Again he peeped through a window slit at a touching domestic scene, but this time he was interested only in the master’s feet. Having established that a durrl’s assistant did not wear his riding boots in the house, he continued his search. In an attached shed he happened onto boots, three pair of them, and their pungent odor was reason enough for not wearing them inside. All three pair were several measures too small for him.
He felt both chagrin and alarm. He did not recall that his feet were noticeably larger than those of either rascz or olz. Was it possible that all this time the olz had been referring to him behind his back as big feet?
He moved to the next dwelling, found the shed, found four pair of boots. These were large enough, and he took the pair that seemed, in the dark, to be the most worn, and,, therefore, less likely to be missed. He put on the boots, helped himself to a harness from the peg on an outbuilding where he had seen a durrl assistant hang it, and went to see what might be involved in catching a gril at night.
Five of them came to meet him. He was an eternity in getting the harness strapped into place, and when he finally led his gril away the other followed. He left the gate open so, that it would look as though they had strayed accidentally and headed toward the nearest lane with a procession of grilz.
When he reached it he shooed the other grilz away and mounted. His gril stood motionless, waiting. Cautiously—Farrari well remembered the recklessly dashing grilz of the kru’s couriers—he shook the harness lead, bounced up and down, gently, prodded its sides with his boots, tentatively slapped its flanks. It remained motionless. He spoke certain Rasczian words that had to do with forward motion. Then he recited all the Rasczian profanity he could remember. He pulled the gril’s ears individually and collectively. He dug his heels into its ribs and slapped it smartly. It remained motionless.
Becoming angry, he jerked sharply at its harness, whereupon the gril moved forward. He quickly determined that it could either see ol smell the zrilm, for it kept to the center of the lane and moved at a steady walk. Eventually Farrari would have to learn how to make it go faster, but he would prefer to do this in daylight and in a wider lane.
As the night passed he became more confident. Shortly after dawn he came upon an ol village, but the olz had left for the fields. He watered the gril, and then he drank himself and munched smoked meat while the gril grazed. In daylight he quickly learned to manage it, but by midday the animal had him seriously worried. It would not eat. It grazed when it could, but desultorily, as though seeking something edible and not finding it. He could not bring himself to rob the scant ol stocks of grain, which meant that his movements were to be more limited than he had supposed, and more risky. Each night he would have to rob a durrl.
He rode during the hours when the rascz were unlikely to be about, raided a durrl’s headquarters when he happened upon one, and learned to carry a reserve of grain in strange, tubular grain sacks that were to be found in every durrl’s storage buildings. He also learned that a tall zrilm hedge would harbor both his gril and himself. The olz he saw averted their eyes until he had passed, and he had the good fortune not to encounter a rasc.
After riding south for three days he decided to turn west and cross the valley. The gril was plodding through the darkness, with Farrari half asleep on its back, when suddenly its hooves clicked sharply on stone. Farrari halted, dismounted, and found that he’d discovered a road. He turned the gril south, and at dawn he was moving along a straight, masterfully engineered highway built of the same kind of massive stone blocks he’d seen near Scorv. It was in much better condition than the road near the capital, probably because it had less traffic.
And he had been plodding through all the overgrown back lanes in the valley when he could have been racing along this thoroughfare! If he’d had any place to go, his dimwittedness could have had serious consequences, because he should have known that there’d be a highway. The pass at the head of the hilngol was the most vulnerable leading into Scorvif and the military post there the most important. The rascz were expert military tacticians, and this road certainly had not been built for the convenience of durrlz bringing grain to market.
He urged the gril to a faster pace and began to teach himself how to ride. As day come on he began to meet and overtake a scattering of traffic: military wagons, the rare citizen rasc bound for the garrison town at the head of the valley, a troop of cavalry sweeping along in single file. No one paid any attention to him, and he quickly decided that he was safer on the highway than in the lanes. Strangers were the rule on the highway, but in the back country a strange durrl’s assistant might be required to explain his presence.
He had to leave the highway and search for a durrl’s headquarters when he needed grain, but he made excellent progress. He was far south of Bran’s valley and approaching the lilorr—and beginning to wonder what he would do when he got there—when he found the ol.
He had made a night raid on a durrl’s headquarters and was returning to his gril when he stepped heavily on a quarm log someone had carelessly left in the lane—except that quarm logs did not moan when stepped on. With fumbling fingers he pieced together the story of what had happened: the ol was on a special errand, alone, bringing a heavy basket of seed tubers from the durrl’s headquarters for the morrow’s planting. He had collapsed under the load. A durrl’s assistant would find him at dawn by running a wagon over him, but by then he would be dead.
Farrari returned to his gril and rode slowly along the lane, searching for the flickering light and pungent odor that marked a nightfire. He found one and rode up to the circle of olz gathered for their evening meal. As he abruptly loomed over them they quickly lowered their eyes.
He spoke a single word: “Come!” And turned and rode away.
When he glanced back the entire village was on the move. One ol led the way with a burning quarm branch, and others were lightin branches and joining the procession at regular intervals. The next time Farrari looked back the lane was filled with plodding olz.
He led them to the fallen ol and stood by while some carried him away and others searched the grass for the spilled seedlings. They were headed back to their village, the last of their torches vanishing around a turning in the lane, when Farrari realized that he had not spoken to them a second time.