“Are we being exiled?” Jilly said suddenly. She turned in her saddle to look at Anthea. Jilly appeared delighted at the idea, her blue eyes sparkling.
“No,” Anthea said, horrified. “Of course not!”
She drew Florian alongside Caesar so that Jilly wouldn’t need to shout to be heard. Especially if she was going to shout things like that. They were plodding up the main highway to the north, having just met up with two dozen more of the brigade who were leaving their courier posts and going back to Last Farm.
“Oh, come on! We are being sent beyond the Wall,” Jilly said, eyes gleaming. “Just like the exiles of old! Can’t we say we’ve been exiled?”
“We’re not being sent beyond the Wall, we live beyond the Wall,” Anthea said, exasperated. “We’re not being exiled … Why would you want that?”
“It makes us sound dangerous and exciting,” Keth said, coming up on Jilly’s other side. “Pardon me, miss,” he intoned. “Could you give a lonely exile directions?” His flirtatious air was marred by a sudden hacking cough that started on the last word and kept going for a full five minutes while he huddled over his stallion’s neck.
“Do you still have that cough?” Jilly asked when he was done.
“First of all,” he gasped, “yes, obviously. And secondly, does it offend your ladyship or something?”
“No, I mean, I didn’t mean to,” Jilly said, flustered. “Sound that way. I meant, poor you …”
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to sound accusatory,” Anthea chimed in. “But really, that’s a horrible cough! Are you all right?”
“Just caught something riding back and forth and sleeping in tents for the last month,” Keth said with a shrug. He coughed again.
“What did Nurse Shannon say?”
He smells all right to me, Florian interjected. Anthea stroked his neck.
“She said that as a nurse she thinks I’m fine,” Keth said. “But as a mother she wants me to go home and get plenty of rest.” He shrugged. “So here I go!”
“She wants her own son to be exiled?” Jilly put the back of her gloved hand to her brow. “Tragic!”
“We are not being exiled,” Anthea scolded, looking around to see if there was anyone nearby.
She wasn’t worried about any of the other riders hearing them. They were used to Jilly’s theatrics, and some of them actually were exiles, though Anthea had never dared to ask which riders, or why. She didn’t want to find out that the grandfatherly man who carved little wooden horses for her, or the gruff but kindly one who offered to clean her saddle, was a murderer.
There were about twenty riders, including Anthea, Jilly, and Keth, and twice that many horses heading back to the farm. They were to wait there for instructions about a new system of passing messages that the king was working on with Andrew’s help. What Anthea worried about was passing some people who weren’t riders and having them think they were some sort of dreadful mass exiling.
“Does it actually matter?” Jilly said when she saw Anthea standing in her stirrups to try to look over a hedgerow.
“Yes, it does,” Anthea said.
“You know if you want to be a Rose Maiden, you can just ask the queen in person to make you one? And she probably will,” Jilly said.
Once upon a time Anthea’s fondest wish had been to be one of the queen’s elite ladies-in-waiting. The Rose Maidens were held up as the finest, most accomplished women in all Coronam. Her mother had been one, and Anthea had thought that her mother’s career had ended with her untimely death. However, it turned out that her mother had not died, but had abandoned Anthea and gone on to be one of the king’s most trusted spies.
Meeting her mother at long last, and finding out about Genevia Cross-Thornley’s rather sinister career, had initially cured Anthea of any desire to be a Rose Maiden. But after getting to know Queen Josephine, Anthea had begun to think that if she could be a Rose Maiden, and still be with Florian, it might be all right. There had never been a Leanan horsewoman who was also a Rose Maiden, and Anthea was secretly thrilled at the idea of being the first.
“It’s not that,” Anthea said, blushing to think how it would have been exactly that not too long ago. “But do you think that people will want to make friends with the horses and receive messages from their riders if they believe that we’re all exiles?”
“She has a point,” Keth said. “Especially since some of us are children.”
“I’m not a child,” Jilly argued, then stopped. “Which I guess makes it worse.”
“No one here is an exile,” Rogers, the rider in charge of the group, dropped back to say. “And since we are about to turn into that farmyard and ask to water our horses, I would appreciate it if you would change the subject!”
“I suppose,” Jilly said, giving a pained sigh. “Though I don’t know why you have to rob us of our one pleasure on this dreary march toward our exile.”
Rogers looked helplessly at Anthea.
“I’ll stuff my handkerchief in her mouth,” Anthea told him.
“Thank you, Miss Thea,” he said.
He urged his stallion to the front of the group as they turned down a short lane that led to a farmhouse and outbuildings. The other riders drew their horses into ranks behind him, putting the strings of riderless horses in the middle. Anthea was leading her two charges, Leonidas and Bluebell, and she gave their leading line a tug so that Bluebell was right next to Florian and Leonidas just behind. He started to crowd Florian, who laid his ears back, so Anthea turned in the saddle and gave the other stallion a dire look along with a mental warning, and he dropped back. Bluebell complained about the stallions jostling her, and Anthea reached over and rubbed the mare’s neck as she reassured her with the Way.
Jilly moved her horses back and around so that Buttercup was beside Bluebell, the two mares greeting each other with flickering ears and little whickers, and Caesar was on the other side of them. Buttercup and Bluebell, longtime herd-mates, were the first horses that Jilly or Anthea had ridden, and Anthea often felt guilty that so much of her time in the saddle was now spent on Florian.
Anthea had to remind herself that it was actually Florian she had ridden first, sitting on his back as a small child, her father holding her in place so that they would have a feel for each other. She had no memories of this, but Florian had shared his impression with her, so she had some strange images from time to time, almost as if she had once been a horse. She had tentatively asked her uncle if such a thing was possible, and he had reassured her that she had been born human, and would stay human, though he did sound a little wistful about it.
Anthea felt the jealousy coming from Leonidas and turned around again, this time to assure him that he was being very, very good and she also loved him. She did it entirely through the Way, however, without adding any patting or tugs at his mane, since they were now drawing up in the farmyard, near the well, scattering chickens and geese as they did so. A black-and-white collie dog came out to bark at them, but the tabby cat lounging on the side of the well barely looked up before returning to grooming her paws.
The combination of the collie barking and the commotion that resulted from dozens of hooves stamping on hard-packed dirt brought the farmwife running. She stopped short in the doorway, apron clenched in her fists and dishcloth forgotten on one shoulder. After goggling for a full minute, she yelled at the dog.
“Jyp! Get in here!” There was a rising note of panic in her voice.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Rogers called out to her. “Please don’t be alarmed! We need your help!”
The woman grabbed the dog by the collar and started to drag him into the house, never taking her eyes off the nearest horse, and Anthea didn’t blame her. The nearest horse was Rogers’s stallion, who was very tall and imposing.
“Hold them,” Anthea said, handing Jilly the leads for Bluebell and Leonidas.
She nudged Florian with her mind and he edged forward through the herd until they were at the front. Luckily the farmwife hadn’t been able to close the door yet; the dog was trying to make sure that the horses knew exactly whose farm they were invading.
“Good afternoon,” Anthea called out over the barking. “Ma’am? Can you help us, please?”
The woman’s eyes slowly took in Anthea’s long hair hanging over her shoulder, the high-necked, pleated front of her white blouse under her army coat, and then the rose pinned to her lapel. The farmwife made a perfect O with her mouth and then, grasping the dog firmly by the collar to make sure he didn’t get free, she stepped back out of the house and closed the door behind her.
“Are you … are you a Rose Maiden?”
My Own Jilly says to say yes, came from Caesar.
“We are friends of the queen,” Anthea said primly.
“Under orders from the Crown,” Rogers threw in, but he had moved aside to give Anthea more room.
“Friends of the queen?” the woman said, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes, ma’am,” Anthea said. “Well, my cousin and I are.” She waved a hand over her shoulder in Jilly’s general direction. “But all of the horses and their riders work for the Crown. We’re called the Horse Brigade.”
My Own Jilly says stop talking, you are being awkward.
Tell your own Jilly she isn’t helping, Anthea shot back.
“I see,” the farmwife said. “And why are you here?”
“We need water,” Anthea said. “Could we draw from your well to water our horses?”
The woman’s expression went from astonishment to horror in less than a heartbeat. She raised her arms as though to sweep them all up, letting go of the dog, who ran in the midst of the horses’ legs, making noises that were not quite barks now that he saw how big the intruders were.
“Stay away from my water!” the woman cried out.
Rogers looked just as horrified, and started to back his horse away. The combination of her shrill voice and the dog dancing around their feet was making all the horses stamp and whicker nervously. Anthea and the other riders hurried to tell them to hold still: the last thing they needed was for the horses to go into a panic and trample the dog or run into a field and ruin the crops.
The woman put one hand over her nose and mouth and waved frantically at the horses with the other, shooing them away. She hurried over to the well to block it with her body.
And then Anthea realized why the woman was so upset. It was the same reaction she herself would have had a year ago.
“They’re not diseased,” Anthea shouted at the woman, over the muted barking and the woman’s cries and Rogers’s huffing and puffing. “The horses, they don’t have any diseases!”
Rogers, born and raised north of Kalabar’s Wall, turned and looked at Anthea in complete bafflement. The woman, however, turned and looked with a mingling of surprise and suspicion.
“It’s true,” Anthea said. “Hundreds of years ago many people and horses died of a disease that is long gone, I promise. All of our horses are healthy. You can’t get sick from them.”
Light dawned on Rogers’s face. “We have our own buckets,” he announced. “We can use our own buckets!”
The brigade was fully equipped with camping gear, including things that Anthea had never known existed. Among these were collapsible leather buckets that fit very nicely into saddlebags.
“Like this!” Jilly called out.
Anthea turned in her saddle to see that her cousin had already snatched her bucket from a saddlebag and snapped it out to demonstrate it. The other riders quickly began finding theirs. From the muttered curses, some of them had not bothered to pack the buckets for the return journey.
“Those look mighty handy,” the woman admitted. She fixed her eyes on Anthea again. “And you say these horses aren’t sick?”
“No, ma’am,” Anthea said. “And they never have been. I swear to you.”
“And the king knows about this?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Anthea said. “King Gareth gave the order for us to return to the north, but many of our men and horses are still in Travertine and Bellair, taking messages between the king and Queen Josephine.”
Anthea didn’t feel the need to mention how these messages were passed. She figured this woman had had enough revelations for one day.
“And the queen gave you that rose?” The woman pointed to Anthea’s lapel.
Yes, came from Jilly via Caesar.
“No,” Anthea said. She was a terrible liar, and this woman appreciated—and deserved—honesty. “My aunt Deirdre, a Rose Matron, gave it to me. I … attended a Rose Academy for many years.”
“Interesting,” the woman said. She flapped her apron, thinking. “And you say you won’t need to let the horses drink from my bucket?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Hmmmm.”
She kept flapping, but Anthea felt her hopes surge. She could tell that the woman was going to give in. The question now was how long she would make them stand, thirsty, while she finished deciding.
Only another minute, to Anthea’s relief.
“Very well,” the woman said. “But use your own buckets and hurry—my man will be back for supper in an hour!”
They hurried. A bucket line formed while half the men got the horses tied up in two rows. There wasn’t a bucket for every horse, so they let the horses who had been carrying riders drink first, and then led them to the end of the row while they watered the others.
But horses take a long time to drink. And they drink a lot of water. The riders were just finally topping off their own canteens when a man came down the road, leading an ox in harness.
“Uh-oh,” Keth said, and punctuated this comment with a cough.
The farmer dropped the ox’s lead so that the animal stopped a few paces away from the horses. He folded his arms over his chest and frowned at them. Anthea braced herself. Then his eyes lit on Jilly and he began to shake his head.
“Well, Miss Jillian! What have you done this time?”
“Farmer Finbar!” she crowed with delight. “Abandoned your tractor for good?”
“Oh, you girl!” He reached out and pumped her hand as though she were a man. “Poor machine never ran right after you and your—” He caught sight of Anthea. “Well, there you are, miss! Found your lost horses, did you?” He took in the two dozen horses crowded into his farmyard. “Looks as though you did!”
“What—” Anthea began. “Who …?”
And then she remembered: the tractor coming out from behind a hedge, frightening the horses. Leonidas had spooked and gone off into the fields, dragging two mares with him. Anthea had pursued them, while Jilly and the farmer had taken care of Caesar, who had been injured, and then Jilly had gone on to Bell Hyde and the queen.
This was the same farmer.
He grabbed Anthea’s hand and pumped it up and down as well. Rogers came forward, looking bemused, and offered his hand to the man.
“I’m Courier First Class Rogers,” he said by way of introduction. “I hope that it’s all right, but we’ve been drawing water from your well for the horses. And the men. We’ve just finished.”
“Finbar, Edmund Finbar,” the man said. “And you’re right welcome! Of course you are!”
“Edmund!”
The riders all parted, leaving a clear path between the horses to where the farmwife stood with her hands on her hips, staring at her husband. The farmer gave Rogers a wide, genuine smile.
“Are you telling me that the new tractor was lost because of a horse?” She looked incredulous, and then uneasy, glancing at the horse nearest her as though it was waiting to smash her to the ground.
“Now, Jenny,” he said. “I didn’t want to send you into a panic. I know how your brothers always talk about the people north of the Wall.”
“You said that our tractor got out of control and ran itself into a wall.” Jenny was not to be put off.
“That is true,” Jilly offered. “The tractor scared the horses, Mr. Finbar jumped off to help us, and the tractor … kept going.”
“Into a wall,” Anthea said.
She had only the vaguest memories of this, but she did remember the crunching sound of metal on stone. It felt like something that had happened years ago, but it had only been six months, she realized. Hours after the tractor accident she had been shot, been chased by hunters, and run right into her mother, who had put her on a private train in an attempt to win Anthea over to her mother’s cause.
Jenny just stood there shaking her head. Then she started laughing.
“So you were trying to protect me from being scared by the horses?” she finally said.
“Er, yes,” her husband confessed.
“Well, I just told these poor folks to hurry up and get the water before you got back, because I was trying to protect you,” she admitted, with another chortle.
Finbar began to laugh as well, and while he was shaking hands all around, his wife went into the house and brought out pitchers of cider and cups and gave everyone a drink. She slipped some cookies into the pockets of Jilly and Anthea and Keth, and even dared to touch Buttercup’s shoulder. Her husband regaled the riders with the story of how he had taken Jilly to one of the barns and hidden her and her horses there while he fetched the local animal surgeon, who had been sworn to secrecy after sewing up the gash on Caesar’s shoulder.
Everyone was smiling, and Anthea felt some of the never-ending tension in her shoulders unknot, just a little. Here were more people, ordinary people, mingling with the brigade, and it was all right. They hadn’t been run off the property with pitchforks. Or shot at. Slowly but surely, Anthea thought, they could get Coronam to accept the horses once again. Slowly but surely.
“Where is the surgeon?” Jilly asked as they were remounting. “If we pass by his house, I would love to thank him again!”
The laughter and smiles stopped. Anthea watched it happen, watched it fade from the faces of Jenny and Finbar, watched it spread to the riders as they noticed. The knot of tension between her shoulders tightened again.
“Oh, miss,” Finbar said. “Trewes is a good man, but don’t you be going anywhere near him.”
“What? Why?” Jilly looked up from tying Buttercup’s lead to her saddle. “He seemed all right … he liked the horses, didn’t he?”
“That he did, miss,” Finbar said. “He mentioned you again when he came last month to look at Furze.” Furze was the ox. “And to tell me goodbye.”
“Goodbye?”
“Aye, miss,” Finbar said. He reached out and put a hand on Florian’s neck. He was standing between Florian and Caesar. Florian held very still, and the farmer gingerly stroked his black mane. “His brother were a surgeon, too, down in Dawsebury, near Travertine. Seems that there’s a powerful lot of sickness down that way. Coughs, fevers, and the like. His brother was taken suddenly, and so were many in the town. Trewes went for the funeral, and to get his brother’s family sorted.”
“And?” Jilly’s voice went shrill.
“Word came two days ago,” Jenny said. “All dead. The widow and the babies, Trewes, and half the town.”
In the ensuing silence, Keth’s cough was loud and jagged.