Emily Rodda - The Golden Door

What did this mean? Rye longed to ask, but he did not dare. He had promised FitzFee to keep his mouth shut, ask no questions.

“ Oltan , I should say, Popsy,” Nanion said gently. “How could I have made such a foolish mistake? I will forget my own name, next!”

He looked back at Rye and Sonia, and to Rye’s astonishment, he smiled.

“You are tired, young ones,” he said. “Tired to death and sore at heart. There is little enough we can do to comfort you, but we can offer food, rest, and a bath, at least.”

“A bath !” Rye and Sonia both sighed with pleasure at the very idea.

Nanion nodded. “And perhaps a change of clothes might be in order,” he suggested, looking wryly at their filthy, stinking garments. “I fear the ones you are wearing are fit only for burning.”

An hour later, Rye left the small bathroom at the back of the Fleet guesthouse feeling like a new, smooth creature who had emerged from an itchy, dirt-encrusted shell.

Never had he enjoyed a bath so much. Never had he realized what a relief it could be to be clean. His damp, washed hair felt featherlight, and he had stuffed FitzFee’s cap into a pocket instead of putting it back on. His bell tree stick was safely tucked into his belt. The little bag hung around his neck. The clothes he had been given to wear smelled faintly of soap and sun, and were deliciously soft against his skin.

Now all he wanted was food.

Sonia had been taken to another bathroom, he was not sure where. Deciding he was too hungry to wait for her, he began trying to find his way back to the room where he had last seen FitzFee.

The room had been large and airy, built around a great central chimney that seemed to have been carved from a single piece of rock. Savory pies, spiced sausages, fragrant bread, and fruit had been set out on a table there. The thought of them made his mouth water.

He met no one as he moved toward the front of the building, past the open doors of several small, empty bedrooms.

Nanion had told him that these bedrooms were for the use of horse buyers who had come to Fleet from afar and needed to stay overnight before returning home. There were no such buyers now, it seemed. The little rooms had a bare, deserted air. The beds had been stripped of their pillows and coverings. In some cases, even the mattresses had gone.

Rye reached a door and opened it cautiously, not sure if it was the one he had been seeking. He realized it was when he heard FitzFee’s voice.

“You’re quite set on the scheme, then, old friend?” FitzFee was asking.

Rye opened the door a little wider. He saw the backs of two armchairs drawn up in front of one of the fireplaces that gaped at the base of the room’s central chimney. Nanion was sitting in one chair, and it seemed that FitzFee was in the other, though he was too short for his head to be visible.

The two men must have taken these chairs out of habit, because there was no fire. A small, white-furred creature was peeping from the shadows of the empty grate, eagerly snatching up the fragments of sausage that were being tossed to it by FitzFee.

“You’ll truly risk your people and your horses on the sea?” FitzFee went on.

“We have no choice,” said Nanion. “We can no longer live under Olt’s rule — we will not! And we learned seven years ago the cost of defying him. Some chose to leave us and hide from him in Dorne, but that was not possible for most of us. You cannot hide horses in the numbers we keep, and horses are our lives.”

The hair rising on the back of his neck, Rye took a step back. The two men had no idea he was there. By all Weld standards, he should have turned and crept away. Yet still he lingered, too fascinated to close his ears.

“The ships are ready and waiting to the north, well away from Nerra,” Nanion said. “Their captains are helping us for gold, not friendship, but on the whole, they seem honorable. I think they will serve us well.”

“But where will you go?” FitzFee became briefly visible as he rose a little to throw another scrap to the little creature in the fireplace.

“The Land of Dragons, to the west, is at peace now after its many years of trouble. We have heard it will welcome us or at least will not object to our landing on its shores and finding a place to settle and start afresh. We can only hope that this is true.”

“ Dragons? ” hissed FitzFee. “But Nanion —”

“What are dragons but serpents of the air?” Nanion slapped the arms of his chair. “And what creature, on land or sea, could be more fearful than Olt? FitzFee, stop feeding that clink! If you give her too much sausage, she will not do her job and keep down the mice!”

“Ah, no fear of that,” said FitzFee, tossing the little animal yet another morsel. “Clinks are always hungry. And what does one mouse more or less matter to you now? Soon you will be far away, and your clinks will have the whole of Fleet to themselves.”

“True,” Nanion admitted. “So the wheel turns full circle. Clinks were here long before humans were. Why, Fleet was built in this spot because of the fine chimneys the clink colony had hollowed from the rocks. They will be glad enough to be rid of us, I daresay.”

“No. They’ll miss the warmth of your fires and the comfort of your scraps.” FitzFee paused. “And I’ll miss you, too, Nanion. I’ll miss you sorely.”

“Come with us, FitzFee!” Nanion urged, leaning toward the little man’s chair. “Gather up Alda and the children, and come with us! Dorne is no place for decent people any longer.”

FitzFee sighed. “You’re right, I know,” he admitted, “but it’s hard, Nanion. Alda feels — she’s sure — that things will change one day. She says the people will rise up against Olt in the end, whatever the cost. And of course Tigg and Popsy take after my side of the family, so they’re not in any danger.”

“They are not in danger now ,” Nanion growled. “Who knows what might happen in years to come?”

FitzFee said nothing to that, and for a moment or two, the two men sat in silence.

“I don’t see how you’re going to move so many people and horses to the coast without being found out,” FitzFee said soberly at last. “Olt might have been happy to be rid of those who are a danger to him. But he will not be so glad to lose the horse magicians of Fleet — and the whole of their breeding stock!”

Nanion leaned forward, gazing at the clink chattering hopefully in the empty grate.

“That is why we have waited till now to make our move. On Midsummer Eve, Olt will be too taken up with his foul ceremony to notice what is happening elsewhere in Dorne — even here, under his nose.” He sighed heavily. “It is a terrible thing to profit by the suffering of others, FitzFee,” he said. “But the suffering will happen whatever we do. Tomorrow, Olt will wallow in blood once more. And when he wakes the next morning, he will find us gone.”

Very quietly, Rye backed into the corridor, pulling the door shut behind him.

Moving as quickly as he dared, Rye tiptoed back the way he had come. His mind was buzzing, but his first concern was that Nanion and FitzFee did not suspect they had been overheard.

Safely reaching the bathroom again, he set off to try to find Sonia. He could not wait to tell her what had been said.

He knocked quietly at every door he came to, but received no reply. Then, without warning, he turned a corner and found himself in a little courtyard garden that was bathed in sunlight and almost filled by the graceful tree that grew in its center.