The thing Iven wanted to leave behind was the spare bed.
It occupied half the loading platform, wrapped in good oilcloth, with a brass plate identifying it as a collapsible field examination couch. Folded, it resembled a respectable coffin. Opened, it would give Sera somewhere level to put an injured person. Between those states it required four people, a mule and an apology.
Sera stood beside it with her arms folded.
“No,” she said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You looked at the road and then at my couch.”
“The road is four hundred and eighty kilometers long.”
“And people remain capable of breaking their legs at the far end.”
