The Blue Sword (Damar #2)(20)

She looked at the cup, and then at the man; he was wrapped in a cloak and she could not see his face. After a moment he gestured again, at the cup she held, and said, "Drink it."

She licked her lips and wondered how her voice was going to sound. "I would rather not sleep any more." That came out pretty well.

There was another pause, but whether it was because he did not understand her - his accent was curious and heavy, although the Homelander words were readily recognizable - or was choosing his answer carefully, she could not tell. At last he said: "It will not make you sleep."

She realized that she was much too thirsty to care whether or not she believed him; and she drank it all. It tasted as good as it smelled, which, she thought, gave it points over coffee. Then she realized that she was now terribly hungry.

"There is food if you wish it."

She nodded, and at once he brought her a plate of food and some more of the hot brown drink. He sat down again, as if with the intention of watching each mouthful. She looked at him, or rather at the shadow beneath the hood; then she transferred her attention to her plate. On it, beside the steaming hump of what she took to be stew, was an oddly shaped spoon; the handle was very arched, the bowl almost flat. She picked it up.

"Be careful," he said. "The sleep you have had makes some people sick."

So I was drugged, she thought. There was a peculiar relief in this, as if she now had an excuse to remember nothing at all about how she came to be where she was. She ate what she had been given, and felt the better for it, although the meat was unfamiliar to her; but the feeling better brought into unwelcome prominence all her questions about where she was, and why, and - worst - what next. She hesitated, looking at her now-empty plate. It was a dull grey, with a black symbol at its center. I wonder if it means anything, she thought. Health and long life? A charm against getting broken or lost? Or a symbolic representation of Death to Outlanders?

"Is it well?" the man beside her asked.

"I would - er - be more comfortable if I could see your face," she said, trying to strike a clear note among reasonable timidity, dreadful cowardice, and politeness to one's captor.

He threw back his hood, and turned his head so his face was clearly visible against the fading light behind him.

"My God," she said involuntarily: it was Corlath.

"You recognize me, then?" he inquired; and at her startled nod - Yes, Your Majesty, she thought, but her tongue was glued to her teeth - he said, "Good," and stood up. She looked dazed; he wished he might say something to reassure her, but if he couldn't explain to his own people why he was doing what he was doing, he knew he would be able to say nothing to her. He watched her gathering her dignity about her and settling it over her stricken expression. She said nothing further, and he picked up her plate and cup and took them back to the fire, where Innath scrubbed them with sand and put them away.

Harry was too busy with her own thoughts to suspect sympathy from her kidnapper. She saw him as a figure in a cloak, and watched him join his men at the fire; neither of them looked her way. One stamped out the fire and packed the cooking-utensils in a bag; the other saddled the horses. Corlath stood staring at the hills, his arms folded, his cloak shifting in the evening breeze; the light was nearly all gone, and she soon could not discern his still figure against the background of the black hills.

She stood up, a little shakily; her feet were uncertain under her, and her head was uncertain so far from the ground. She walked a few steps; the sand was warm underfoot, but not unbearably so. The two men - still without looking at her - slid past her, one on each side, and dismantled the tent, rolled it up, and stored it away so quickly it seemed almost like magic; and as the last bag was fastened to a saddle strap, Corlath turned, although no word had been spoken. The red bay followed him.

"This is Isfahel," he said to her gravely. "You would say perhaps ... Fireheart." She looked up at the big horse, not sure what response was required; she felt that patting this great beast would be taking a liberty. To do something, she offered him the flat of her hand, and was foolishly gratified when he arched his neck and lowered his nose till his breath tickled her hand. He raised his head again and pricked his ears at Corlath; Harry felt that she had just undergone some rite of initiation, and wondered if she'd passed.

The other two men approached them; the other two horses followed. Am I about to be slung over the saddlebow like a sack of meal again? she thought. Is it more difficult to do the slinging when the sack in question is standing and looking at you?

She turned her head away, whereupon the other two men were found to be looking intently at the sand around their boots. The baggage was all tied behind their saddles, and the hollow they stood in looked as bare and undisturbed as if it had never sheltered a campsite. She turned her head back to Corlath again. "I can ride - at least a little," she said humbly, although she had been considered an excellent horsewoman at Home. "Do you think I might sit ... facing forward, perhaps?"

Corlath nodded and let go the horse's mane. He adjusted the leather-covered roll of fleece at the front of the saddle, then turned back to her. "Can you mount?"

She eyed the height of the horse's back: Eighteen hands if he's an inch, she thought, and that may be conservative. "I'm not sure," she admitted.

Then, to the horror of the other two men, the puzzlement of Fireheart, and the surprise of Harry herself, Corlath knelt in the sand and offered her his cupped hands. She put a sandy foot in the hands, and was tossed up as easily as if she were a butterfly or a flower petal. She found this a bit unnerving. He mounted behind her with the same simple grace she'd seen in the Residency courtyard. The other two horses and their riders came up beside them; they wheeled together to face the hills, and together broke into a canter; Harry could detect no word or gesture of command.