Fool's Quest

She’s right.



I rolled my face, rubbing my tears off on my hood, and sat up slowly. It wasn’t pleasant to move. My muscles ached, and moving opened gaps that let in cold air. I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw myself down and wail and weep and scream.



“I only have one cup,” Kerf apologized. “We will have to take turns with it.”



“You have something to drink from it?” Shun asked.



“Warm broth. Snow-water and the bird bones you dropped yesterday. But we can only make one cup at a time.”



Shun said nothing to that, did not offer thanks or rebuke. Instead we stood, shook our coats back into place. Together we shook and then rolled up the piece of canvas. She handed it to me to carry, a reminder to him that it was ours now. If he was aware of that subtle declaration, he ignored it.



There was little more talk. Shun and I had little to do to prepare to travel, other than eat the hare and drink what he offered us. He melted snow in a tin cup and added the bird bones and warmed it over the fire. Shun drank first, then he made more for me. It tasted wonderful and warmed my belly. I savored the last of it as he saddled the horses and packed his gear. I watched him load it onto the horses and a vague discomfort stirred in me, but I could not place why it seemed wrong.



“You take the white. I’ll put the girl behind me on the brown. He’s sturdier and better trained.”



I felt sick. I did not want to be on any horse with that man.



“That’s why Bee and I will be taking the brown,” Shun said firmly. She did not wait for a response from him, but went to the horse and mounted it with an ease I envied. She leaned down and reached out her hand to me. I took it, determined that somehow I would get up onto the animal’s back if I had to shinny up his leg. But before I could try, the man seized me from behind and lifted me up onto the horse. I had to sit behind the saddle with nothing to hold on to but two handfuls of Shun’s coat. I settled myself silently, seething that he had touched me.



“You’re welcome,” he said tartly, and turned away to mount the white. He tugged at her reins and rode away following the stream. After a moment Shun stirred the brown and we followed him. “Why are we going this way?” I asked Shun.



“It’s easier for the horses to get up the bank down here.” Kerf was the one who answered me. And he was right. The cut banks eased down to a gentler slope, and we rode behind him in the tracks he’d probably made the night before. Once we were on level ground again, he began following his own tracks back.



“You’re taking us back the way we came!” Shun accused him.



“You were going in the wrong direction,” he responded calmly.



“How do I know that you’re not just taking us back to your camp, back to the other soldiers?”



“Because I’m not. I’m taking you back to your own people.”



For a time, we rode behind him in silence. It was discouraging to see how easily the horses moved through the snow that had so hampered us yesterday. A light wind had begun to blow, pushing a bank of gray clouds across the blue sky toward us. Midmorning, he cast a glance at the sky and turned the horses away from the trodden path. “Is this right?” I whispered to Shun. My heart sank when she replied, “I’m not sure. I’m turned around.”



Kerf glanced back at us. “I promise I’m taking you back to your people. I know it must be hard for you to trust me. But I am.”



The horses moved more slowly through the unbroken snow. We crossed the face of a hill to gain the top of it, and when we did, we looked down on a lightly forested meadow. In the distance, I saw a road, and beyond it, a small farmstead. Pale smoke was rising from the chimney and dispersing in the wind. I longed to go there, to beg to come inside and be warm and still for a time. As if he had heard my thought, Kerf said, “We have to avoid the roads and we cannot go through towns or stop at houses. Chalcedeans are not welcome in your land.” Again he turned his horse’s head, and we now followed him along the spine of the gently rolling range of hills.



The sun passed overhead and the clouds began to darken as the afternoon passed. Shun spoke aloud. “I don’t think we want to be on these hills if it starts to snow. And we’ve been riding all day. We should look for a place to stop soon, rather than ride until dark.”



He gave a sigh. “I’ve been soldiering for two years now. Trust me. I’ll find a good place for us to overnight. Remember, I’m taking you back to your people. You’ll be safe with them.” He pointed ahead of us and said, “Just there, where the evergreens are? We’ll go down into that valley for the night.” I looked at a forested hillside where rough stones jutted out of the snow among the trees. I finally grasped what had bothered me earlier.