Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

And if they jumped ten years, or fifteen years, or a hundred years into the past, then what? How could they guess what troubles they might run into? Or how they might change the future? Maybe they’d start a legend about travelers appearing out of nowhere—or, worse yet, about a prince and princess appearing out of the sky. Either General Citizen or Mother would have guessed what happened and been ready to intercept them as soon as they got on this road. No, they’d travel in the present until something forced them to do otherwise.

The journey went faster now, even though three of them were walking. Param started out astride a horse—that was hard enough work—with Loaf taking the other to ride ahead and scout the way. Before long, Param insisted on dismounting and taking a turn walking. “I’ll never build up my walking strength by sitting on a horse. Besides, it isn’t all that comfortable. It chafes my thighs and I feel all stretched out.”

They traveled for another couple of weeks this way, Param walking farther and farther before needing to ride again, until she was walking all the way. They bought more provisions at two different farmsteads, and at the last one, the farmer said, “Don’t know where you think you’re going, but it isn’t there.”

“What isn’t there?” asked Olivenko.

“Anything,” said the farmer. “Ain’t nothing at all that way.”

“Maybe nothing’s what we’re looking for,” said Olivenko.

“You think to find the Wall,” said the farmer.

“Wall?” asked Olivenko.

“Ayup,” said the farmer. “At’s right, then. Oh, you’ll find it. All up that way. Day or two beyond.”

“Are there any brigands living in that area?” asked Loaf.

“Might be,” said the farmer. “If they is, they an’t bothering us here.”

“Then we’ll do fine,” said Olivenko.

“What you running away from?” asked the farmer.

Rigg didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “You,” he said. “We want to get to a place where nobody pries into other folks’ business.”

“Soldiers patrol along there, you know,” said the farmer, not taking the hint. “You never know when they’ll come along. Just thinking you might want to know that, if you’re running away and don’t want to get caught.”

Rigg changed his estimation of the man at once. “Thank you for the warning.”

“Why do you think a man moves to this part of the wallfold?” said the farmer, grinning. “Run off with a rich man’s wife, you got to get off to a far place where you’ll never meet the old cuckold by chance. Close to the Wall, but not too close. I know what it is to run. So does my wife.”

Rigg looked at the half-toothless woman and the five children who huddled around her and thought: Is she happy with the bargain that she made? He could see that she had once been pretty.

They paid the man for the provisions—paid exactly what he asked, with no bargaining, since they were buying silence as well, if it could be bought, or at least thanking him for his attempt at good counsel.

There was no road now, and as they moved out across country, up hill and down dale, Rigg kept thinking about the farmer’s wife until he finally spoke up. “Why would she give up a life of comfort for what she has here?”

“She didn’t know it would be like this,” said Umbo, “and then it was too late.”

“She knew how the world works,” said Olivenko. “Her beauty would fade, her rich husband would replace her with someone younger.”

“She loved the man,” said Loaf. “Probably loved him before she ever married the rich man—bet her parents talked her into that. Bad advice, and she decided she’d been wrong to take it. That’s the whole story, I think.”

Rigg looked at Param. Param smiled a little and said, “She wanted his babies, and not the other man’s.”

The others laughed.

“Is it that simple?” asked Rigg.

“It may not be the story she told herself,” said Param, “but it is that simple. That’s what Mother said.”

Ah yes. Mother. “Is that the reason she gave for marrying Father Knosso?” asked Rigg.

“She was talking about other women,” said Param. “Other women marry for that reason.”

“And her reason?”