The Summer of the Swordsman

Chapter XVI

Mourner wouldn't let me get out of bed for another week. I was drunken with sleep, surfeited with sleep, and so anyone can imagine my disgust when, leaving my tent without permission for the first time in two weeks, I grew faint and had to be carried back by Quinquius. It didn't take Anakreon long to hear of it, either, and he gave me one of the worst tongue‑lashings of our entire acquaintance.

Mourner stood beside him and listened, his cool eyes full of amusement. "He'll be better tomorrow," he said. "The cough is the worst of it and that's clearing up very well. The next day he'll be able to ride if we go at an easy pace."

He was right, too. We left within the week, and we managed to make good time, although we traveled without haste.

** ** **

The wind was at our backs as we left the highlands of Danskagge and descended the hills toward Hirstad and the sea. I can't remember a more beautiful journey. My illness had left me with a sort of clarity of vision, and the entire journey took on an almost dreamlike quality. It was as though I was living a memory, knowing that an era of my life was drawing to a close.

Kenui rode beside me all the way, sharp‑eyed with care for my health. He made certain that I never rode after I was tired, made me eat all that was given me, no matter that I might be stuffed to the gills. And he never touched a drop of anything with alcohol in it.

I had always liked Kenui before, a flamboyant drunkard with flashes of greatness, but now I saw him as he must have been before that disastrous ambush in Sen‑Chiun. He was graver, more calm, less prone to uproarious laughter, but quicker to see a joke when there was one. I think in all he was much happier.