the braid in one hand, my head feeling impossibly light, the morning breeze ruffling my newly short locks. I look at it, dirty and matted, and then fling it into the forest.
From a distance, I might pass for a young man, which will hopefully be enough to fool anyone watching out for a likely victim, and perhaps even any soldiers I come across. As long as they don’t get too close. I look down at my breasts and grimace, pulling the shirt a little looser to try to disguise them. I wish I still had my cloak. As cold air chills my neck, and I guide the horse back towards the road, I wonder if I look like my brother did.
I keep the sun over my right shoulder until we reach the main road, still called the King’s Road after all this time, stretching between Tyrwhitt and Tremayne, forking off to Tressalyn. Once on it I try to make myself look as menacing as I can, staying alert for anyone travelling on foot, both on the road and in the woodlands and meadows to the sides. We stop infrequently, and never near villages and hamlets, and I keep the pace easy, but constant. It soon becomes evident that the horse I took is built for stamina and long distances, but the progress we’re making feels too slow.
I pass other travellers headed the same way on the road, lone, or in pairs, always hooded like Silas, which makes my breath catch until I pass them and see they’re too wide or too short to be him; they don’t walk the way he does. Most keep their heads lowered, though one or two look up, and their hollow eyes, the terror in them, draws me up straight. They always look away first, cowering from me, and I know they’re refugees from Lormere. I urge the horse to the other side of the road as we pass, to reassure them I have no intention of harming them. But I can’t get their faces out of my mind. How empty they look. What have they seen, to do that to them?
As the day lengthens it becomes obvious that I’ve seriously underestimated how fast I’ll be able to travel. By lunchtime, after five of hours riding, we’ve barely passed Newtown, and still have thirty miles to go. I dismount and walk for a few miles, letting the horse slow and stop to drink from puddles when she needs to. When I empty the last drops of water from the water skin, I consider refilling it from those same puddles, changing my mind when I see how messily she drinks. I’m not that thirsty, not yet. I think of the people I’ve passed and wonder how they’re drinking. When they last ate.
I don’t see anyone else on horseback until later in the afternoon, when the roads begin to widen, the ground beaten down by the passage of many. My stomach is churning from the lack of food and my mouth is dry, my head aching from thirst. As we come up behind another band of refugees I steer the horse past them, bundles on their backs, fear hovering around them like midges over a pond. Then, in the distance, I see a group travelling towards us on horseback, approaching at speed. Immediately the refugees drop their bundles and run into the scrub, and some of the riders peel off and drive their horses into the fields after them. I keep going, but my heartbeats are coming faster, my hands suddenly slippery on the reins, the knuckles on my right hand throbbing.
As the riders get closer I can see the green tunics of the Tregellian army and my fear increases. I start to sweat, despite my lack of cloak. The rest of the refugees scatter, leaving me alone on the road as the soldiers draw near.
“Get after them,” one of them bellows, his blue sash marking him as a lieutenant, as his comrades ride after the escapees in the fields. “Round them all up. You.” He looks at me. “Dismount. Nice and slow.”
Shaking, I do as he says, staying close by the horse.
The lieutenant swings out of his saddle and draws his sword, his eyes lit with anger.
“You stinking thief. Where’d you get that horse? On your knees, Lormerian scum.”
“I’m not a refugee.”
“Shut it.” He looms over me, sneering, a hand reaching for me.
I move back, knocking into the horse, and she whinnies in fright. “I’m Tregellian.