To Map The World [5]

I had little to do by way of preparing for departure, and less by way of saying farewell. Maitward, my father's man, was sent once more to the Blaiddpin to report the bridge's condition. Our marshal was under orders to ready the horses and coach. My mother complained of the chill, and I waited for the scripts.1

Thérose was watching Tamsen play the virginals. I leaned against a table, in a strait that may fairly be named as lingering. I dared not look around me at the walls of the inn and be mistaken by superstition as someone saying farewell. As panic threatened, I tried to focus my mind elsewhere. 2

Time stretched long, yet I feared the hour it ran out. I spent the hour talking with Tamsen and listening to my father and his steward discuss the Blaiddpin bridge when Maitward returned. Maitward reported that the old bridge was not fully dissembled, and the building of another was expected to stretch into the spring. However, a ferry had been put into use, and it would bear us. My father and mother retired to converse.3

Fifteen minutes later, I'd roamed the inn thoroughly, stopping in my own room numerous times to think alone. At last, when Simon had not returned, I made myself sure that all necessary persons were occupied and pulled my thick cloak on myself. The only thing for which I could be glad was that, while the scripts had not been transferred, neither had the money: it was in a bag I kept wrapped around my wrist.4

Sending a long and resolute sigh from my nostrils, I wrapped the cloak tightly around my shoulders and waist. I descended the stairs, looked about me, turned and fled to the door in the back.5

The cold was a cruel thing. The day was fast becoming a pale, sick evening washed with the smell of smoke and icy on my cheeks. I ran joltingly, feeling the cold through my little shoes. There was nothing I could do save follow the road, which led for another mile at the least before finding the nearest village. 6

My feet were unfeeling. I stopped suddenly on the road, sweat springing to my face and my limbs drained with fear. Then as I saw shadows become two boys walking by a tree, I relaxed. Fortune was on my side!7

'Boy!' I hailed the nearest. He looked at me quickly. I struggled to close the distance between him and I, my breath coming painfully. 'I'm looking for someone called Simon, who is a writer.' The second boy, who was the elder, turned to me. 'Simon, Job?' he asked of the younger boy. 'Do you know who she means?' 8

Job nodded his head. As we came upon a bar of moonlight in the road I saw that he was no more than perhaps ten years of age, with big eyes. 'Simon got set on by a dog,' he stated, his southern voice a high rasp. 9

'Now? This day?' The cold was intensified by the wind.10

'No, three days past. 'e was chased and fell down, got 'is face messed up. Fell on a chat', miss,' said the boy with obvious enjoyment. He let out a crude little laugh.11

'Chath,' I corrected absently. 'And where is he now?' 12

'Went north, we saw him, could be fifteen minutes past.' He pointed toward Noethpinc. 'You're lucky.' I put a tiny coin into the child's rough pink hand and turned back, my feet sliding on thick welts of ice. 13

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I entered by the front door. My mother was standing by the fire, not looking well. I was sorry for her, and especially because of the shameful crowd that surrounded her at the hearth. She turned to face me. 'Maria, whence are you come?' she asked wearily. I bowed. 'I felt sick and went for air.' She turned back.15

My eyes itched toward the peripheral, but I kept my head steady toward the stair, then turned swiftly when I reached the shadowy wall. Simon stood there, as I'd sensed. 'And whanne came you?' I asked in turn, in the southern manner I'd learned. 16

'Good lady,' he said, 'I've been to find these.' He held the scripts to me discreetly. I bumped his wrist, and our sleeves covered the bag of coins as it changed hands. His eyes were on my mother; suddenly I felt a tear of shame in my eye. Whatever I was doing, it was not worth playing this traitor's role. My chin trembled and I felt bitter. But to let him see my tears would only double the treason.17

'I generally don't speak about matters with which I've no business,' he said, 'but being a lady, you are regretting this?'18

'Yes,' I said.19

'So recall,' said he, 'that all you've done is purchase music. Music's a gift! If anyone asks the author of these, tell them my name. You'll save me yet.'20

I hated the ignorance in his happy voice. The time for a change of plans was past. I twisted away, forgetting to look again at his face and decide if a dog could have worked the damage.21

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The pain was worse after another hour. We'd not left the inn, and I wanted it the entire day and location dead and behind me. As I'd waited for the scripts the strain had been dark; now that I felt at liberty to depart, the freedom became unbearable.23

'Where to now?' I asked Thérose. She'd just returned from my mother and father, with whom she was rarely given opportunity to speak. 24

'Welldyr!' said she - 'tomorrow. Tonight, across the Blaiddpin and to Lord Nathanel.' I nodded to her. Lord Nathanel was an alliance of my father's.25

It wasn't until I looked in my cloak pocket that I found the coin. It was one I'd taken from the pouch an hour earlier, without knowing it, and rolled in my hands from anxiety. It was a crown - whatever was in the bag I'd given the writer was small change, and worth less altogether than this one coin. Alarm rolled over me. 26

Upset, I wrote a note of apology and wrapped the coin inside. 'This,' I said to my maid, 'shall be given to the blond boy. Without a delay.'27

She hesitated, and I told her that it must be done discreetly. 'You'll know how,' I said.28

Stiffly she faced me. 'A poor disguise, because it isn't possible that I would do such a thing - and less possible that you would ask me to pretend so.'29

'You will or I will,' I said. 30

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I did anticipate with interest the opportunity to watch my maid flirt crudely with the ceorlic man. However, I found myself engaged in a conversation with my mother's maid. She discoursed on the condition of my mother's health, et cetera. How easily I could have sent her off, like a burr from my hem - had it not been for the foolish thing I'd done. Small things are brought to pass in secret, and tall lies are spun to keep them there, as the proverb goes. Best it was, I knew, that the waters remained silent, no matter how small the grave they covered.32

There were two of course that would not be decieved by the silence, and they were Thérose and the writer. I glanced over. My maid was just then being bid a fair journey by the writer, who responded nicely to her sweet French smile. I knew that it was simple-minded to suppose that he'd been fooled, yet he was the one who had not even approached me about the upset trade. 33

'Thérose,' I said, 'what said he?'34

'He was grateful,' said she. 'He bid us fair journey, and is now gone.'35

'That much is clear,' I snapped, angry only at myself for pursuing the subject. 'Nothing else?'36

'Yes - once he looked at me closely and asked if there were cobbled roads in Welldyr. I told him that there were sure to be. He said he has seen such roads associated with a strange phenomenon. When the ground melts the snowfall, the roads will not, and so they will be white in the middle of the grass. He said that Piwscadaon will soon have cobbled roads, and then everyone in the town will know where they are going.'37

I shook my head a little. 'What a poet,' I said, with an angry sound in my throat like that of a snare drum. Thérose's eyes snapped at me, then she lowered them and exhaled tightly. 'Be not angry,' I said to her. 'It's over now.'38

We were not long in falling asleep once the coach was set on the road, and stayed thus for the hour passed between Piwscadaon and the Blaiddpin. When I woke and was helped from down the coach steps, there were stars in the sky. I blinked wearily and looked at their iron shine. The driver set the horses forward to the ferry, and we followed. The solid wood rocked under my feet; ahead of me my mother tried not to slip and coughed once, a cough that echoed over the black water. I could smell the snow.