The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

“Sorry to lose the company of your friend, there,” the man said, indicating the goat, as he came up beside Sebastian.

Jennsen scratched Betty’s ears. “I appreciate her care.”

“Not much care. The night isn’t over.” The man’s gaze shifted from Sebastian to Jennsen. “Why do you two want to leave in the night, anyway? And why do you want to buy horses? Especially at this hour?”

Jennsen froze in panic. She hadn’t expected to have anyone question her and so she had no answer prepared.

“It’s my mother,” Sebastian said in a confidential tone. He let out a convincing sigh. “We just got word that she’s taken ill. They don’t know if she’ll last until we can get there. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t…Well, we’ll just have to make it in time, that’s all.”

The man’s suspicious expression softened with sympathy. Jennsen was surprised at how credible Sebastian sounded. She tried to imitate his look of concern.

“I understand, son. I’m sorry—I didn’t realize. What can I do to help?”

“Which two horses can you sell us?” Sebastian asked.

The man scratched his whiskered chin. “You going to leave the goat?”

Sebastian said “Yes” at the same time Jennsen said “No.”

The man’s big dark eyes looked from one to the other.

“Betty won’t slow us down,” Jennsen said. “She can keep up. We’ll make it to your mother just the same.”

Sebastian leaned a hip against the rail. “I guess the goat will be leaving with us.”

With a sigh of disappointment, the man gestured to the horse Jennsen was scratching behind the ear. “Rusty, here, gets on well with that goat of yours. I guess she’d be as good to sell as any of the others. You’re a tall girl, so she would fit you well.”

Jennsen nodded her agreement. Betty, as if she had understood every word, bleated hers.

“I have a strong chestnut gelding that would better carry your weight,” he said to Sebastian. “Pete’s down the way, there, on the right. I’d be willing to let you have him along with Rusty, here.”

“Why’s she called Rusty?” Jennsen asked.

“Dark as it is in here, you can’t see so well, but she’s a red roan, about as red as they come, all except that white blaze on her forehead.”

Rusty sniffed Betty. Betty licked Rusty’s muzzle. The horse snorted softly in response.

“Rusty it is,” Sebastian said. “And the other, then.”

The stableman scratched his stubble again and nodded to seal the agreement. “I’ll go get Pete.”

When they returned, Jennsen was pleased to see Pete nuzzle a greeting against Rusty’s shoulder. With danger close on their heels, the last thing she wanted to have to worry about was handling bickering horses, but these two were friendly enough. The two men hurried at their work. A mother lay dying, after all.

Riding with a blanket on her lap promised to be a welcome relief from traveling on foot. A horse would help keep her warm and make the night ahead more tolerable. They had a long rope for Betty, who tended to get distracted by things along the way—edible things, especially.

Jennsen didn’t know what Sebastian had to pay for the horses and tack, nor did she care. It was money that had come from her mother’s killers, and would get them away. Getting away was all that mattered.

With a wave to the stableman as he held the big door open for them, they rode out into the frigid night. Both horses, apparently pleased at the prospect of activity, despite the hour, stepped briskly along the street. Rusty turned her head back, making sure that Betty, at their left, was keeping up.

It wasn’t long before they passed the last building on their way out of town. Thin clouds raced before the rising moon, but left enough light to turn the snow-covered road to a silk ribbon between the thick darkness of the woods along each side.

Betty’s rope suddenly jerked tight. Jennsen looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the goat trying to nibble at a young branch. Instead, Betty, her legs stiff, had her hooves dug in, resisting any progress.

“Betty,” Jennsen whispered harshly, “come on! What’s wrong with you? Come on.” The goat’s weight was no match for the horse, so she was dragged down the snowy road against her will.

When Sebastian’s horse stepped over, jostling Rusty, Jennsen saw the trouble. They were overtaking a man walking down the road. In his dark clothing, they hadn’t seen him at the right side, against the dark of the trees. Knowing that horses didn’t like surprises, Jennsen patted Rusty’s neck to assure her that the man wasn’t anything to be frightened of. Betty, though, remained unconvinced, and used all the rope available to swing a wide arc.

Jennsen saw then that it was the big blond man from the inn, the man who had offered to buy them a drink—the man she thought, for some reason, should dwell only in her dream life rather than in her waking life.

Jennsen kept an eye on the man as they passed him. As cold as she was, it felt as if a door opened into the infinitely colder eternal night of the underworld.

Sebastian and the stranger exchanged a brief greeting in passing. Once beyond the man, Betty scampered ahead, pulling at her rope, eager to put distance between her and the man.

“Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Jennsen, her breath caught fast at the end of a gasp, turned to stare wide-eyed at the man walking down the road behind. It sounded like it had been he who’d spoken the words. That was impossible; those were the strange words from inside her head.

Sebastian made no notice of it, so she didn’t say anything lest he think her crazy.

With Betty’s agreement, Jennsen urged her horse to pick up the pace.

Just before they rounded a bend and were away, Jennsen looked back one last time. In the moonlight she saw the man grinning at her.

Chapter 13

Oba was throwing a hay bale down from the loft when he heard his mother’s voice.

“Oba! Where are you? Get down here!”

Oba scurried down the ladder. He brushed hay from himself as he straightened before her waiting scowl.

“What is it, Mama?”

“Where’s my medicine? And your cure?” Her glare swept across the floor. “I see you still haven’t gotten the mess out of the barn. I didn’t hear you come home last night. What took you so long? Look at that stanchion rail! Haven’t you fixed that, yet? What have you been doing all this time? Do I have to tell you every little thing?”

Oba wasn’t sure which question he was supposed to answer first. She always did that to him, confused him before he could answer her. When he faltered, she would then insult and ridicule him. After all he had learned the night before, and all that had happened, he thought that he might feel more confident when he faced his mother.

In the light of day, standing back in the barn, with his mother gathered before him like a thunderhead, he felt much the same as he always did before her storming onslaught, ashamed, small, worthless. He had felt big when he came home. Important. Now he felt as if he were shrinking. Her words shriveled him.

“Well, I was—”

“You was dawdling! That’s what you was doing—dawdling! Here I am waiting for my medicine, my knees aching me, and my son Oba the oaf is kicking a rock down the road, forgetting what I sent him for.”

“I didn’t forget—”

“Then where’s my medicine? Where is it?”

“Mama, I didn’t get it—”

“I knew it! I knew you was spending the money I gave you. I worked my fingers to the bone at spinning to earn that, and you go wasting it on women! Whoring! That’s what you was doing, whoring!”

“No, Mama, I didn’t waste it on women.”

“Then where’s my medicine! Why didn’t you get it like I told you to!”

“I couldn’t because—”

“You mean you wouldn’t, you worthless oaf! You only had to go to Lathea’s—”

“Lathea is dead.”

Ther