Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold Read Free Book Online Page A

problems by running away from them,
it was said, and like the good child she had once been, she had believed this. But it wasn't true. Some problems could
only
be solved by running away from them. When her lamenting ladies at last blew out the candles and left her to her rest, her smile crept back.
CHAPTER THREE
    ISTA SPENT THE EARLY MORNING SORTING THROUGH HER wardrobe with Liss, searching for clothing fit for the road and not merely a royina. Much that was old lingered in Ista's cupboards and chests, but little that was plain. Any ornate or delicate gown that made Liss wrinkle her nose in doubt went instantly into the discard pile. Ista did manage to assemble a riding costume of leggings, split skirt, tunic, and vest-cloak that showed not a scrap of Mother's green. Finally, they ruthlessly raided the wardrobes of Ista's ladies and maids, to the latter’s' scandal. This resulted at the last in a neat pile of garments—practical, plain, washable, and, above all,
few.
    Liss was clearly happier to be sent off to the stables to select the most suitable riding horse and baggage mule.
One
baggage mule. By midday Ista's feverish single-mindedness resulted in both women dressed for the road, the horses saddled, and the mule packed. The dy Gura brothers found them standing in the cobbled courtyard when they rode through the castle gate heading ten mounted men in the garb of the Daughter's Order, dy Cabon following on his white mule.
    The grooms held the royina's horse and ushered her to the mounting block. Liss leapt up lightly on her tall bay with no such assistance. In the spring of her life Ista had ridden much; hunted all day and danced till the moon went down, at the roya's glittering court when she'd first come there. She, too, had been too long abed in this castle of age and grievous memory. A little light duty to regain condition was just what was wanted.
    Learned dy Cabon clambered from his mule long enough to stand up on the mounting block and intone a mercifully brief prayer and blessing upon the enterprise. Ista bowed her head, but did not mouth the responses.
I want nothing of the gods. I've had their gifts before.
    Fourteen people and eighteen animals just to get her on the road. What about those pilgrims who somehow managed this with no more than a staff and a sack?
    Lady dy Hueltar and all of Ista's ladies and maids trooped down to the courtyard, not to wish her farewell, it transpired, but to weep pointedly at her in one last, decidedly counterproductive, bid to make her change her mind. In the teeth of all evidence to the contrary, Lady dy Hueltar wailed, "Oh, she's not
serious
—stop her, for the Mother's sake, dy Ferrej!" Gritting her teeth, Ista let their cries bounce off her back like arrows glancing from chain mail. Dy Cabon's white mule led out the archway and down the road at a gentle amble, but even so the voices fell behind at last. The soft spring wind stirred Ista's hair. She did not look back.
    *     *     *
    THEY REACHED THE INN AT PALMA BY SUNSET, BARELY. IT HAD BEEN A very long time, Ista reflected as she was helped down from her horse, since she had spent a whole day in the saddle, hunting or traveling. Liss, plainly bored with the pilgrimage's placid pace, jumped down off her animal as though she'd spent the afternoon lounging on a couch. Foix had apparently worked through whatever stiffness lingered from his injuries earlier in the brothers' journey. Even dy Cabon didn't waddle as though he hurt. When the divine offered her his arm, Ista took it gratefully.
    Dy Cabon had sent one of the men riding ahead to bespeak beds and a meal for the party, fortunately as it turned out, for the inn was small. Another party, of tinkers, was being turned away as they arrived. The place had once been a narrow fortified farmhouse, now made more sprawling with an added wing. The dy Gura brothers and the divine were given one chamber to share, Ista and Liss another, and the rest of the guardsmen were