Free The Dreamtrails by Isobelle Carmody Page B

jostling. She rose, saying that she would see if he would allow her to drain off some of his pain. After she had gone, Katlyn told us that the healer had twice on this journey performed the service for the gypsy healer, though he had protested each time.
    “Maybe he feels a man ought to bear his own pain,” Brydda said.
    “Or he is afraid of becoming dependent on the relief she offers,” I countered.
    “It might not be pride or fear of dependency that makes him refuse her help,” Katlyn said, regarding both of us with slight exasperation. Before I could ask what she meant, she rose, kissed her son, and bade us all good night. She held out her hand to Dragon, who went with her, yawning like a cat. She neglected to look back at me with especial dislike, and I felt unexpectedly cheered. Perhaps this trip would at least lessen her dislike of me, even if it did not restore her memory. Maybe I had made a mistake in trying to make her remember our friendship and all along ought to have been trying to form a new one.
    Brydda rose to get more wood for the fire, and Louis and Zarak packed up the meal and carried away the dishes to wash them in a bucket of water drawn from the well. I stayed where I was, for Maruman had crept into my lap during the meal and had fallen asleep. I did not want to disturb him, because he had been unusually subdued all day, either sleeping or simply gazing at the passing world from Kella’s lap or my shoulder, offering few of his usual acerbic asides. And he had not even once glared at the moon, now glowing overhead. I looked up at it, as yellow and ripe as a wheel of cheese, and thought again of the premonition I had experienced earlier that night.

“I HAVE SOME Sadorian choca,” Brydda said, jolting me from my reverie as he dropped an armful of wood beside the fire. “Would you like a mug before you go to bed?”
    “Is the sky wide?” I asked dryly.
    Brydda threw back his head and laughed. He knew as well as I that the delicious, sweet brown powder was both scarce and violently expensive now that Sadorian ships no longer docked at Sutrium. The Sadorian tribal leaders had ruled that neither of the two precious remaining greatships would make port at the Land until Salamander ceased preying on ships that sailed into Sutrium. Their policy of nonaggression meant that they would not engage Salamander’s notorious
Black Ship
in battle unless he attacked Sador, and as far as I knew, he had never even landed there. This meant that choca and other Sadorian luxuries had to be transported by the difficult coastal route or carried by smaller vessels daring or greedy enough to brave the hidden shoals close to shore, where Salamander’s larger vessel could not venture.
    Brewing the choca carefully, Brydda explained that it had been a gift to him from Bruna, Jakoby’s headstrong daughter.
    “Has she returned to the Land on horseback, then?” I asked with some surprise.
    Brydda shot me an enigmatic look. “She never left. After the destruction of the
Zephyr
, when Jakoby departed by land,Bruna stayed. She has been an honored guest in Dardelan’s house ever since. Bruna’s mother sent the choca.”
    Brydda handed me the fragrant brown liquid and asked if I had brought the plast suit Dardelan requested. I nodded, explaining that it was laid flat in a special compartment within the wagon’s base and that, although the plast was impervious to taint over a certain period, the fabric was nonetheless very fragile. I asked openly if Dardelan meant to use it to smuggle a spy across the Suggredoon.
    Brydda looked at me like Garth had. “Dardelan had thought of asking you or another coercer to swim across the river and spy for us. We had even begun planning the diversion of all diversions, but then we learned that all soldierguards guarding the other bank wear demon bands.”
    I stared at him in disbelief. Not long before the rebellion, the Herder priests had created demon bands to prevent Misfits from coercing