So the least he had done, probably, was to make certain she would walk straight to the Abbey with no pause for rest. For a moment, Robin felt guilty again_they hadn't done anything to stop Padrik, and they could probably have used Bardic Magic to cancel the spell on that token. Had they stood by and condemned an old woman to death-by-exhaustion?
Maybe not; when she made that speech, she didn't look very frail to me. She's a Master in the Weaver's Guild; that's a lot of hauling, walking, lifting... even for a Master with a shop full of apprentices. She could be more fit than I had thought.
She could, in fact, have the reserves to walk a full day and a night without collapsing. And if that was the case_she would be a full day ahead of them by now!
Robin sighed with resignation, her guilt lost in a moment of self-pity. Last night had not been very comfortable, and she had been hoping to intercept the woman and enjoy a good rest at the inn. But this meant no warm bed in the inn tonight, and no supper cooked by someone else. Only a brief stop to properly re-provision the wagon_
At inn prices. She winced. While she was hardly parsimonious, a Gypsy was never happy without a bargain. There were few bargains to be had at inns as remote as this one.
So. It had to be done. Once they had restocked, they could go on, and hope to catch Orlina before she actually reached the Abbey.
And try to figure out what sort of spell they have on her, and how to break it, she realized, as the horses mounted the final hill and quickened their pace, with the inn in clear sight. They knew what was up there! Otherwise, if we don't break it, she's going to keep right on walking to the Abbey, no matter what we do.
The innkeeper was very happy to see them again; as she pulled the horses into the dusty yard in front of the door, he came out himself, beaming a cheerful greeting in the thin winter sunlight. "Well, my travelers!" he called out. "You return! And did you prosper in Gradford?"
"Ai," Robin said, sadly, and made a long face, as she halted the horses. "Everywhere one turns, there are hard times, and everyone is a thief. How can any honest craftsman prosper in times like these?"
"How, indeed." The innkeeper wiped his hands on his apron, and made a mock-sober face himself. "The times are hard. But you have come to stay, surely _"
His face truly fell when she shook her head; with custom already thin along here, the coming of winter must be hitting him hard. "No," she replied regretfully, "but we will have to reprovision here. We will need everything; horse-feed, oil, charcoal, food_we are down to nothing but a handful of meal and a few cups of oats. And I don't suppose your cook has any of those little meat pies that keep so well_?"
His expression regained its former look of cheer. "Why, he made a batch this very morning! And for you, of course, my prices on provisions will be so tiny, I shall make no profit at all!"
"I'm sure," she told him dryly, then settled down for a serious bargaining session.
Jonny slept all through the stop; he didn't even wake up when she entered the wagon to store everything she had bought, nor when the innkeeper's workhands clambered atop the wagon to store waterproofed sacks of charcoal up on the roof. The horses might not have gotten their warm stable, but she did see that they each got a good feed of grain, and bought more to store under the wagon. Their profits for their God-Stars paid for all of it; would, in fact, have paid for it all three times over. But she wept and wailed and claimed that the innkeeper was cheating her; he blustered and moaned, and swore she was robbing him, and in the end, they both smiled and shook hands, satisfied.
He had been able to unload some stocks that he clearly wasn't going to need this winter, and she was at least as satisfied as she was ever likely to get, buying provisions at an inn set out in the middle of nowhere.
The innkeeper hadn't seen anyone even remotely resembling the description of Orlina Woolwright, neither walking nor riding. None of his stablehands and servants had, either, and Robin wondered then if they had gone off chasing a phantom. Still, she reminded herself that their main reason for leaving hadn't been to run off to her rescue_it had been to escape while they still could! If they couldn't find her, they couldn't help her, and there was no getting around it.
But as Robin set the horses on the road again, reins in one hand, meat-pie in the other, that rationalization felt rather flat.
The woman isn't a Gypsy or a Free Bard, she told her uneasy conscience. We don't owe her anything. We're doing our best for her, but how can we do anything until and unless we find her? We can't; and that's it.
Except that both she and Jonny knew Padrik's demon was a fraud, his accusations completely groundless. They'd had the proof at the time, and they hadn't done anything to stop him. Robin had been in an even better position to do so than Jonny; she had, after all, been among the Patsonos. She could have done something to disrupt the illusion, or drugged the chief participants' wine, or_
Or something. I probably would have gotten caught, but I could have done something. She bit into the flaky crust of the pie, pensively, licking a bit of gravy from her fingers, as the horses plodded up the slope of yet another hill. The fleeting, fragile beauty these hills had held only a few short weeks ago was gone now; the trees were bare, gray skeletons in the thin sunlight; the grasses sere and brown. Only the evergreens provided a spot of color, and even their greens seemed washed-over with a thin film of gray dust. She wore her coat and a thick knitted sweater, woolen mittens, and a knitted hood, and still she was cold. She wondered how Harperus was faring, and T'fyrr. The winged Haspur hadn't seemed equipped to take the cold.
Then again, neither do hawks and falcons, and they do all right. Unless the hard weather came early, there wouldn't be any real snow yet for weeks, but by the time it came, the ground would be as unyielding as stone, and the ponds frozen over. She made soothing sounds at the horses, and longed for summer. Or at least, a good, weathertight room somewhere, with a big, cozy bed and a fireplace.
And hot meat-pies and wine. Or a great roast of beef, nicely rare, and fresh bread. Or a roast goose with stuffing, or better still, a duck, and yams. And while she was wishing, why not servants to wait upon her, and comfits and cream, and_
She shook her head at her own folly.