Ahead, Hunn Raal twisted in his saddle and glanced back, though it was too dark to see where his eyes fixed. Facing forward again, he muttered something, to which Osserc shot a look over a shoulder. Then, turning back, he laughed.
Overhead, the stars appeared, a swirling whirlpool spanning the entire sky.
FIVE
Bareth Solitude was a vast plain crossed by ancient beach ridges of water-worn limestone cobbles; these ridges ran for leagues but they were relatively shallow, evidence, explained Tutor Sagander months ago, of an inland sea that had taken thousands of years to die. If he let his mind wander, Arathan could imagine that they were now riding through the thinnest water, the water of the past, the water of dim memory, and the seabed under the horses’ hoofs, with its ribbons of wild-blown sand and its blooms of yellow grasses, was far beneath the surface of another world.
If he let his mind wander, he could almost feel himself rising up, lifting clear of this hard, brutal saddle; he could ride his thoughts instead, as they floated out of his battered, weary body, ever upward. Thoughts alone, thoughts unfettered, could find a thousand worlds in which to wander. And none here, riding with him across the plain, would know; his body would give nothing away. There were many kinds of freedom, and the most precious ones were secret.
Sagander would not have understood such musings. Just as there were many kinds of freedom, so too were there many kinds of prison. It came as something of a shock when Arathan first comprehended this truth. The stone walls were everywhere, and no hard grey tower was needed as proof of their existence. They could hide behind eyes, or form barriers in the throat leaving no escape for words. They could rise suddenly around thoughts in the skull, suffocating them. They could block the arrival of other thoughts — foreign thoughts, frightening thoughts, challenging thoughts. And in each case, there was one thing they all shared — all these vicious walls: they were enemies to freedom.
Arathan had known hard grey walls all his life.
Yet now he rode, under an open sky, a sky too vast and too empty. His skull throbbed; his back was sore; he was blistered along the inside of his thighs. The helm he had been made to wear made his neck ache with its clunky weight. The supposedly light armour, banded bronze strips sewn on to leather, dragged at his shoulders. The vambraces covering his wrists and the thick metal-strapped gauntlets on his hands were hot and heavy. Even the plain sword belted at his side pulled at his hip.
He rode in the company of exhaustion, but still the air felt sweet as water on his face, and even the huge figure of his father, riding ahead at the side of Sergeant Raskan, seemed to hold no power over him. There were, he told himself again, many kinds of freedom.
On the day of leaving he had been filled with fear, and it had shamed him. Dawn had broken cold and sleep was still grainy in his eyes when he stood shivering in the courtyard, watching the frenzied activity as mounts were readied and various supplies were strapped on the saddles. Servants rushed about, mostly in response to the shrill demands of Sagander. The tutor’s two travel chests, packed with precision, had been flung open, the contents frantically rummaged through — there would be no packhorses for this journey, and this left Sagander in a state of such agitation that he had begun shouting abuse at all the servants, the stable-boys and anyone else who ventured near.
Excepting Raskan, of course, and the four Borderswords who looked on with flat expressions from where they stood near the gate.
Lord Draconus had yet to appear, although his two horses stood ready, a lone groom clutching the reins of Calaras; the huge warhorse seemed immune to the panic surrounding him, standing virtually motionless beside the mounting block. The other horses looked nervous to Arathan’s eye; his gaze caught another groom who was leading out from the stables his own mounts. The mare, Hellar, tossed her head as she emerged from the shade, and behind her was Besra, the gelding on which Arathan decided he would begin this ride — a solid-looking roan with a scarred neck. Both animals seemed enormous, as if they had grown overnight, and Arathan struggled to recall the confidence he had found by the end of the riding lessons.
‘Arathan! Come here, quickly!’
Startled by the command, he looked over to see Sagander on his knees beside one of the trunks. The old man gestured frantically, his visage darkening.
‘Come here, I said! Student you were and student you remain! Attend to me!’
Longing to be in his room, warm beneath the heavy furs, with a day ahead no different from all the other days, Arathan forced himself forward. His limbs felt stiff from cold and his mind was sluggish with lack of sleep, and the dread of leaving the world he had known all of his life left him feeling sick.