Unicorn Keep (3 page)

“You’re right
.” Madelen took a deep breath. “You’re thinking too fast for me. Explain your plan one more time.”

****

“It’s hopeless,” Madelen said.

Jiline
was supposed to be bedding the horses down for the night before going inside for her farewell dinner. Instead, she was hiding behind the barn trying to salvage their perfect plan. It had all come together better than they had thought it would. Madelen’s parents had even insisted she travel partway with her and Wilm for safety reasons.

Wilm paced
the length of the barn. “We should have considered how Cris would travel to the Keep. She is only ten and her parents dote on her. Of course, they wouldn’t let her travel alone.”

Cris’ father was going to escort her to the Keep himself and had stopped at Madelen’s today to offer to escort Madelen as w
ell.

Jiline chewed on her lip. “Do you think your parents suspect our plan? Maybe that’s why they agreed to have you go with Cris and her father instead.”

Madelen shrugged. “I don’t know. They didn’t even ask me if I wanted to go with them.”

“Did he say when he plans to leave?”

“Before the Harvest Moon, almost two weeks from now.”

“
Doesn’t give them a lot of time to reach the Keep by the deadline.” Jiline considered some way to salvage their plan. “What if we offered to take Cris with us?”

Wilm stopped pacing and turned to where she leaned against a tree across from the barn. “You w
ant to let her in on our plan. She could ruin everything. Expose you to the mages.”

“I know, but what other choice do we have?” she asked. “
I’m open to suggestions.”

Madelen shook her head. “She could never keep a secret that big.
”

“Madelen’s right, we can
’t ask her to keep such a huge secret,” Wilm said softly.

She sagged against the tree. “Suggestions?”

“We need to convince Madelen’s parents not to send her with Cris.” He walked over to put his arm around her. “What will convince them?”

Madelen took a deep breath and frowned. She was quiet a moment as she thou
ght. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. We’ll leave tomorrow as planned.”

Jiline looked over her friend carefully, surprised by her forceful words. “Are you sure? They could
try to stop you.”

Madelen smiled at Wilm. “They won’t
get the chance. We’ll leave before they rise in the morning.”

She didn’t think leaving early would really solve the problem of defying Madelen’s parents. They must either know or suspect that the three of them were planning something. “And if they come after us?”

“My mother’s just as angry at the mages as we are. They won’t come after me. I’ll leave a note explaining I want my last day with Wilm and my best friend before entering a life of servitude.”

3. ON THE ROAD

Madelen’s parents didn’t send anyone after them. Or if they did, whoever it was didn’t catch up to them before the trio parted. The road Jiline found herself on was much narrower and not as well traveled as the one which Madelen and Wilm had turned onto. She
’d waited at the crossroads until they had ridden out of sight before continuing reluctantly on her journey alone.

She
survived her first day and night alone. Well, not totally alone. Ginger, her pony, moved out in an easy stride beneath her. She’d felt guilty when her parents had told her to take the pony to the city and had even given her a little money to help with Ginger’s board. She had never deceived her parents before and they had been so happy and relieved. But in a way she was heading off to her new apprenticeship, if a very short lived one.

She expected the
mages would discover her fairly quickly. Not that she wasn’t Madelen, but that she was
no longer
a pure soul. Once they did, she would head back to the city and meet up with Wilm and Madelen. Madelen would then be safe to return home if she really hated being a housemaid. Wilm could finish his apprenticeship.

What she would do was a little less certain. Returning home without a trade would be humiliating, but perhaps she’d like being a housemaid. She smiled at her own joke.

They should have reached the city by now. Jiline’s journey on the other hand was far from over. Ginger, thankfully, was holding up just fine. She patted the mare’s slightly sweaty neck. The mountains had been looming over them for the entire day. Night would fall much faster closer to the mountains than in the grasslands where Ainsley was located.

She stopped Ginger at a river
crossing and getting off, let the mare drink her fill. Judging the sun’s position, she pulled the letter from her saddle bag and scrutinized the directions. Her hair blew across her face and she tucked it behind her ears in irritation. She hated wearing her hair down, but Madelen rarely wore her hair up. So, now she would have to wear her hair down and loose. She didn’t mind wearing Madelen’s clothes since they were the same size, but the hair thing was going to bother her.

They had tried to make the swap complete by also trading horses, but Ginger had made her point clear when she’d tried to buck Madelen off. Madelen had quickly dismounted and refused to ride her. It added a wrinkle to their trading places plan, but she was glad to have her pony with her. She trusted Ginger as she wouldn’t have trusted Madelen’s gelding.

She looked at the river and the mountains behind it. This appeared to be the river on the map. Whoever had drawn the map indicated the river as a good camping spot, but she figured she had a couple more hours of light left and hated to waste them.

It would be at least one more hard day o
f riding and that would be riding quickly to reach the Keep. Ginger’s stride was shorter than a typical horse so it could be even longer.

Ginger’s head shot up and she pivoted
, her ears pricking forward. Jiline moved quickly and swung onto the back of her pony prepared to meet whatever had caught her attention. Her stomach clenched. What would be worse? Someone sent after Madelen who would know who Jiline was or meeting a complete stranger while alone on the road.

Shoving the letter back in
to the saddle bag, she fingered the hilt of the blade tucked into her boot. It was more of a multi-purpose blade to cut her food, ropes, or whatever she might need it for. But she’d known when her father had passed it to her as she had prepared to ride off that the main purpose had been for protection.

The bushes quivered and Ginger’s body tensed
, preparing to bolt away from whatever would emerge. She tightened her legs around the pony’s sides to keep her under her.

A boy emerged
on foot. A stranger. He stopped, his horse behind him. Ginger relaxed and nickered a welcome. They hadn’t seen any other travelers heading for the Keep so far. Jiline didn’t release her grip from her knife.

He spoke first. “Greeting
s. Didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Herrick.”

She licked her lips
and nodded a greeting. “Madelen.” The lie didn’t come as easily as it should have. She couldn’t hesitate in her new identity.

He slowly approached and stopped at the river’s
bank. His bay horse lowered its head to drink, unconcerned with Ginger’s continued nickering.

She released her hold on her knife and patted Ginger’s neck. “Hush.”

Herrick was still watching her, despite the canteen in his hand, he hadn’t made a move to refill it. “You’re traveling to the Keep?”

Again she hesitated as she stared at him. Shaggy brown hair, lighter brown eyes, tan, athletic, he looked to be about
Wilm’s age, but Wilm had been too old to be evaluated. Perhaps he looked older than he was, probably fifteen.

“Yes, are you?”

Herrick nodded. He then crouched down and filled his canteen. She took the moment to study him and his horse. Wealthy. Again like Wilm. This wasn’t a farm horse. His tack though dusty was of fine quality as were his riding boots. She shifted in her saddle. She didn’t own a pair of riding boots. Just her everyday boots which had been passed down from Cayla to Sussy to her. The clothes she wore were of slightly finer quality since they were Madelen’s, but not of the level Wilm or this stranger wore.

He rocked back onto his heels and hooked his canteen to his s
addle. His movements were slow, careful. Was he trying to put her at ease? She sat stiffly on Ginger. Her pony had finally relaxed, but she just couldn’t dismount even if she looked like an idiot. Of course, his horse could easily overtake Ginger if she tried to run. But Ginger’s lack of height would benefit her in the trees and brush.

She would have missed him watching her from the corner of his eyes if she hadn’t been so nervous. He futzed some more with his saddle before turning to face her. His horse finished drinking.

He sighed. “We’re going the same way to the same place. It would be odd for us to travel separately.”

He had a point, but then again, just because he said he was heading for the Keep didn’t mean, one, he was trustworthy, or two, that he really was going there.

He turned away to mount his horse. “You’re welcome to ride with me or not.”

He urged his gelding
forward to splash through the river. She suddenly felt completely and utterly ridiculous and let Ginger follow his bay horse. The river was deeper than it looked. He’d picked a path with the least amount of rocks, but being high up his feet were the only thing that got wet.

She wasn’t so lucky and quickly scrambled to raise her saddle bags above her head as Ginger sank to almost her own height and pranced across the water. With the splashing,
Jiline was truly soaked. She should have waited. She wouldn’t dry off before it got dark and it was cold in the mountains at night.

Herrick
rode a distance from the river and she followed him. Settling her saddle bags back down, she considered her predicament. She had one change of clothes which were already dirty. These had been her cleaner clothes.

But wet pants weren’t going to
cut it. She also didn’t want to shove them wet in her saddlebags. If she stayed in the sun as much as possible she might have had some hope of drying them off, but as the trees towered over her she realized it was clearly going to be impossible.

Herrick
’s horse suddenly stopped and she jerked her gaze from her wet boots to Herrick who was frowning at her.

“Right, pony,” he sighed as he dismounted.

Jiline gathered her reins up in worry. What the heck was he doing now? A blanket came out. He held it out to her.

“Once, we hit the trees, the temperature
’s going to drop considerably. You’ll freeze.” His words were matter-of-fact.

“I’m aware of that.” But she didn’t reach for the blanket. “I have a change of clothes.”

He lowered the blanket. Shoot. Now she was going to have to change in his vicinity.

“I’ll wait,” he said, tucking the blanket back into his saddle bag.

She hesitated a second before urging Ginger into a trot to a grove of trees a distance away. Safely enclosed in the circle, she peered out to make sure he hadn’t followed. He hadn’t even remounted, but leaned against his horse looking back toward the river. She glanced around to make sure no one lurked. Though they would have to be awfully quiet for Ginger not to notice them.

She pulled her dry
, if dirty, clothes from one bag and shivered. The damp material seemed to be clinging more than usual with the shade of the grove. Her tunic shirt came off easily and she dried herself with her cloak as well as she could before pulling on the other shirt. Water squished in her boots and she unlaced them. Rolling her eyes, she stepped onto the fallen pine needles with her bare feet. They would dry quicker if her feet weren’t in them. Tying the laces together, she hooked her boots to the saddle. She peeked out of the grove again. He was in the same position.

Her pants didn
’t come off as easily and she had to sit down on the prickly pine needles to finally pull them off her legs. Stepping into her dry pants, she evaluated her saddle. It was just as wet and would make her dry pants soaked as soon as she sat on it.

Her cloak
lay on the ground and she had her blanket. What did she need more? Probably her blanket for when they made camp. Folding her cloak, she set it on the saddle. Ginger shook her body and sprayed little droplets on her.

Jiline
glared at her, but quickly ran her hands over the pony’s coat to push off any remaining water. As dry as she could get the mare, she tied her clothes to the saddle so they would dry.

Ginger shifted and turned to look back at her. She
stared at her cute pony in mortification as she realized she looked like a walking clothes line. She was about to untie them to shove them in her saddlebags, but reminded herself to be practical. It would get everything else wet and she needed them to dry before they reached the Keep.

Shoving her pride down and hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt, she mounted and rode Ginger out of the grove.
Herrick mounted back up without looking at her.

It was o
nly as Ginger reached him that she could have sworn his lips were twitching, but he didn’t laugh or say anything. So despite her flaming cheeks she let Ginger fall into step beside him as they hit the well traveled trail into the woods.

Darkness came swifter in the forest as she had expected. She didn’t kn
ow how she had known that it would, but it didn’t slowly gray as it did on the farm, but went from light to murky to dark.

Herrick
kept his horse walking for a little while after dark and she had to admit it wasn’t completely dark with the harvest moon shining above them, but it made the forest a heck of a lot more creepy. Their ride was conducted mostly in silence. She wasn’t sure if he was normally so quiet or if he wasn’t talking since she was such a ninny about pretty much anything he did.

At last his horse stopped and Ginger stopped behind him.

“We should make camp here.” Herrick pointed to a clearing in the forest just ahead of them.

It wa
s only as she dismounted Ginger that she noticed the fire ring in the middle of the small meadow of grass. The grass against her bare feet made her feel at home after traveling in the prickly pine needles and dirt for so long.

As before,
Herrick was silent as he unsaddled his horse, hobbled him, and then stepped into the woods. She could hear some cracking and breaking, but wasn’t sure what he was doing, until he stepped out with an armful of branches of various sizes. He kneeled down at the fire circle and Ginger nickered at the gelding.

Moved out of her stupor,
Jiline untied her damp clothes and boots. They weren’t quite dry. She would need to hang them up for the night. Hopefully they would be dry in the morning. Looping them over her arm, she shook out her slightly damp cloak. It had done its job of soaking the water up from the saddle. She walked Ginger back to a smaller tree and carefully hung the clothes on its springy branches.

Her saddle and bridle followed. Digging in her saddle bags, she pulled out Ginger’s hobble and buckled it around the pony’s front legs. A pat on the neck and Ginger walked carefully if slowly toward
Herrick’s horse. She hoped he was friendly or at least tolerant. Ginger could be a little too social.

With n
othing else to do, she did her own slow and careful walk to the small fire Herrick had built, a skill she had yet to master on the trail. Lighting a fire in the stove at home appeared to be a lot less complicated than one on the trail. All she’d been able to do was get some smoke last night.

She felt as if
Herrick was staring at her, but he looked steadily at the flames. She set her belongings down and slowly lowered herself to the ground. The grass had been mostly trampled or cleared right around the fire ring. She glanced around the meadow and wondered at how many people had camped here. How many children her age or younger had stumbled across this small little meadow on their way to the Keep?