Chapter 23: The Gate

We left the Hall at first light the next morning.

I rode at the front with Joss and Nessa, and I had not asked a single wagon to follow.

By noon I looked back along the pass road and saw that half the caravan had.

Twenty wagons strung out behind us, the cook's among them, with the red-bearded captain riding at the tail.

"They've chosen," Nessa said, with great satisfaction.

"I never asked them to."

"That's why they did it."

We made camp at dusk three miles short of Greyhaven's gate, on a flat above a stream.

Clara rode in the back of a captain's wagon, under guard, and she did not speak to anyone.

I watched the cook fires come up one by one along the water.

Then I walked away from all of them, up the bank, to a hollow of trampled grass under the open sky.

It was cold, and the stars were out.

I heard the footsteps behind me and did not turn.

"The gate's an hour's ride in the morning," Joss said.

"I know."

"The road ends at the gate. That was the term."

"I remember the term."

"Then I'll say it plainly, and you may tell me I'm wrong."

He stood a little way off, with his hands loose at his sides.

"Tomorrow we ride in, and by your own rule we're finished."

"Nothing that outlasts the road."

"That was the bargain, Ivy."

I turned around.

"Are you daring me?" I said.

"I'm daring you to say it's finished."

"Say it now, and I'll ride at your shoulder all the way in and never lay a hand on you."

His face in the starlight was perfectly still.

It was the face of a man waiting for a verdict, and not the face of a man bluffing.

"No," I said.

"No?"

"I'm not saying it. I want you here tonight, and I want it slow."

I walked up to him and took his coat in both fists.

"And I'm changing the other term. You can touch my back."

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