Our sleeping accommodations were also the same as the soldiers’: the ground and our cloaks. But the night was fine and we made a small fire. Hands teased and giggled about my supposed lust for Lady Thyme and the knife that awaited me if I should attempt to satisfy it. That led to a wrestling match between us, until Lady Thyme shrilled threats at us for keeping her awake. Then we spoke softly as Hands told me that no one had envied my assignment to her; that anyone who had ever journeyed with her avoided her ever after. He warned me also that my worst task was yet to come, but adamantly refused, though his eyes brimmed with tears of laughter, to let me know what it was. I fell asleep easily, for boylike, I had put my true mission out of my head until I should have to face it.
I awoke at dawn to the twittering of birds and the overwhelming stench of a brimming chamber pot outside Lady Thyme’s pavilion. Though my stomach had been hardened by cleaning stables and kennels, it was all I could force myself to do to dump it and cleanse it before returning it to her. By then she was harping at me through the tent door that I had not yet brought her water, hot or cold, nor cooked her porridge, whose ingredients she had set out. Hands had disappeared, to share the troop’s fire and rations, leaving me to deal with my tyrant. By the time I had served her on a tray that she assured me was slovenly arranged, and cleaned the dishes and pot and returned all to her, the rest of the procession was almost ready to leave. But she would not allow her pavilion to be struck until she was safely within her litter. We accomplished that packing in frantic haste and I found myself finally on my horse without a crumb of breakfast inside me.
I was ravenous after my morning’s work. Hands regarded my glum face with some sympathy and motioned me to ride closer to him. He leaned over to speak to me.
“Everyone but us had heard of her before.” This with a furtive nod toward Lady Thyme’s litter. “The stench she makes every morning is a legend. Whitelock says she used to go along on a lot of Chivalry’s trips. . . . She has relatives all over the Six Duchies, and not much to do except go visit them. All the men in the troop say they learned a long time ago to stay out of her range or she puts them to a bunch of useless errands. Oh, and Whitelock sent you this. He says not to expect to sit down and eat as long as you’re tending her. But he’ll try to set aside a bit for you each morning.”
Hands passed me a wad of camp bread with three rashers of bacon greasily cold inside it. It tasted wonderful. I wolfed down the first few bites greedily.
“Churl!” shrilled Lady Thyme from inside her pavilion. “What are you doing up there? Discussing your betters, I’ve no doubt. Get back to your position! How are you to see to my needs if you’re gallivanting ahead like that?”
I quickly reined Sooty in and dropped back to a position alongside the litter. I swallowed a great lump of bread and bacon and managed to ask, “Is there anything your ladyship requires?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she snapped. “And stop bothering me. Stupid clod.”
And so it went. The road followed the coastline, and at our leaden pace it took us a full five days to reach Neatbay. Other than two small villages, our scenery consisted of windswept cliffs, gulls, meadows, and occasional stands of twisted and stunted trees. Yet to me it seemed full of beauties and wonders, for every bend in the road brought me to a place I had never seen before.
As our journey wore on, Lady Thyme became more tyrannical. By the fourth day she had a constant stream of complaints, few of which I could do anything about. Her litter swayed too much; it was making her ill. The water I brought from a stream was too cold, that from my own water bags too warm. The men and horses ahead of us were raising too much dust; they were doing it on purpose, she was sure. And tell them to stop singing those rude songs. With her to deal with I had no time to think about killing or not killing Lord Kelvar, even if I had wanted to.
Early on the fifth day we saw the rising smoke of Neatbay. By noon we could pick out the larger buildings and the Neatbay watchtower on the cliffs above the town. Neatbay was a much gentler piece of land than Buckkeep. Our road wound down through a wide valley. The blue waters of Neatbay itself opened wide before us. The beaches were sandy, and their fishing fleet was all shallow draft vessels with flat bottoms, or spunky little dories that rode the waves like gulls. Neatbay didn’t have the deep anchorage that Buckkeep did, so it was not the shipping and trading port that we were, but all the same it seemed to me it would have been a fine place to live.
Kelvar sent an honor guard to meet us, so there was a delay as they exchanged formalities with Verity’s troops. “Like two dogs sniffing each other’s bung holes,” Hands observed sourly. By standing in my stirrups, I was able to see far enough down the line to observe the official posturings, and grudgingly nodded my agreement. Eventually we got under way again, and were soon riding through the streets of Neatbay Town itself.