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“Well, no, never completely. But I wanted to believe in her.”
“Is it that way with this Olivenko?” asked Loaf. “Do you want to believe in him?”
“No,” said Rigg. “It never occurred to me that one of my guards might be somebody—a person, somebody I could talk with. But he became my friend during my time in the library. He never tried to ingratiate himself with me.”
“That only means he’s really good at it,” said Umbo.
“You’re way too young to be so cynical,” said Loaf.
“When we get across the Wall,” said Rigg, “I’m going to need you all. We’re going to need each other. But I don’t give much for our chances if you’re not able to work together.”
They all looked at each other, at the ground, at each other again.
“Let’s get out of the city,” said Param. “We have plenty of time to work things out among us on the road.”
They took a city carriage to the outskirts of town, where they paid off the driver and then bought a good traveling coach and four horses. “The purse isn’t infinite,” Loaf grumbled, but Rigg saw that there was plenty of money left. They also bought some supplies—food, tents, water bags, tools, a few weapons, nothing unusual for travelers setting out into rough country. One of the outfitters warned them that if they were going to a place where the roads weren’t maintained by the government, they’d want to have spare wheels and axles with them. “And a fifth horse tied behind,” he said. “Without good roads, even the best-made coach isn’t going to hold up forever, and you may have to leave the coach at some point. You’ll want five horses then.”
“Next you’ll try to sell us saddles.”
“It’s your buttocks and thighs that’ll do the riding,” said the man with crude amusement. “It’s not so much the saddles as the stirrups that you’ll be wanting, if the horse decides to trot—and that’s the favorite gait of a good carriage horse.”
Rigg wasn’t sure what he was talking about—he had done precious little riding in his life. And that was only being perched atop an old nag when he was a little boy. “I wish we could ride the river,” said Rigg.
“River doesn’t go where we’re going,” said Loaf.
And then both of them realized that they had probably said too much in front of a stranger. In a day or two, General Citizen’s men would no doubt be questioning this man, and now he knew that they weren’t going home.
Worse yet, the man saw them exchange glances, indicating that they wished they hadn’t spoken—so that the words would be cemented in the fellow’s mind. The only way they could make it worse would be to ask him not to tell anyone. That would almost surely send him scurrying to the nearest city guards as soon as they were gone.
But maybe they could give him another reason for that glance. “What we’re wondering,” said Rigg, “is whether you have a map. We’re going into country we don’t know.”
“I don’t keep maps in stock,” said the man. “People mostly knows where they’re going from here. Traders get their own maps and lore from each other. Other folks is just going home—they knows the road and they knows their turning.”
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to ask in the roadhouses.”
“If they know. Remember that roadhouse keepers don’t travel, so they don’t know anything but their town,” said the outfitter, “and if you start asking the travelers you meet in such places, you never know which ones will send you down a blind road where only your valuables will come back out again.”
“This is a bad idea,” said Loaf.
“Then don’t come,” said Rigg. He knew that Loaf now understood his ploy, so the act could proceed with confidence. “You’re the one who said the Wall was the only test of a man’s strength, so if you want to back out . . .”
Loaf rolled his eyes. “Fool boy. We’ll get there.” They left the outfitter behind. Rigg knew that by telling him the truth about their destination, but only after acting stealthy about it, the man would assume that they were lying, and so would the soldiers who questioned him. And even if General Citizen decided to believe the Wall was their destination, there was a lot of Wall.
Soon the buying was done. It was late enough in the day that they couldn’t very well begin their journey in earnest. But the ostler and the outfitter both recommended several different roadhouses on the way out of town. They reached the second one before full dark, and stayed the night, Param in one room, with the door stoutly barred, and the four men and boys sharing the bed and floor in the other. “If anybody so much as scratches at your door in the night,” said Loaf, “you set up a holler and we’ll have him in a moment.”
Param shook her head. “If someone tries to break in, they’ll only find an empty room,” she said.
Loaf looked startled, but then remembered what she could do, and sighed and shrugged. “It’s a strange world we live in now.”
The farther out into the country they went, the more unusual their expedition was. They weren’t on a main road between important cities, but on a road used mostly for bringing crops and trade goods to market, or for visiting among neighbors. Sometimes the road wasn’t a road at all, but a few ruts here and there in a meadow or pasture, and Loaf had to ride ahead on the fifth horse to see where the road picked up again, so that Olivenko would know where to drive the carriage.
“We’re too memorable,” said Olivenko one morning, after they had set out from the house of a prosperous farmer who had given Param a room in the house and the rest of them space in the barn. “Maybe for the first few days, Citizen’s outriders were searching for the two royals, or for the royals and their privick friends, a boy and an old soldier. But soon enough they must have found out about your buying of the carriage, and then they’d have a better count of us five, and the carriage makes it easy to follow us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re only a day behind us, especially with us stopping each night for sleep in an inn or tavern or house.”
“At least we’re off the main roads,” said Umbo.
“All the more memorable we are then,” said Loaf. “You’re making his point, lad.”
“What can we do?” asked Rigg. “If we sell the carriage or give it away, then they’ll find out about it and know they’re not looking for a carriage any more.”
