These last were all in the curious run-together printing, three of them labelled "Ledger and Record Book" and the fourth with "God-Feeding" on its cover. The fourth was far older than the others, indeed, the oldest book Nirea had ever seen.
Ewyo lay drunk in a deep chair in his library; he would sleep now till nearly the middle of the night, when he'd wake up and howl for another bottle. Jann she had not seen for hours. The servants, being ruckers, did not count. Her escape from the mansion was going to be simple.
In the stables, Lady Nirea ordered her second best horse, another roan stallion, saddled and laden with the portmanteau on a special rack attached to the rear of the cantle. The usual trappings, the fancy reins and broidered saddlecloths, she had the stableman leave off; she didn't want to call attention to the fact that she was Ewyo's daughter.
When the roan was ready, she mounted, and turning to the stableman, a young rucker with shifty eyes and a shy, retiring chin, she asked steadily, "Are you a rebel?"
"Me? No, Lady! Do I look crazy?"
"You look sneaky, but smart enough." She leaned over the saddlebow toward him. "Tell me the truth. Don't be afraid, you fool. I am the Lady of the Mink." It was a title she uttered proudly now. Nirea of Dolfya had been forced to think this day, and it had changed her greatly.
The stableman backed off a little, his pasty face writhing with tics. "My Orb, Lady, I don't know what you're thinking of! You, Ewyo's girl, calling yourself such a name—"
Her roan was trained to the work she now put him to; a number of times she'd used him for it in the streets of Dolfya, just for sport, out of boredom. Now she pricked his ribs with the point of her sharp-toed shoes, just behind the foreleg joints, and said, "At 'em, boy!" The tall beast reared up and danced forward, hoofs thrashing the air. The stableman shrieked, took a step back, and threw up his arms as one iron-shod hoof smashed into his face. Then the roan was doing a kind of quick little hop on his body, and red blood ran out over the packed-earth floor.
"If you were a rebel, you were too craven about it to be much good to your people," Nirea said, looking at the body. "If you weren't, then your mouth is shut concerning me." She wheeled the roan and trotted out of the stable.
By the gate in the wall a tall figure waited, white in the early moon's light.