‘Quiet!’ Ki bellowed, her voice cracking on the word. Silence fell. Vandien looked astounded at the command. Ki took a breath, feeling her throat’s rawness. ‘Now. Quietly,’ she said. ‘Tell me. I knew Vandien and I needed papers because we had the wagon and were doing business with it. I thought it was sort of like a trade permit. It seems I was wrong. Are you two supposed to have travelling papers, just to go from town to town?’
‘Of course,’ Goat answered. ‘Or how would the Duke know where anyone was? How could they tell good citizens from rebel scum? I have my papers. My father got them the morning we left. I have no reason to sneak from town to town. Not like some.’
‘Willow?’ Ki asked.
The girl buried her face against Vandien’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t have time! I didn’t have enough money!’ she wept. ‘If I’d waited for the papers, you’d have gone. And I needed the money to pay you to take me. I didn’t think anyone would stop us or check us. What are you going to do?’ She lifted red-rimmed eyes to gaze into Vandien’s face. ‘Are you going to leave me here? Do you know what they’d do to me if they caught me, alone on the road, with no papers?’ She was shaking.
‘They might think you were a rebel,’ Goat observed heartlessly. ‘Or a sympathizer, carrying information. Or maybe just a roadside whore and …’
Ki’s look shut him up.
Vandien put steadying hands on Willow’s shoulders. ‘No one’s leaving you,’ he said softly. ‘But don’t you see the danger you put us all in? If you’d told Ki and me, we would have been prepared. It’s not like the Romni don’t know how to handle harassment. Ki knows a dozen tricks, and I have a few of my own. But we need to know what we’re up against. We’re strangers to your Duke’s holdings.’
His voice was calm, reasonable. Willow lifted her tear-stained face. ‘The Duke’s patrol,’ she faltered, ‘keeps the roads clear. Of robbers, and Tamshin, and such … those without papers. Rebels, they call them. Rebels. As if just being too poor to afford papers, or not wanting to account for every step of your life, should be a crime. And the Duke lets – if they find anyone without papers – they can take what they wish from them. Even their lives. It’s how they’re paid. Oh, the Duke pays them some, but that’s how he keeps them eager. If you don’t have papers, you’re game for the patrol.’
‘Eager.’ Ki said the word flatly. She looked at Goat. ‘You knew that?’
The boy shrugged carelessly. ‘Everyone knows that.’
‘And you still put them after the Tamshin.’ There was disbelief in her voice.
‘They’re only Tamshin!’ he protested hotly, while Willow cut in with, ‘You’d rather they had me?’
‘I’d rather they had no one. I’d rather I’d never heard of your Duke of Loveran.’ She turned away and picked up the battered kettle. She examined it to see if it would still hold water. For a moment Vandien watched her, then took Willow’s shoulders and gently pushed her aside from him to walk over to the trampled quilts. Cautiously he bent down, his hand against his sore ribs. He picked up a quilt and shook it.
‘It’s mendable,’ he said, and began to fold it up.
‘Most things are,’ Ki agreed. ‘But not all.’
He knew what she meant. ‘They’re young, both of them. It’s easy to forget that.’
‘Especially when they nearly kill you because of it. Vandien, I am full of an evil feeling. A foreboding.’
He nodded slowly. ‘This Duke of Loveran … This doesn’t seem a good place for folk like us, does it?’
‘My mother was a full-blooded Romni, even if Aethan wasn’t. It shows in my face. The next patrol won’t be so easily fooled.’
He sighed. ‘Maybe not. What do you want to do? Take Willow and Goat back to Keddi, give the money back, and get away from Loveran and its Duke?’
‘And go where?’ She squared her shoulders, took the quilt from him. ‘No. We’ll go on. There can’t be many patrols, or there’d be no Tamshin at all. Maybe we won’t meet any more. And if we do … well, the Tamshin survive. We will, too.’
‘Maybe,’ he said. He touched her, but she pulled away, too upset to share her fears. He sighed and let her go. Still cradling his ribs, he turned, to find Willow and Goat staring at them. The scrutiny suddenly annoyed him.
‘Can’t you see there’s work to do?’ he demanded. ‘Willow, go in the wagon and put together something we can eat. Goat, tidy up the camp. I’m going for the horses. The sooner we’re on the road, the better.’
Both young faces clouded with rebellion, but they grudgingly moved to their chores. Vandien ignored them as he got the grain sack and went after the team. Sigmund stopped cropping the grasses and lifted his great head as soon as Vandien appeared. Sigurd only swung his body so that his broad rump was toward him. Vandien wasn’t fooled. He shook the grain sack once. Sigmund came eagerly, his muzzle nudging Vandien’s shoulder, and Sigurd trailed reluctantly behind him.
A new quarrel had already broken out at the wagon. Willow’s face was pink, while Goat glowed with satisfaction. Ki stood between them, fists on hips. ‘The wagon seat holds three people. Someone has to ride inside. That’s all. You two work it out.’
Vandien skirted the group, moving the horses into their traces. Ki turned her back on Willow as she indignantly exclaimed, ‘But why should I have to ride inside the stuffy old wagon all day? Why can’t we take turns, or Goat walk beside the wagon or something?’
‘My father paid for me to travel comfortably,’ Goat was saying at the same time.
Vandien parceled out grain to the team as Ki lifted the heavy harness into place. ‘Maybe,’ Vandien said softly, ‘we could put them both into the wagon, and shut the door behind the seat so we didn’t have to listen to them.’
‘Somehow I think we’d still hear them.’ Ki tightened the last strap. ‘But I know someone who’d better ride inside. You.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. You look green. Does it hurt much?’
‘Enough to make me want to puke, but I know that would hurt even more.’
Ki started to laugh, stopped abruptly. He knew what she was thinking. ‘Not a damn thing we could do for them. The rousters’ horses are twice as fast as Sigurd and Sigmund. And even if you could have warned them, where could they hide? Don’t let it poison you.’
Ki shook her head, not looking at him. He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned on her as they went to the wagon’s door.
Goat sat firmly on the wagon seat. Willow glowered up at him. Neither Vandien nor Ki said a word as they passed.
‘It’s not fair!’ Willow burst out suddenly, and then fell silent as she watched Vandien clamber slowly up the wagon step and inside. ‘Is he going to ride in there?’ she suddenly demanded.
‘Yes,’ Ki admitted. ‘So I suppose you can both ride up front with me. I’ll sit in the middle so you don’t have to look at one another.’
‘No. I’ll keep Vandien company, I guess.’
Willow’s sudden capitulation startled Ki, but it was a relief, too. The idea of spending the day seated between two squabbling children hadn’t been pleasant. But as she mounted the wagon, she considered that spending the day alone with Goat was not a happy alternative. He was already holding the reins.
‘I’m driving now, all right?’ he said as she seated herself beside him.
‘No.’ Ki tugged the reins from his grasp and kicked the brake off. She shook the reins and the greys stepped out. The wagon lurched from the turfy roadside back up onto the roadbed. After the shade by