Foretellers (The Ydron Saga Book 3) by Raymond Bolton Read Free Book Online Page B

water skin back, leaving it to the girl to reinsert the stopper that dangled on a cord.
    Sylene plugged the water skin before shouldering it, then studied the ground passing beneath her. When the wagon moved onto an even stretch, the girl leapt and hit the ground rolling. Roanna sighed with relief when she climbed back to her feet, apparently unharmed. Maryam never noticed since, by then, she was shouting some new indignation at someone else’s perceived ineptitude.
    Roanna wondered if this woman had ever experienced a single calm moment. Since their initial encounter, she had constantly been shouting something at someone. Was this how she would now live? In a world dominated by screams and threats, filled with consternation and turmoil? If that were to be the case, she did not know how she would manage. But manage she would, she resolved, because keeping calm with her wits about her, despite the distractions, would be the only way she would recognize an opportunity to escape whenever one appeared.
    She took solace in the knowledge that Pandy’s abilities were emerging. Absent mother or friends, adrift in whatever land to which fortune had carried her, the powerful gift of foresight would steer her along the safest course possible. Roanna remembered when her own abilities had blossomed and how they had helped ease the turbulence of adolescence, guiding her away from the wrong sort of people, steering her from the typical mistakes most girls her own age would have made. That alone made her smile. If she had lost the ability to find her way to her daughter, then perhaps in time Pandy could find her.
    “To the left. To the left,” shouted Maryam. “Lake Atkal and the way out of this cursed grass lie southeast of here.”
    The road they were on forked, one way branching west, while the one Maryam was indicating turned toward the bright sphere of Jadon, before meandering more or less in a southerly direction. It was apparent, in fact, if they headed where Maryam was pointing, they would reach the edge of the grassy sea where its yellow color ended, perhaps a mile from where they were, and the brown soil beyond resumed. That single return to normalcy, however, was the only one she faced and she considered the odd assemblage of people, carts and animals to which she now belonged.
    Maryam rode the lead cart, her bulk leaving barely enough room for her and the driver. On either side of its team of horses walked a soldier with a spear, supplied, she suspected, by Armus. Three mules followed, each one accompanied by one of Maryam’s manservants. After them came another cart, followed by five more mules, all led by various members of the household staff, men and women alike. Last of all, came the third, followed by four other mules led in turn by men Roanna supposed might be considered soldiers. Those were attired like Jaret and Bexta, the profiteers who had taken her. Supervising this entourage were Simo and Duval whom Roanna had learned were indeed the household overseers. While the servants all wore brown or beige cotton, these two wore the richly colored silk or satin brocades Roanna first encountered in the house of a baron where she was employed while still emerging from adolescence. Their tanned leather overcoats were secured with frogs of woven silk and were emblazoned with the tusked boar’s head she remembered from the banners over Armus’s encampment.
    “Simo!” called Maryam, looking past her shoulder at the man who now hastened to catch up.
    “Yes, Ma’am,” he said when he had reached her.
    “See those trees?” she said, pointing toward a large copse of barrel stave trees near the roadside, perhaps fifty yards distant. “I’m tired of this wind. Let’s take shelter and break our fast there.”
    After her household was situated and the pack animals were secured, Maryam summoned Roanna. She found her ensconced on a blanket far enough inside the grove that the gale was reduced to a breeze. A servant had