"No, I'm not all right. I'm cold and wet, and I'm sick to death of being both."
"You want to rest?"
Besh took a long breath and shook his head.
Sirj faced forward again, but a moment later he stopped and swung his travel sack off his shoulders.
"I said I didn't want to stop," Besh said, continuing past him. "And I decided that I did."
Besh kept walking, seething now, not knowing why. Isn't he allowed to rest? Ema's voice. Does he need your permission to have some water or eat a bit of salted meat? What kind of man have you become?
At last he made himself stop and look back at the younger man. Sirj was sitting on a stone a short distance away, lifting a skin to his mouth, his travel sack on the ground at his feet.
"You're certain you don't want any?" he asked, holding out the skin.
Reluctantly, Besh pulled his own sack off his shoulders and lowered it to the ground, though even doing this much felt like surrender. In what war? He isn't fighting you. He pulled out his own skin and drank from it.
"I'll lighten my own load, thank you," he called to Sirj between sips.
Sirj shrugged. "You should eat something, too."
"You're my father now?"
The younger man laughed and shook his head, but at last Besh saw a bit of frustration in his lean face. "Fine," Sirj said. "It was just a suggestion." He muttered something else, which Besh couldn't make out.
"What was that?"
Sirj shook his head a second time. "It was nothing."
"Don't you put me off like that! I heard you say something, and I want to know what it was!"
Sirj returned the food and water to his sack, shouldered the burden again, and started walking in Besh's direction.
"Well?" Besh demanded.
"I said, `Elica was right,' " the man said, stepping past him. "Right about what?"
He didn't answer. Besh packed his water, threw on his sack, and hurried after him.
"Right about what?" he called again.
"I'd told her before we left that I expected you and I would become friends before long. She had warned me that you were nothing but a stubborn old fool, and that no matter how patient I was, you'd never treat me with anything but contempt. But I insisted that she was wrong. Turns out I was."
"So I'm a stubborn old fool, am I?"
Sirj stopped and turned to face him. "Yes. I believe you are."
Besh stopped as well. When Sirj had treated him kindly, Besh had responded with anger. Now that he finally had cause to be angry, he couldn't manage it. After a moment he nodded and looked away. "Well, at least you've finally figured that out."
"What have I ever done to you, Besh?"
He twisted his mouth sourly. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. "You haven't done anything. I'm sorry I've been this way. I'm cold and I'm tired, and I just want to get this over with so we can go back home."
Sirj just stood there, until at last Besh gestured for him to get moving again.
"No," the younger man said. "This isn't about you being cold. You've treated me this way for years. And now I'm asking you what I've done to deserve it."
Besh passed a hand over his brow. His stomach growled, and he wished he'd eaten something when he had the chance. "Elica asked me the same thing the day before we left. Truth is, you never did anything wrong."
"And yet you've been punishing me for all this time."
"Yes, well, when Annze finds herself a husband, you'll understand." That of all things brought a smile to Sirj's lips.
"Now, go on," Besh said, waving him on again. "I'm not getting any warmer standing here talking about this nonsense."
Sirj eyed him a moment longer, still smiling. Then he nodded and started walking once more.
Besh soon realized that one of the reasons he had treated Sirj so poorly since leaving Kirayde was that he'd dreaded having to make conversation with the man. But even now, after they'd reached something of an understanding, Sirj seemed content to walk in silence. Perhaps they were more alike than Besh had been willing to admit. Hadn't Elica tried to tell him this as well?
Late in the morning, they came within sight of the Silverwater. Besh had made them follow a southerly course, thinking to start their search for Lici in the area around N'Kiel's Span and whatever was left of the old woman's childhood home. Now, though, Besh began to question his original plan. People were dying in the villages north of here. If they wanted to stop Lici from doing any further damage, that was where they needed to go.
Better then to turn north before crossing the wash. Otherwise they'd be covering much of the distance in Fal'Borna land.
"Wait," Besh said.
Sirj stopped and looked back at him.
"We should turn north, toward the Companion Lakes."
"I thought we were going to the span."
"That's what I'd intended, but I think I was wrong. She's been heading north, spreading the illness in Y'Qatt villages around the lakes. That's where we should be."
"But…" He shook his head. "Never mind." He started walking again, northward this time.
A few hours before, Besh would have left it at that, not really caring to hear the man's opinions, or at least having convinced himself that he didn't. But after their conversation, he felt that he owed Sirj more. "What were you going to say?" he called.
Sirj didn't stop. "It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does."
Still the man kept walking.
"Please," Besh said. "I want to know."
Sirj halted and turned. He regarded Besh for some time, seeming to wrestle with something. Finally, he looked away, toward the river. "I was just going to say that we're here now. It can't be more than a half day's walk to the banks of the wash. As long as we've come this way, we should do what we planned." He met Besh's gaze again. "Don't you want to see where she lived? Isn't it possible that you'd learn as much from seeing her home as you have from reading that daybook you carry with you?"
"You're right," Besh said after a moment's pause.
Sirj appeared genuinely surprised.
"Well, you are."
"I know," the man said. "I just didn't think you'd admit it." Besh had to laugh.
With the wash in view, and Lici's home village less than a day away, Besh found his weariness sluicing away, and with it his discomfort. He didn't expect to find much in the village. For all he knew, Sentaya had never been resettled and its buildings had been left to decay. But having read Sy1pa's journal, he almost felt that he had heard Lici's tale with his own ears. He did want to see it.
It seemed that Sirj did, too. Or maybe he sensed Besh's eagerness, for he quickened their pace. Before long they could hear the wash and see that its waters were running high with all the rain that had fallen. Soon, they could also see the bridge curving gracefully over the current.
"N'Kiel's Span," Besh said, pointing.
Sirj glanced back at him and nodded, smiling like a child. "I've always wanted to see it."
They reached the banks of the wash well before dusk and immediately turned north toward the span, halting just before it. For some time they just stood, staring at the ancient stone, watching the water course by beneath it.
"I thought it would be bigger," Sirj said eventually. "I suppose I should have known better, but still…" He shrugged.
"I thought the same," Besh told him. "So many battles were fought here, and yet it's just a small bridge."
Before Sirj could respond, a horse whinnied. Both of them spun toward the woodlands north of the bridge along the east bank of the wash. "Did you hear that?" Besh asked.
Sirj nodded. "Is there a village near here?"
"Sentaya used to be. But from what Lici told Sylpa, I didn't think anyone survived the pestilence when it struck."
"That was a long time ago. Others may have settled here."
"Perhaps," Besh said. But a moment later, he drew his blade.
Sirj did the same, and they started toward the trees. A path led from the end of the span to the forest, and they followed that. The mud was marked by some cart tracks and hoofprints, but certainly not as many as one would expect had there been a village nearby.