“May I— Please, may I call you ‘Da’?” the boy asked.

Arvid’s heart turned over. For a moment he hesitated: how could he be ready for this? The boy’s expression stiffened; Arvid smiled. “If you want,” he said. “I would be glad.”

“Da,” the boy said, tasting it, the word he’d never been able to say. “Thank you!”

“Bide here with Marshal Steralt while I go find us horses for the trip,” Arvid said.

Outside, in the main part of the grange, Marshal Steralt was talking softly with his yeoman-marshal. His brows went up.

“He’s coming with me,” Arvid said. “And I’m going to Fin Panir.” Steralt’s expression was still challenging. “He wants to call me Da.”

“Then be that,” Steralt said with emphasis. “And Gird guide your heart.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Two mornings later, Arvid, the boy, and Arcolin’s courier rode out of Valdaire, headed for the pass as soon as light allowed. The Guild League ran to the boundary of the gnome princedom claiming the foothills, so the road continued a Guild League road, stone-paved, wide enough for two-way wagon traffic, with pedestrian and mounted travel to either side. A storm overnight had laid the dust, and even this early they passed a northbound caravan that must have started while it was still too dark to see. In this season, the road would have traffic all the way north. Once free of the city, the air smelled of rock and grass and something of the mountains—aromatic shrubs, the upland trees. To Arvid, it promised the north, his own country.

Arvid had searched both the city’s horse markets before finding the mounts he wanted for the boy and himself. All four would ride or pack; the unridden ones carried their provisions. He led all three from his own mount. The boy clutched the saddle bow as they jogged along; Arvid had bought a fleece to throw over the saddle for him.

By midday they had caught up with and passed a caravan that had lost a wheel from one wagon the day before and camped overnight. They could see its dust behind them when they stopped to eat and rest the horses. The courier knew where a rivulet ran clear and cold not far from the road. Trees fringed it, their leaves fluttering in the breeze blowing up warm from the south, but already it was cooler than in Valdaire.

The boy came off his mount more spry than Arvid had expected for a novice rider who had been in the saddle a long half-day. He walked a bit spraddle-legged for a few paces, then shook out his legs and asked what he should do.

Arvid turned to the courier. “Will we take time to unsaddle and let them roll?”