Fool's Errand

Page 152

“She didn't know he was the Prince. She simply called him a lad with a hunting cat.” I tried to think of something that would divert her from more questions. “The trail is poor. Any help you could give me would be welcome.”
My ruse worked. She proved an able tracker. As the light went out of the day, she picked up small signs that I might have missed, and thus we kept following them long past the hour when I would have said the light was too poor. We came to a creek where they had stopped to water. The spoor of two men, two horses, and the cat were all plain in the damp soil at the water's edge. There we decided to make camp for the night. “It's better to stop tracking ; while we know we are on the right trail than to wait- until we are not certain, and have confused things with our own tracks. Early tomorrow we will start again,” Laurel announced.
We made a bare camp, little more than a tiny fire and our blankets beside it. Food was in short supply, but at least we had plenty of water. The fruit I had taken from our room was warm and bruised but welcome. Laurel carried, from habit, some twists of dried meat and travel bread. There was precious little of it, and she unwittingly bought much good favor from me when she announced, “We don't need the meat as much as the dog does. We have both fruit and bread.” Another woman, I thought, might have ignored the wolf's hunger and hoarded the meat for the next day. Nighteyes, for his part, deigned to take it from her hand. And afterward, when I insisted on looking at his scratches, he did not snarl when she joined me, though she was wise enough not to attempt to touch him. As I had suspected, he had licked most of the unguent away. The scratches were scabbed closed and the flesh beside them did not look too angry. I decided against putting more ointment on them. As I put the unused pot away, Laurel nodded her head in quiet agreement. “Better dry and sealed than greased too well and the scab softened too much.”
Lord Golden had already stretched out on his blanket. I surmised that neither his head nor his belly were yet calm. He had spoken little throughout our campmaking and sparse meal. In the gathering dark, I could not tell if his eyes were closed or if he stared up at the sky.
“Well. I suppose he has the right of it,” I said, gesturing at him. “Early to bed, and an early start tomorrow. Perhaps, with luck, we'll overtake them.”
I think Laurel assumed Lord Golden was already asleep. She lowered her voice. “It will take some hard riding, as well as a measure of luck. They ride assuredly, knowing where they ate bound, while we must go carefully lest we lose them.” Laurel cocked her head and studied me L.
across the small fire. “How did you know when to leave the road to find their trail?”
I took a breath and chose a lie at random. “Luck,” I replied quietly. “I had a feeling they would be going in this direction, and when I struck their trail, we followed it.”
“And your dog had the same feeling, which is why he had gone ahead of you?”
I just looked at her. The words rose to my tongue without my volition. “Maybe I'm Witted.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied sarcastically. “And that is why the Queen trusts you to go after her son. Because you are one of those she most fears. You are not Witted, Tom Badgerlock. I've known Witted folk before; I've endured their disdain and snubs for folks who do not share their magic. Where I grew up, there were plenty of them, and in that place and time, they did little to conceal it. You are no more Witted than I am, though you are one of the best trackers I've ever ridden with.”
I did not thank her for the compliment. “Tell me about the Witted folk you grew up with,” I suggested. I smoothed a wrinkle out of my blanket and lay back on top of it. I closed my eyes almost all the way, as if I were only mildly interested in her words. The moon, a paring less than full, looked down at us through the trees. At the edge of the fire's light, Nighteyes was diligently licking himself. Laurel fussed for a moment with her own blanket, tossing small stones out from under it. Then she smoothed it to the earth and lay back on it. She was silent for a moment or two and I did not think she was going to answer me.
Then, “Oh, they were not so bad. Not like the tales folk tell. They did not turn into bears or deer or seals at the light of the full moon, nor did they eat raw meat and steal children. Still, they were bad enough.” “How?”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “It just was not fair,” she said at last, with a sigh. “Imagine never being sure that you were alone, for some little bird or lurking fox might carry theeyes and ears of your neighbor. They took full advantage of their Wit, for their animal partners forever told them where the hunting was best or the berries first ripened.”