I was not surprised to find Yaril waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I managed a smile for her. She had packed food for me, a generous packet. I thanked her and hugged her one last time. She leaned against my belly to reach me for a kiss on my cheek. I felt my body as a wall around me that held my loved ones at a distance. Fort Nevare.

“Don’t you forget your promise!” she hissed fiercely in my ear. “Don’t abandon me here, thinking that I’ll be safe. Send for me as soon as you are settled anywhere, no matter how rough. I’ll come.”

I bade her farewell at the door, and turned away from the house where I had grown up.

In the stables, I saddled Sirlofty and loaded my possessions into my saddle panniers. When I led him out of the stables, Sergeant Duril was waiting to say good-bye. The old soldier looked grim and tired. He already knew that I’d been disowned. Very little of what happened in any noble family remained private for long. I shook his hand.

He wished me well. “Write to me,” he said, his voice going husky. “I know, I can’t read, but if you write to me, I’ll find someone who can read it to me. Let me know what happens to you, lad. Don’t leave me wondering.”

I promised him I would. I mounted, levering my weight up onto my saddle with difficulty. Sirlofty shifted under me as if startled by the load. My buttocks settled onto my saddle in a new and disconcerting way. I took a breath. I hadn’t ridden in quite a while, but I’d soon be back in condition. The next few days would be uncomfortable, but I’d survive. As I rode away, I glanced back at the windows of my former home. Yaril was framed in hers, watching me ride away. She lifted her hand in farewell. I waved in response.

There was a twitch of the curtains in my father’s room. That was all. When I reached the end of the drive and looked back a final time, I saw a croaker bird lift from the chimney pot. He circled my old home once, and then flew off ahead of me. He seemed an ill omen to follow, but follow I did.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FRANNER’S BEND

I t was midmorning before I felt I had truly left my home behind. I knew the lands around my father’s holding so well and he made such extensive use of them for running cattle and sheep that they felt as if they, too, belonged to him. I rode in a daze, my mind occupied with my own inner turmoil.

My father had disowned me. I was free. Those two thoughts seesawed in my mind. Free to wander, to give a different name when people asked me. No one would rebuke me if I abandoned the destiny the good god had set upon me and became something other than a soldier. I was also free to starve, to fall victim to robbers, to suffer the misfortunes that befell those who challenged the good god’s will. Free to struggle to find a place for myself in a world that largely disdained or ignored me because of my size.

The day was warm, but I already saw the early signs of the season’s change. The tall grasses were turning gold and nodded, their heads heavy with seed. The cooler nights meant that more moisture condensed on the ground, and I could see the green fronds unfurling at the base of the winter-growing prairie fern. The tiny purplish flowers of the ground-hugging birdbrush on the gentle hills were giving way to the little black berries that birds and rabbits so loved. The land would give forth one final burst of generosity to all the life that teemed over it before it subsided into the cold hostility of winter.

I had not ridden Sirlofty for any great distance since I’d returned from my useless visit to Dewara. He was restive and willful, and I soon felt all the aches of a man who has been out of a saddle for too long. I gritted my teeth, knowing it would pass in the next few days. Until then, it simply had to be endured. My greater weight amplified every twinge and ache, and by midafternoon my lower back throbbed with every step my mount took. Sirlofty had become lazy as well. His pace was not what it should have been. Toward noon, I noticed a slight hitch in his stride.

I began to watch anxiously for the silhouette of the Franner’s Bend stockade wall against the horizon. I had not made good time, I realized. I kicked Sirlofty up into a trot, but he soon lapsed back into a walk, and I let him. When he trotted, my body shook all around me as if I were encased in a pudding. It was a horrid feeling.

My world had changed. I remembered the long ride to Franner’s Bend as a journey through wild lands, with nowhere to stop for refreshment, and no scenery other than the natural vegetation on the rolling plains. That was no longer so. The Midlands were becoming settled. There was sporadic traffic on the King’s Road that paralleled the river, wagons and people on horseback and families traveling on foot or with donkeys heaped high with possessions. There was habitation, too. I passed several cotton fields, fringed with cottages for the workers. Just beyond them, I came to a long, low building immediately alongside the road. The outside of it was freshly plastered and painted a pale blue that was a shocking contrast to the sere land around it. The new signboard that swung from its post proclaimed it was The Last Bale, and it offered beer, food, and rooms for travelers. I marvelled at the thought of a real inn along this road. Farther along my way, a Plainsman herder in a conical hat and his two dogs shepherded a flock of flat-tailed sheep past me. I passed a little landing on the river with a cluster of buildings around it, the seed of an as-yet-nameless town. Just past it, a boy on a donkey watched over a grazing flock of goats. He watched me pass as if I were the intruder.