn't she learned once tonight, on the ridge, that this K'mir made no noise when she moved? “Thayet's K'miri-taught, and I'm K'miri-bred. We take care of ourselves.”

Alanna felt a surge of empathy. She understood this girl-warrior's pride. “For you and Thayet that might be enough, though I'm not sure. An entire army's looking for her. But what if something happens to you? The little ones will starve.”

Buri sat on the ground beside her. “I'm
supposed
to look after Thayet,” she explained. “I help with the children, but I'm not good at it the way she is. And I can't leave them to die. What've they done?”

“So the princess is your chief responsibility. If anything happens to her while you're worrying about the children, you will blame yourself.”

Buri nodded. “You probably think that's foolish.”

“Not at all.” Alanna felt as if she spoke to herself when she was Prince Jonathan's squire. “Coram and Liam and I will help you make sure Thayet's unharmed, all right?”

They sat together for a while, saying nothing. At last the K'mir stood and offered Alanna her hand. “I'm glad you joined us,” she said as the knight returned her grip. “I didn't like the idea of taking on any armies by myself.”

Alanna hid a grin. “Thayet would've helped,” she pointed out.

“Unh-unh,” was the emphatic reply. “You think I'd let Kalasin's daughter endanger herself? I'd put her somewhere safe, where she couldn't get in trouble.”

Yes,
Faithful said when Buri returned to her bed.
She is very much like you at that age.

“Surely
I
didn't think I could beat an army singlehanded!”

You still do.

“The trouble with arguing with a cat is that cats don't hesitate to say
anything
about you, no matter how crazy it is,” she complained. “You can't win an argument that way!”

Nor should you try.
With that, Faithful trotted off for a walk in the forest.

The next morning Liam and Alanna did their dawn exercises. “I don't care how strange yesterday was,” he told Alanna when she grumbled. “You don't get good unless you practice.” The worst of it was that he was right. Were he and Faithful in a plot to make her feel young and ignorant?

Liam cooked breakfast as Alanna roused their companions. Once they were fed, the company was ready to set out. Buri and Coram erased signs of their camp: Bandits who would ignore three people would attack a large party. Liam let the boys and the ten-year-old girl ride his placid Drifter. He led the horse, keeping a sharp eye on their surroundings. Thayet walked, the baby in a sling on her chest; Buri stayed with her princess. Coram's Anvil bore the teenaged girls. Then came the packhorse Bother and the donkey (who kept well away from the bad-tempered
Bother). Riding at the rear of the column, keeping an eye on their surroundings as Liam did, were Alanna, Faithful, and Moonlight.

At their noon stop, Alanna found the stream and splashed her face with cold water. Buri came to her, bearing an armful of baby. “Here.” She gave him to Alanna, who froze—what if she dropped him? Sighing, Buri fixed the knight's hands in a better holding position before she turned away.

“Where are you going?” Alanna demanded.

“You act like you've never held a baby before!”

“I haven't.”

Buri stared at Alanna as if she couldn't believe her ears. “Never? There are babies everywhere—”

“Perhaps so, but their parents didn't ask me to hold them!” The infant wriggled, and Alanna tried to give him back to Buri.

“You have to learn sometime.” The K'mir turned away. “Stay there and don't clutch him. I'm going for a blanket. You'll be fine.”

“I don't think child care is a necessary part of my education,” Alanna said to herself. “It's not like I plan to stay anywhere long enough to marry and have children.”

The baby sneezed and wrinkled his face, which
made her grin. Gently she bounced him as she had seen Coram do. To her dismay, the infant started to bawl. She cooed and rocked him to no avail—he worked himself into a tantrum. Buri returned with her blanket.

“What's wrong?” Alanna cried. “I only joggled him a little—”

Buri opened the blanket on the ground and put clean diapers on it. “Probably wet,” she said. “Change him.” She left again.

Alanna looked at the child in horror. “I never—” She was saying that too much lately—surely a proven knight was equal to anything! Trying to remember how Thayet had done it earlier, she put the child down and unwrapped him. A stench rose from the diaper: The baby was more than wet. When Alanna fumbled the knot open, she saw a damp brown mass was responsible.
This can't be worse than mucking out stables,
she told herself, fighting her unhappy stomach.
I've done that hundreds of times.

Coram knelt beside her. “Take the diaper he fouled and wipe him with the edges,” he explained, his eyes twinkling. When she looked at him pleadingly, Coram shook his head. “It's not hard. Lift him by his ankles—he's used to it. That's the idea—get rid of as much as ye can. Put the dirty one
aside.” He dampened a clean diaper in the stream and gave it to her. “Swab the poor mite down. Think how
ye'd
feel in that state. Easy, little lad,” he crooned, giving the baby a finger to hold. The infant grinned, showing a bit of ivory. “Teeth, is it? Let me see.” He ran his finger around the baby's gums. “And two more comin' in—no wonder ye're scratchy.”

Alanna stared at Coram as he gave her a fresh, dry diaper. “Where in the Mother's Name did you learn all this?”

“Fold it like a triangle. I was the oldest, and four more after me. When I governed Trebond, I watched the little ones when their mothers were workin' in the fields. I like them fine.” He shook the finger the baby clutched; the infant crowed and babbled happily. “A grip like iron: This one'll be a blacksmith, mark my words. No, no—if ye put it on him so loose, it'll fall off. And that's a fair knot.” Coram held the baby in the air and shook him gently, to be answered with a gleeful cackle.

Alanna felt odd.
Coram could've had a family years ago, if he hadn't been working for Trebond.

Coram looked at her. “Don't start sayin' maybe ye should bring me home to Rispah. We've somethin'
to do before we head back.” He touched her shoulder. “I've been raisin'
ye.
I've no complaints of my life.”

Buri showed Alanna how to feed the infant from a waterskin filled with goat's milk. When that was done, Alanna picked up the child as she'd seen Liam do, patting him on the back.
Now
she had the knack of handling a baby!

She was shocked by the infant's burp, unpleasantly surprised when dampness spread over her back. Seeing her face, Buri laughed until she cried. Liam gave Alanna a wet cloth, fighting to keep his face straight. “Put down a clean rag first,” he explained. “They spit up when they're burped—and they fuss when they aren't.” Alanna went to change, red with embarrassment.

When she returned, all the children slept on blankets in the shade. Even Buri dozed, one arm over the baby. Liam, Thayet, and Coram waited by the stream, out of earshot.

“They need rest,” Liam told her when she joined them. “They won't make it to sundown, otherwise. We're used to the road—they aren't.”

“Thayet tells me they've no supplies,” said Coram. “Even the food we brought won't last.”

“We tried to forage.” The princess cooled her feet in the stream. “The farms in these valleys were rich, and there was game—but not anymore. The land's picked clean. We ran out of food last night, and Buri and the older girls have been stinting themselves for days. They can't keep that up.”

I bet they aren't the only ones who've gone short of food,
Alanna thought, watching Thayet's too-thin face.
We have to do something, soon. But how, if we can't live off the country?

“We have t'find humans, then.” Coram was matter-of-fact. “If the land's picked over, let's find the pickers and clean
them
out.”

Alanna gave Moonlight's reins to Thayet for the afternoon. Sliding a quiver over her shoulder, she took her longbow and ranged up and down the road, watching for game. She bagged two squirrels, which told her more than Thayet's words how bad off Sarain was. At this time of year game should have tumbled into her lap.