Sister Osha rode out before the morning stars had faded, her white truce cloth rolled up and tucked inside her saddlebag so the wind off the ridge would not tear it.
Ysabet stood by the outer cookfire with a mug of hot barley water in her left hand and watched the mare pick its way down the stony slope until the mist swallowed horse and rider alike. She did not know whether Edris would honor a promise made by his assistant without his leave, and she did not pretend to herself that an open plateau was safe. It was simply a place with two doors and enough sky for Lilt’s wings.
As the east paled to the color of cold pewter, the shellhorn caravan began its morning waking.
Across the hollow, heavy wooden shutters banged open along the sides of the strapped houses. Children climbed down the rope ladders with water buckets, and the great grazing beasts rose one after another with long, rumbling sighs that shook the frost from the grass.
Before packing her kit, Ysabet walked over to the nursery cart where Moss-on-Stone stood chewing a mash of steamed roots and crushed limestone.
Crooked Morning was already awake and butting impatiently at its mother’s flank. Overnight the caravan’s old harness maker had finished the brace they had discussed: two curved splints of boiled horn lined with greased lambskin and joined by a sliding leather hinge at the knee. It did not force the bent left foreleg straight—trying to…
