how
strange life is! Last year at this very time I was running
rain-sodden for my life in the opposite direction, chased by
the very same man now racing neck and neck beside me.
The thought caused me to look at him, though there was
little to see beyond flying light hair under the broad-brimmed
black hat and that long black cloak. He glanced over, saw me
laughing, and I looked away again, urging my mount to greater
efforts.
At the same pace still, we reached the first staging point.
Together we clattered into the innyard and swung down from the
saddle. At once two plain-dressed young men came out of the
inn, bowed, and handed Shevraeth a blackweave bag. It was
obvious from their bearing that they were trained warriors,
probably from Renselaeus. For a moment the Marquis stood
conversing with them, a tall mud-splashed and anonymously
dressed figure. Did anyone else know who he was? Or who I was?
Or that we'd been enemies last year?
Again laughter welled up inside me. When I saw stablehands
bring forth two fresh mounts, I sprang forward, taking the
reins of one, and mounted up. Then I waited until Shevraeth
turned my way, stuck my tongue out at him, and rode out at the
gallop, laughing all the way.
I had the road to myself for quite a while.
Though I'd been to Lumm only that once, I couldn't miss the
way, for the road to Lumm ran alongside the river—that
much I remembered. Since it was the only road, I did not gallop
long but pulled the horse back into a slower gait in order to
keep it fresh. If I saw pursuit behind me, then would be the
time to race again, to keep my lead.
So I reasoned. The road climbed gradually, until the area
looked familiar again. Now I rode along the top of a palisade
on the north side of the river; I kept scanning ahead for that
rickety sheep bridge.
As I topped the highest point, I turned to look out over the
valley, with the river winding lazily through it, and almost
missed the fast-moving dot half obscured by the fine, silvery
curtain of rain.
I reined in my horse, shaded my eyes, and squinted at the
dot, which resolved into a horseback rider racing cross-country
at incredible speed. Of course it could be anyone, but...
Turning my eyes back to the road, I saw Lumm in the
distance, with a couple of loops of river between me and
it.
Hesitating only a moment, I plunged down the hillside. The
horse stumbled once in the deep mud, sending me flying face
first. But I climbed back into the saddle, and we started
racing eastward across the fields.
I reached Lumm under a relentless downpour. My horse
splashed slowly up the main street until I saw swinging in the
wind a sign with a cracked shield. The wood was ancient, and I
couldn't make out the device as my tired horse walked under it.
I wondered who Jeriab was, then forgot him when a stablehand
ran out to take my horse's bridle.
"Are you Countess of Tlanth?" she asked as I dismounted.
I nodded, and she bustled over to a friend, handed off the
horse, then beckoned me inside. "I'm to show you to the south
parlor, my lady."
Muddy to the eyebrows, I squelched after her up a broad
stair into a warm, good-smelling hallway. Genial noise smote me
from all directions, and people came and went. But my guide
threaded her way through, then indicated a stairway with a fine
mosaic rail, and pointed. "Top, right, all across the back is
where your party will be," she said. "Parlor's through the
double door." She curtsied and disappeared into the crowd.
I trod up the stairs, making wet footprints on the patterned
carpet at each step. The landing opened onto a spacious
hallway.
I turned to the double doors, which were of foreign
plainwood, and paused to admire the carving round the latch,
and the painted pattern of leaves and blossoms worked into it.
Then I opened one, and there in the middle of a lovely parlor
was Shevraeth. He knelt at a writing table with his back to a
fire, his pen scratching