Sara Douglass - Pilgrim

Leagh dropped her eyes, burying her fingers in the glossy coat of the horse in an effort to find strength. “I apologise with every beat of my heart for that deception. But Askam …” She raised her eyes, and now they were bright with tears. “Askam, it was what our people wanted, too. Can’t you understand that? Carlon rang with joy when Zared rode in —”

“He must have paid them to —”

“Oh, damn you to everlasting torment in the Bogle Marshes, Askam! No-one can pay for unfeigned joy! It is freely given, not purchased! I struggled for weeks myself, not knowing what to do, thinking that I had betrayed you for love of Zared —”

“You had!”

“— but what he did was not through blind ambition, Askam, but for the people of the Acharite —”

“You are blind, Leagh, to so argue. Gods! The man took you because through you he could gain control of the West. Of Achar. And now? Now he has virtual control of Tencendor while Caelum meditates in Star Finger!”

Askam was shouting now, his hazel eyes furious, his cheeks flushed. “No! What am I saying? That eternal traitor Drago has control of Tencendor. Leagh, I cannot believe what I witnessed there! Everyone from erstwhile Enchanters to the be-twigged Isfrael himself rolled over to let him scratch their bellies. What are they going to do next? Learn to crouch before him and beg for morsels from his plate? What about Caelum for the gods’ sakes? He is the one to whom they owe their ultimate loyalty.”

Leagh tried one last time. “If there is one thing I have learned over the past months, Askam, it is that people will willingly tear out their hearts for a man who will do rather than expect.”

“I expected loyalty,” Askam said flatly, “and I received nothing but treachery. Even from my sister, who I should have been able to trust more than anyone else. But you? You prostituted yourself for a crown.”

Leagh flinched. She tried to think of something to say, then finally turned her back and walked away.

Askam watched her disappear among the trees, then stood by his horse thinking for a long time. Eventually he retraced his steps until he found Jaspar, and the sergeant-at-arms now standing with him.

“My friends,” he said, “I need to have a word with you. It seems we find ourselves among a nest of traitors. If you care for your wife and children, waiting, vulnerable in Carlon, then you will listen well to what I have to say.”

Drago and Faraday did not linger. They told Zared they needed to move north as soon as they could.

“Deal with whatever you find as best you can, Zared,” Drago said.

“And this Sanctuary?”

“I will send word as soon as I can.”

“Do not delay it, Drago.”

“Be prepared, Zared.”

Zared sighed. “Do you need supplies?”

Drago nodded. “I would appreciate it. Who knows what we will be able to scavenge from the plains?”

“Why not stay within the forest for a while?”

“We need to move fast, Zared.”

As do you . The words hung between them, and Zared stared at Drago a moment before moving off.

Drago smoothed his hair with both hands, wishing he had the time and opportunity to bathe and shave. Gods! How many days since he’d been able to shave? He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin, and grimaced. Enchanted forests were all very well, but Drago truly thought he would gladly bargain one of Faraday’s donkeys for an hour in a marbled and steamy bathroom.

As if in direct response to his thought, there was an indignant bray to one side, and Drago turned to look.

Faraday had gone to harness the donkeys to the blue cart — but with obvious lack of success.

Leather harness lay strewn about the clearing, and the cart itself had somehow lost a wheel and was leaning drunkenly to one side. As Drago watched, it creaked, trembled, and then fell apart completely.

Faraday jumped back, tripped over one of the harness collars lying on the ground, and fell over.

Drago walked over and helped her to her feet. “What’s going on?”

“I … I don’t know!” Faraday raised both hands, then let them fall helplessly to her sides again.

The donkeys had retreated several paces, and were now staring at both Drago and Faraday with patent stubbornness.

For his part, Drago studied Faraday. Over the past two weeks since he’d returned through the Star Gate, he’d never seen her anything but calm and sure of herself. Now her cheeks were flushed, her hair in disarray, and her eyes bright — with tears, Drago realised with a start.

“Faraday?” She jumped as a soft hand fell on her shoulder.

Zenith.

As Drago had done, Zenith stared about her, unable to believe what she was seeing. The donkeys adored Faraday. They had comforted her during the time Faraday had planted out Minstrelsea, and Zenith herself had seen their devotion to the woman on their trip from Ysbadd to the Ancient Barrows.

Zenith looked at Drago, registering his own shock.

“The cart just fell apart,” Faraday said. “It just fell apart!”

“Shush,” Drago said, and took one of her hands between his. “Both cart and donkeys doubtless have their reasons.”

Faraday made a helpless gesture with her other hand, and a tear ran down her cheek.

Drago looked impotently at Zenith.

“And the donkeys kicked at me,” Faraday whispered.

Zenith glanced at her brother, then wrapped an arm about Faraday. “Hush, Faraday. Drago is right. They have their reasons.”

“But to kick!”

Drago dropped Faraday’s hand, not knowing what to do. He watched Zenith rock the woman to and fro, crooning to her, and then heard a step behind him and turned, grateful for the interruption.

Zared, his face puzzled, an eyebrow raised. “Do you want horses, Drago?”

Drago started to nod, then stopped himself. “No,” he said, and wondered why he said that. Why refuse horses? “We will walk. It is what the donkeys want us to do.”

The donkeys relaxed, their ears flopping, and each shifted their weight onto one of their hind legs, resting the other.

The feathered lizard suddenly appeared, investigating the wreckage of the cart. It rippled sinuously between the spokes of one of the wheels, and then disappeared under the tray.

“We will walk,” Drago repeated softly, watching the donkeys.

Faraday walked slowly into the grove. It hardly deserved the name, for it was only some three paces across and four or five deep, but it was beautiful nonetheless, with heavy-scented scarlet brambry bushes and clumps of spiked blue and pink rheannies filling the spaces between the trees.

Isfrael was standing in the shadows at the far end of the grove.

“It has been so long,” Faraday said softly. She felt like weeping. Seeing him standing here within the forest made her remember vividly the betrayal in which he’d been conceived — those glorious eight days with Axis when she’d thought to become his wife, while he’d thought of his mistress, Azhure — and the pain and misery of crawling on her hands and knees across half of Tencendor, her belly heavy with her baby, replanting the forests.

The agony of his birth in the Sacred Groves. The far deeper agony of saying goodbye to the infant to fulfil her destiny in dying for the Prophecy.

Azhure and Axis had raised him. Not Faraday.

Faraday had been left to wander the forest paths as a doe, hating her confinement there, and knowing that she slipped from everyone’s minds, including her son’s. It was difficult to reconcile the knowledge that she’d been relegated to legend, with the need to live … live! … and hold her son for just one day in her arms.