The Dreamtrails (85 page)

“What is the purpose of this journey Gwynedd would make?” I asked Gilbert.

“I do not know precisely,” he answered. “Perhaps it is that the Norselanders are Gwynedd’s kin. He will tell us when he comes aboard after the meeting.”

“The suddenness of this journey does not trouble you?” I
asked, his smiling demeanor beginning to irritate me. “Are you and his other armsfolk so eager to leave the Westland? No one will regret your departure?”

The armsman’s mouth twisted into a grimace of such bitterness that I was startled out of my indignation. “My bondmate would as soon pay a slaver to carry me away than regret my going,” he snarled. Then he laughed as if this were a joke, but a jarring note suggested that not even he found it truly funny.

Feeling as awkward as ever, I said nothing, but Gilbert nodded as if he had heard a question in my silence. “I am afraid my bondmate dislikes my devotion to the rebel cause; she says it endangers her babies and is proof that I care more for warmongering than for my family. She sent me packing. So now I have nothing left but the hope of finding someone else to love me.” His voice had dropped to a caressing note. “In truth, I am looking forward to this voyage and to the chance of getting to know you properly,” he added with a smile that made my hand itch to slap him. I was dismayed at the thought of having to endure a sea voyage with this man imagining he was in love with me.

“Maybe this funaga truly loves you,” Gahltha beastspoke, and he offered his own vivid memory of the day I had escaped the Druid camp. Through his eyes, I saw my face turned up in dismay as Gahltha reared and screamed his terror. I saw myself trying to convince him to board the raft that was tossing and bucking in the upper Suggredoon’s turbulent waters. Gilbert burst into the dark on the other side of the rain-lashed clearing that ran to the edge of the river, his red hair and clothes plastered to his head. Seeing him, Domick slashed the rope binding the raft, and the violent, rain-swollen water wrenched it away from the shore. Gilbert
shouted something just before the raft vanished from sight. I had not been able to hear his words over the storm, but Gahltha had heard him call out my gypsy name, and now, hearing it, I also heard the unmistakable note of anguished longing.

I reeled from the vision to find an older Gilbert frowning at me in consternation. “Are you well?” he said.

I gaped at him, confused, because now that he was not smiling, he looked more like the Gilbert of Gahltha’s vision. The memory of that other Gilbert made me say, “I was just thinking of what you said about your bondmate and children. It is sad that you would leave them with so little concern.”

“It pleases me that you are concerned for me,” Gilbert said, leaning nearer. “Let me escort you aboard.”

“I need no escort,” I told him coldly, and marched past him up the ramp without a backward glance.

Not until I reached the top, where two tribesmen waited, did I realize that Gahltha was not with me. I turned, half expecting to find him balking at boarding, but he was looking back along the wharf. I leaned out to see what had caught his attention and spotted Maruman. The old cat ran up the ramp, and only then did the horse follow. The Sadorians at the top of the ramp bowed with great respect to the beasts and then to me.

“You are Elspeth Gordie?” one of them asked.

“I am,” I said. “I believe you have a chamber set aside for me?”

He nodded, and lifting to his lips a small whistle that hung on a chain about his neck, he gave two sharp blasts. A Sadorian girl about my age came hurrying up and bowed reverently to Gahltha before offering him a greeting in fingerspeech. He responded with a nod and a flick of one ear,
sending to me that this was the groom who had tended to him earlier. I asked where I could find him and was surprised to see a picture form in his thoughts of holding boxes spread with sand, set up upon the deck toward the rear of the ship.

After Gahltha had been led away, Maruman said loftily, “I will show you where we will sleep.”

I followed him meekly along the deck toward the front of the ship, where several cabins were clustered. He clawed delicately at one of the doors, and I tried the handle and looked inside. It was too dark to see anything, so I retraced my steps to get a lantern from the Sadorian woman at the gangplank. It revealed a spacious chamber with a bed fixed against one wall and some very beautifully crafted lockers and two big round-topped windows on the seaward side of the ship. I opened the windows, and the cool salt-scented breeze sweeping into the cabin made me sigh with pleasure.

Maruman leapt onto the sill, and as we both looked up into a sky shimmering with stars, I pondered what Gilbert had told me and wondered again why Gwynedd would suddenly decide to take a group of men to Norseland when the Westland was far from secure. I did not know him, though seeing him speak, Gwynedd had not struck me as a rash or hasty man. All that he said of the future suggested a man who planned thoroughly and well in advance. Yet he was taking thirty fighters to an island where many hundreds of Hedra were being trained and where there were, perhaps, unthinkable weapons. I shook my head, realizing my speculations were pointless until I learned Gwynedd’s thinking.

I went to the bed, removed my heavy boots, and stretched out fully clothed, because I wanted to be able to get up the moment Blyss and Merret arrived. Maruman leapt down
from the sill and padded over to join me on the bed. I yawned and wondered why I felt so weary. I yawned again, and the candle flared, revealing that the dark ceiling of the cabin was elaborately carved. I sat up and lifted the candle higher to study the intricacies. Although it had not been carved by Kasanda, whoever had done it had been influenced by her style. It occurred to me that Kasanda must have trained some of the tribesfolk, for she could not possibly have carved all the stone faces into the cliff at Templeport herself.

I lay back and thought of Stonehill, trying to imagine Cassy as an older woman, bringing up her son amid the thriving and busy community of gypsies who had once made their home atop the tor. The girl that Iriny had said Cassy loved as a daughter, even though she was not a Twentyfamilies, must have lived on Stonehill as well, growing to womanhood. In Cassy’s past would have been the visit to the Red Land and the loss of her bondmate, the brother of the Red Queen, and also her youth in the Beforetime.

As ever, I puzzled at how someone from the Beforetime could have lived through the Age of Chaos, but that was something I would never know. Had Cassy known all through her years upon Stonehill that her journey had not ended, that someday she would be taken by Gadfian slavers and rescued by the Sadorians, only to end her life as a seer in the desert lands? Or had that knowledge come to her not long before she had left the Land?

I thought of my vision of Cassy’s meeting with Hannah and wondered if the older woman had known that Cassy was a futureteller. It had never been said in any of my visions, yet how could she have left signs for me without foreknowledge to guide her? It might even be that training at Obernewtyn
had brought her farseeking Talent to light, in the same way that farseeking novices sometimes realized they could use their deep probe to coerce as well.

Maruman sighed, and I turned my head to look at him, curled up beside me, tail curled over his nose. The breeze ruffled his fur, alternately hiding and revealing his scars.

“I love you, and you are growing old,” I said softly, reaching out to stroke his fur lightly, so as not to waken him. Then I closed my eyes again, and as I floated into sleep, a vision rose in my mind of Domick’s stone cairn at the edge of the Beforetime ruins, the wind and the sand hissing in an endless susurrus over it. The same wind that scoured Evander’s grave atop Stonehill.

I
WOKE GROGGILY
to the sound of boots on deck and the vague queasiness I always felt aboard a ship until I became accustomed to the deck’s pitching. The pale lemon light bathing the cabin told me it was early morning, and I got up, careful not to waken Maruman, and went to open the window, which had blown shut in the stiff wind. The sky was a soup of delicate rose and lavender streaked with gold, confirming that it was not long after dawn. Closing the window and latching it, I began opening wall panels, remembering from my previous journey aboard a Sadorian greatship that they concealed all manner of snug and intricate fittings. Sure enough, I soon found a bowl with a spout and lever above it and a locker containing toiletries and clothing. I filled a bowl with water, stripped off my clothes, and washed myself down with a sea sponge. Once dried, I investigated the clothes piled neatly in the locker. They were women’s clothes and made of brightly dyed and lightly beaded Sadorian silk. I dressed in sand-colored loose trousers and an undershirt made of silk so thin that it was virtually transparent. Shivering with pleasure at their softness, I reminded myself to thank Jakoby for providing them. After some agreeable dithering, I pulled on a knee-length tunic, slit above the waist on both sides and dyed in swirls of violet and sea green. There were dyed silk slippers to match, but they were too narrow; I was content to
go barefoot as the Sadorians did on board.

I combed my tangled hair, listening to the boots moving about the deck, and frowned, for surely there was too much movement for the few people I had seen on deck? The rest of Gwynedd’s men must have come aboard, which meant the meeting at the Councilcourt had finished.

I flung down the comb and hurried across the cabin, thinking that Blyss and Merret must be coming aboard as well. But just as I reached the door, the ship lurched and sent me staggering backward across the cabin. Regaining my balance, I made my way out of the cabin, my heart hammering, for the ship would not tilt in such a way while moored.

Outside, the deck was a hive of activity as Sadorian tribesmen and women ran to and fro in the pale yellow light, and beyond them, I stared aghast at the rapidly receding shore, understanding with dismay that the ship had weighed anchor while I slept. Holding on to the wall, I hastened along the deck looking wildly about for Jakoby, but aside from the busy shipfolk, I saw only a group of armsmen and women, many of whom wore their hair in the Norse style. Gwynedd’s men.

A feeling of helplessness swept over me, because even if I found Jakoby, I knew that it was too late to turn back now. The sails had been unfurled and the ship was being borne along on the inexorable outgoing tide. Jakoby could not return to Aborium in any case, for she must fulfill the command of the Earthtemple’s overguardian to obey the request of anyone who had been to the desert lands until she was bidden return to Sador.

I swallowed the bitter realization that I had said not a word to Blyss about Rushton and told myself that surely Dell would take a hand.

“Elspeth! So you are awake at last.” Jakoby clapped me
forcefully on the back. “I am pleased to see that you, at least, are not ill. Half of our brave warriors are already puking, and there is barely enough swell to rock the hull.”

I mastered a surge of fury borne of helplessness to ask evenly why she had not awakened me before we cast off. Jakoby answered lightly that there had been no need to trouble me. “But no doubt you are eager to find out what happened at the meeting. Merret told me you saw some of it. Join me for firstmeal in an hour in the main cabin, and you shall hear it all. But for now I must go and watch the map to make sure we do not blunder into a shoal.” The tribeswoman’s golden eyes swept over me, and she added, “I see that the gifts I brought for Bruna fit you well enough. There are also some hair fittings and scarves if you wish to bind your hair out of the way.”

“Thank you,” I said, my anger fading at the pain in her eyes when she spoke of her daughter. What had happened was no fault of hers. I had been a fool not to farsend to her while at the meeting, asking her to waken me when she came aboard the ship. But of course I had not then known about Gwynedd’s decision. Setting aside my apprehension about Rushton, I asked, “Did you find time to ask Dardelan about what happened between him and Bruna?”

Before she could respond, the ship gave a hard lurch that made her wince and roll her eyes. “I had better rescue the tiller from the clumsy fool mishandling her. I will see you at firstmeal.”

She hastened away, barefoot and graceful on the rolling deck. I sighed and turned to gaze out at the vanishing shore, and a feeling of fatalism rose in me, for yet again, I was swept along a course not of my choosing. Yet how often had such random events led me to something connected to my quest?
As for Rushton, I could only hope that his memories had settled and would remain so until he returned to Obernewtyn. And failing that, I had to believe that Dell would ask Blyss to help him. The only certainty was that it was no longer in my power to help him.

The ship turned slightly, and the wind sent the end of my tunic fluttering out with a silken hiss. I made up my mind to seek out Gwynedd. At least I could learn the reason for his sudden decision to travel to Norseland. Making my unsteady way toward the front of the ship, I farsought Gahltha. The stallion informed me with drowsy dignity that he had accepted water laced with a light sleep drug to help him bear the gale that was driving the ship before it. I smiled at his exaggeration, knowing it arose from his fear of water, for although the wind was brisk and the sea rough, there was no gale blowing.