After breakfast and some bargaining with the innkeeper (a woman here, fat and round and a little grumpy) Shay helped them gather up the tack and their bags from the room and stood out of the way while they got the horses ready.
The stable boy brought around a sturdy little red pony with a saddle and bridle already on it, and Dionne and Rhiannon grinned widely when he helped Shay up onto it. She had never been so surprised by anything good in her life. “His name is Apple,” the boy said.
“Is that because he’s red?” Shay asked.
The boy laughed. “He’s not that red, but he loves apples, and he’ll come all the way across the pasture for a little bit of one. Sometimes it’s the only way to catch him.”
Shay was afraid to ask if the pony was hers, but they rode away from town with Shay on its back and a long lead line between her and Rhiannon to keep them together. Maybe the women were going to let her stay with them after all.
The roads were clear now, and the going was still cold but dry. Apple’s hooves made a pleasant sound on the frozen trail, and Shay focused on that and talked to him, trying to ignore the way her legs and butt hurt from riding.
By the time they had been riding three more days, her legs didn’t hurt anymore, and she’d fallen in love with the pony and wanted her life to stay like this forever. She couldn’t bring herself to ask, so she did everything she could to help and was very careful not to do anything wrong.
They started going through bigger towns with places that made metal and fields of horses instead of sheep and guildhalls for people who built houses.
The roads became busier. And then they came up to the biggest place Shay had ever seen, one with wide cobbled streets and walls.
Haven.
It felt like seeing a story come alive. She gaped when she saw two Heralds ride out on Companions, and she understood for the first time what her mother had meant when she said Companions were nothing like horses. They were not; they were so beautiful she thought she might die of happiness for just seeing them.
As they wound farther into the city, Shay felt the good feelings shrinking inside her. A sadness filled her, completely against her will. She had nothing to offer here. If she couldn’t wash dishes in Little’s Town, what could she possibly do in Haven?
She patted Apple on the side of his neck, focusing on the mixed brown and white and red of his coat that looked simply reddish-brown from a distance. Focusing didn’t help, because she couldn’t possibly keep Apple. No one had ever said he was hers, and it made sense that they procured the pony so she didn’t tire out the other horses.
They pulled up outside a great big building that looked like the school from Little’s Town only bigger and grander and grown up. Students in gray and pale green streamed in and out of the building, everyone moving fast and looking smart and neat. Rhiannon still used a long lead attached to Apple’s bridle, and she came up and held Apple by the head, whispering sweet nothings to him. Dionne came around to help Shay dismount. She managed to get off without any more than the steady form of Dionne nearby, staying slow and careful in her movements so she wouldn’t embarrass the women by falling here, or herself by needing help with simple things.
Shay noticed that she was wearing the same clothes she’d started out in, and while they’d been washed once, that had been two days ago. Her pants had tears in the knees where she’d fallen. Her shirt had been mended in three places and smelled like horse and cold and the road, not right for Haven at all.
“This is the Healer’s Collegium.” Dionne took Shay’s chin in one hand and guided Shay’s face so that she looked Dionne in the eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You look scared. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.”
Shay nodded, not willing to try to talk in case it made her lose control and loosed the tears she felt in the corners of her eye.
“We want you to come with us to meet someone.”
“Okay.” Her own voice sounded small, so she straightened her back and said it again. “I will.”
Dionne took Shay’s hand, and they followed Rhiannon down a twisty cobbled path worn smooth by many feet. They turned onto a thinner path and went through a wooden gate into a garden. Stone benches sat in each corner of a lovely little garden full of raised beds. Only a few were full now, since it was winter even in Haven. The bare beds lay fallow and ready for the spring, neatly raked and cleaned out. Shay’s mom had kept a few pots to grow herbs she couldn’t gather, but this was richness beyond imagining. Shay let go of Dionne’s hand and started walking through the beds that still had plants, smelling each one. Half were familiar.
When she turned around, Dionne had gone. Rhiannon stood by one the benches, looking like she was waiting for something or someone. Shay went and sat by her, and Rhiannon put a hand on her shoulder. Then she started singing one of the tunes she’d sung for Shay almost every night, the lullaby her mother had known. It calmed Shay and reminded her to stop her racing thoughts and fears and take things slowly. They waited a long time, but the longer they waited, the more Rhiannon’s song calmed her and chased away her worries about what people here would think of her. So she felt easy when Dionne brought out an older woman with a thin, sharp face and bright eyes. “This is the herb mistress for Healers. She likes to be called Janelle.”
Shay held her hand out. “I’m Shay.”
The woman’s handshake was warm, and neither soft nor too hard. “Dionne told me quite a lot about you. I’m sorry about your mother.”
“Me too.” The easiest shortest response she could make.
“Can you tell me what the plants out here are?”
Shay licked her lips, suddenly afraid she’d forget all the names. But she took is slow and easy, and managed to remember the names and how her mother used and cared for all of the plants she had seen before.
Janelle nodded at Dionne, then looked at Shay. “Would you like to stay and help me the rest of the winter?” She paused. “I could use a hand soon, getting the spring plants started.”
Shay didn’t react. Slow and steady.
Janelle gestured toward Dionne and Rhiannon. “They need to go on.”
Dionne spoke up. “But we’ll check on you next time we’re in Haven. Then if you want to go back home, I’ll take you.”
Shay shook her head. “I don’t have a home.”
The herb woman whispered, “Maybe you do now.”
Shay looked at Janelle and thought, and then she said, “Thank you.”
They went to get her pack, which had been tied behind Apple’s saddle. Shay hugged the pony tight. When she let go, she was crying. They were going to go without her. She had a place, but she didn’t want to leave the twins. “Can I ride somewhere else with you sometime?”
Rhiannon smiled. “Maybe. If Janelle gives us good reports. And you can ride yourself if you have someone to go with you.”
Shay blinked, confused.
“We’re going to put Apple in the common herd and give you rights to draw him out if you want and to visit him and bring him apples.”
She couldn’t believe that her mom dying was luck, but coming here was good. She was in Haven, and someone wanted her help. She’d have Janelle and Apple, and her new friends would visit. “The only thing better would be if I could go with you all the time,” she said, leaning over and giving Rhiannon a hug.
“I’m sorry,” Rhiannon said.
“Don’t be sorry. Mom always told me to take things slow and steady.”
Dionne had come up behind them. “Maybe Rhiannon could learn that from you.”
Rhiannon swatted at her, but it was playful, and the mingled laughter of the women made Haven look beautiful again.