Year of the Unicorn Read Online Free PDF Page B

herbs and simples I had earlier packed. Yet at that moment had I been given a chance to retrace all I had done that night and be free of the action I had embarked upon, I would have scornfully refused it.
     
    Back in Marimme's chamber I rested for the rest of the night, having fortified myself with another cordial from my store, so that while I did not sleep much, I was vigorous and eager when there was a morning scratching at my door.
     
    I had my veil about my head, my cloak over my arm. For a moment I did not move to open and then I heard a whisper:
     
    "Ready?"
     
    Sussia again. When I came forth she put her arm quickly about my shoulders as one who supported a friend in distress. Thus I adopted my action to her suggestion, and walked in a feeble, wavering fashion down to the hall. There was food waiting: cakes of journey bread and hot drink. And of this I managed to eat more than appeared with Sussia sitting as a cup-companion, urging me on in a solicitous fashion. She told me in whispers that she had warned off Marimme's other friends, saying that I was so distraught that their sympathy might prove disastrous. And after Marimme's hysterical fit of the night before when the news was broken to her, they believed this readily.
     
    Thus it went as we had hoped. When Lord Imgry, who had avoided me heretofore, came to lead me forth, I went bent and weeping, so I hoped, in a piteous fashion. The last test came as we knelt for the Abbess's blessing. She gave each the kiss of peace and for that I needs must throw back my veil for a moment. I waited tensely to be denounced. But there was not a flicker of change on the Abbess's face as she leaned forward to press her lips to my forehead.
     
    "Go in peace, my daughter-" She spoke the ritual words, but I knew they were truly meant for me and not Marimme. Thus heartened, I was aided by Lord Imgry into the saddle and so rode out of Norstead for ever, after some ten years of life within its never-changing walls.
     
    The Throat of the Hawk
     
    IT WAS cold, and the falling snow thickened as the road wound out of Norsdale, across the uplands, where the fringe forests made black scars against the white. In the spring, in the summer, in autumn, the dale lands were green with richly rooted grass and tree, bush and briar, but in winter they held aloof, alien to those who dwelt in village or upland farm.
     
    Into Harrowdale the road narrowed. Before the long war of the invasion, men had spread out and out to north and west, putting under tillage land uncut by plough before. And then there had been travel on these roads, pack merchants, hill lords and their men, families with their worldly possessions on carts, driving their stock, moving out to fresh new lands. But since the war years communication across the Dales had dwindled, and what had been roads became mountain tracks-narrowed and blurred by the growth of vegetation.
     
    There was little or no talk among our party as we rode, not mounted on such horses as the host kept for raiding and battle, but rather on shaggy coated, short legged beasts, ambling of pace, yet with vast powers of endurance and deep lungs to take the rough up and down going of the back country with uncomplaining and steady gait.
     
    At first, we rode three and four abreast, one or two of the escort with each pair of women. Then we strung out farther as the brush encroached and the road became a lane. I was content to keep silence behind veil and hood. For a space I had ridden stiff of back, tense, lest some call from the Abbey...a rider sent after...would reveal me for what I was. Still did it puzzle me that the Abbess Yulianna had not unmasked me in that farewell moment. Did she have such tenderness for Marimme that she was willing to let the deception stand to save a favourite? Or did she consider me a disturbing factor in her placid community, of whom she would be well rid? Every hour we travelled lessened the chance of any return. And Imgry forced the