It was all the kindness left; years later Gird realized what the steward risked, and what he would suffer if anyone found out what he had done.
Chapter Nine
All the times he had thought about leaving, it had never been like this. He had imagined sending the children away somewhere (but where?), going himself to join the little band of rebels he had first met—but not this terrifying journey. He was sure they were leaving a trail a child could follow through the narrow wood. Anyone would expect him to go that way—but what other way was there? He could not have strolled past the manor itself with Raheli on his back.
It still worried him that he’d left the cottage such a wreck. It wasn’t his fault, he knew that, but a lifetime’s work and care nagged at him. He should have—
Ahead, two rocks clacked sharply together. Gird halted, breathing hard. Behind him, he could hear Fori’s breathing as well, on the other end of the litter. Raheli was heavier than he’d guessed. Pidi, beside him, glanced up and Gird nodded. Pidi clicked two pebbles in his hand, mimicking the stones’ sound. Another clack, this a triple. Pidi replied with the triple of triples Gird had taught him. Trouble, that was. Danger, trouble, need help—any of those.
Raheli moved on the litter, and moaned softly. Gird looked over his shoulder. Blood had seeped through the pack of moss on her face, staining it dark. He heard a twig crack, and looked ahead. There were three, coming down the slope. One was Diamod. He could have wished it was someone else.
“Gird—what is it?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Only the rock signals of trouble, that someone was needed. Yours?” Diamod looked past him at the children.
“Aye. My daughter’s hurt bad; they killed her husband. Outlawed me, for what he did, and for trying to get to her—”
“I’m sorry.” Diamod actually sounded sorry; Gird had been half-certain that he would dare amusement or scorn. “So—you’re fugitives now?”
“Yes. I don’t know if Rahi will live—”
“Later. Now we must get you away.” Diamod waved the other two men forward, and they took the handles from Gird and Fori.
“These are smooth!” said one, clearly surprised.
Gird hawked and spat. “Scythe and shovel handles,” he said. “I’m outlawed anyway; might’s well bring something useful.”
Diamod grinned at him, then sobered as he looked at the others. “Are all these coming?”
“Fori’s my brother’s son. His wife died last year, in childbirth. The other two are mine, and have no place in that village.”
They set off again, faster for the unwearied strength of the two men carrying Raheli. Gird strained his ears backwards, expecting to hear any moment the cry of hounds, horses’ hooves crashing in the leaves behind them. But he heard nothing, only their own hard breathing, their own footsteps.
They followed the water up out of the wood, past the cleft Arin had shown Gird all those years ago, where the Stone Circle visitors had waited for so many nights. Up a narrow, rocky defile, and carefully around the west slope of the hill, keeping as much as possible to the low scrub. Gird looked up once or twice, seeing folds of land ahead he did not know, but looked back oftener. When would the pursuit come, and how bad would it be?
By noon, when the sun baked pungent scent from the scrub, they had found another watercourse, this one winding away to the south. Along its banks low trees formed dense cover. Diamod lagged far behind, watching for pursuit, as the others paused for a brief rest. Gird dipped water from the creek, and bathed Raheli’s face.
She was awake again, lips pressed tightly together, eyes dull. He did not want to speak to her—what could he say?—but she questioned him. “Where—are we?”
“South of the village, beyond the hill. We had to leave, Rahi.”
“Parin—they killed him—”
“Yes.”
Her hand strayed to her belly, as if feeling for the child within. “I—don’t want to lose the baby—”
“Virdis said you would not, unless you got fevered. She gave me herbs for you.” He dug into the roll of clothing and bandages for the little packet of herbs. Rahi shook her head.
“I’m fevered now—I can tell. If I lose it—” Her voice trailed away, and her eyes fixed on some distance Gird could not fathom. Then she looked at him directly. “The little ones?”
“Pidi has a lump on his head, but he’s all right. It would take more than a lump to damage him. Giri has a broken arm. Here—you need to drink—” Gird lifted her as gently as he could, but Rahi flinched and moaned. He could feel her fever burning through the wrappings Virdis had put around her. She sipped a little water, then shook her head. He laid her back down. She alone, of all his children, reminded him of Mali—she had that same hair, the same quick wit. He could not lose her. But her fever mocked him. Of course he could lose her, as he had lost his parents, his brother, his brother’s wife, the babies that had died. He could lose her quickly or slowly, as the fever raged or died, or as pursuit caught them.
He looked around at the others. Giri, her arm bound tightly to her side, looked pale and sick; she had never been as strong as Rahi. Pidi, whose lump had matured into a spectacular black eye, sat watching Gird alertly. Fori, much like Arin but with Issa’s slender build, sat hunched with his head down, breathing heavily.
“Fori?” Gird put a hand on his shoulder, and Fori jumped. When he looked up, his face was streaked with tears.
“I should have stopped them,” Fori said, through sobs. “I—I should have been there.”
“I, too—but we weren’t. And if we had been, we’d have been dead as Parin is now.”
“But she’s—”
“Your cousin, and my daughter.”
Diamod came back before he could say more, breathing hard as if he’d been running a long way. “I saw guards on the near side of that first hill, moving slowly. Not the way we’d come, exactly—I don’t think they have a trail. But we can’t stay here. We must move under cover, and keep moving.”
This time Gird and Fori took the litter again, and the other two men took their bundles. One of them led the way southward, summering as Gird thought of it, keeping them along the creek bank as the water deepened and broadened, then leading them eastward, sunrising, up a tributary. Diamod lagged behind, overtaking them again near dark, when they’d stopped under a clump of pickoak where a spring came bubbling up from the rocks.
“They didn’t follow,” he said, before anyone asked. “They’ve put someone up on the hill—I saw a glitter up there—but no sign of real pursuit. We must stay out of sight of that hilltop, and no fire, but we can think now where to take the—your daughter.”
Gird hoped his face did not show all he felt. “She’s fevered now,” he said, ducking his head. Raheli had said nothing, all the afternoon, but she seemed to be in a sick daze. He had gotten her to drink a little twice, but nothing more.
“She needs shelter, and a healer. Have you any family in another village?”
Gird shook his head. “Only my wife’s—my dead wife’s—family, over in Fireoak. But I don’t know where that is from here, and even so they might not take her.”
One of the other men turned to him. “Fireoak? My sister married into that village. They don’t have much trade, those folk, but they’re kindly.”
“We can find Fireoak easily enough, but it will be days of careful travel. We’re a day or more from the sheepfold where the dances are.”
Gird nodded. “I know that.”
“For healthy men it would be a day’s journey, but carrying her, and with the others, it will be two, I think. Then from there to Fireoak is—”
“A day, like this. But it’s the only shelter between, that fold.”
Mali’s parents, like his own, had been dead some years, but her brother was alive. He squatted beside the litter and laid a hand on Raheli’s head.