Free Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier

herself now, decides to stop. Just the two of us all quiet, and the crackle of the flames. Our little patch of brightness in the big dark. It’s good being free, and it’s good being with her, and it’s even better having a job to do. Seems like she does think I can be useful to her. Even though they called me Bonehead, meaning stupid.
    After I cut her hair, I do mine to match. Couple of days later I get her a kerchief off someone’s washing line, but she makes me put it back. In time, she says, she’ll earn a living at her craft – I guessed already in that place that she was some kind of wise woman, with all her talk about plants – and she can pay for her own kerchief if she wants one. Anyway, she says, she likes the wind in her hair, what’s left of it. Makes a change after being shut up so long. I keep quiet about where my new clothes came from. Wonder what she thinks I should have done, tapped on some farmer’s door, looking like the wild man of the woods, and asked if they needed an honest worker?
    We cross over the border from Mathuin’s land to the next chieftain’s. I have to tell her we’re safe; she doesn’t know the area at all. We climb to the top of a hill, and I point back south to the place we’ve come from, lost in a haze and too far away to see clearly. We’ve just crossed a bridge, and I make sure she knows that’s got us out of Mathuin’s grasp. Chase us over here, and he’d get himself in a lot of trouble with his neighbour. Most places you go, there’s some kind of war on, a little war between rivals. About whose cattle can graze where or who’s supposed to keep bridges mended, that kind of thing. Probably no different in Dalriada, but I don’t say anything about that.
    ‘You’re sure?’ she asks when I tell her where we are. ‘That really is the border?’ I see her thinking, How would he know that sort of thing?
    ‘It is. Now turn this way.’ I show her the view northward: rolling hills, patches of farmland, lakes and forests and a range of higher hills lying purple-blue in the distance. It’s a pretty sight. ‘You’re looking across the kingdom of Mide,’ I say. ‘Those hills, the big ones, they mark the border with Ulaid. And Dalriada’s in the far north. Don’t know about your place, Winterfalls. But we can worry about finding it when we’re closer.’
    ‘You’re a fountain of knowledge, Grim,’ she says, and almost smiles. ‘How long do you think it will take to get to Dalriada?’
    ‘No hurry, is there?’ We’ve been managing all right, what with fishing and trapping and her knack for boiling up handfuls of weeds and making something tasty out of them. The way-bread’s running low, but she seems to think that fellow, Conmael, might provide more if we need it. Seen nothing of him so far, and I’ll be happy if it stays that way. Never did trust the fey. More trouble than they’re worth, tricky and meddlesome. Mind you, he did get her out, and for that reason I can’t hate him. But because of Strangler and the others, it’s hard not to.
    Blackthorn’s thinking. There’s a little crease between her brows. ‘I suppose not. And life on the road surely beats what we had before. Still, I’d like to get on. The nights are only going to grow colder, and our supplies are limited.’
    ‘I can get you a cloak. Good boots. Just say the word.’
    ‘I’ll manage with what I have,’ she says. ‘Not that I haven’t stolen in the past to keep body and soul together, once or twice, but we won’t do it if we need not. Maybe I’ll find some work as we go.’ She thinks a bit more. ‘The trouble is, I’ve forgotten the ways of ordinary folk, Grim. Forgotten how to say the right things, play the right part. Conmael seemed to think I could slip right back into being a village healer. But I’m not sure I can. Part of me has turned wild, and another part’s turned dark as endless night, and I’m not going to change back just because someone says I