Sallina had been dreaming of sitting at the table in the kitchen of her own home, with her brother making a pancake for her at the stove, and her father sitting opposite her, cracking open the top of a soft-boiled egg with a spoon. "Ah, perfectly done, my son," her father said, in her dream, and Sallina smiled. It was good to be home. She wanted to keep the dream going, but she was about to remember something that she wanted to forget, and she was afraid that when she remembered what it was she was trying to forget, the dream would end.
The first light of a new day shone through the cracks in the shutters of the old man's cottage. Sallina opened her eyes. Her real life was not right at all, that was what she was trying to forget. Something had gone wrong. She lay upon her straw mattress and tried to go back to sleep. Maybe she could go back to her dream and see her mother.
Garibaldi sat up on his own mattress. A narrow beam of sunlight shone in his eyes. He was breathing deeply. He looked down at Sallina and she looked up at him. Neither of them spoke. Sallina wanted to cry.
"It's going to be okay," Garibaldi said.
Sallina nodded, but tears were falling down her cheeks.
Garibaldi stood up. He put his belt on and stretched his arms and legs.
A little while later, Garibaldi and Sallina opened the door of the old man's house and stepped outside. The sun was rising into the sky. There were a few clouds here and there, and mist rose slowly off the prickly bushes beneath the trees. The old man's chair was outside the door, but they could not see the old man himself. Eliza was standing beside a different tree, eating some grass that grew at the base of the steep hill.
"He went to tell the Duke," Sallina said.
Garibaldi looked around and frowned.
They heard footsteps on the other side of the house. The old man came around the corner. When he saw them he smiled. He carried three eggs in his hands. "Good morning, my young visitors, I trust that you slept well."
"We did, thank you," Garibaldi said, "How about you? It was very kind of you to sit out here in the cold while we lay sleeping inside your own house."
"It's my pleasure, I often sleep outside, you know. I made this chair for sleeping in." He rocked his big wooden chair with one hand. He held the three eggs in the other. "Let's have some breakfast. My chickens were kind enough to lay three eggs this morning. I'm for soft-boiled, what about you?"
"Soft-boiled, please," Garibaldi said. Sallina nodded.
Ephistra lit a fire as soon as he went inside. He put more wood on than he needed to boil the water. He boiled it quickly. He made tea with the water when it was hot, and dropped the three eggs into what was left in the pot. Soon he had toast and eggs and tea and apples on the table. Sallina and Garibaldi thanked him. The three of them ate without speaking.
When they were finished, the Ephistra said, "You should hurry. The Duke's soldiers might be here soon."
"And you think we should go to Godiva?" Garibaldi said.
"Yes. It is not the closest town, but you can get there through the forest without anyone seeing you, and you can take a ship from there."
"How far is it?"
"Riding through the forest, if you know the right paths, it should take one day. You could be there tonight."
Garibaldi and Sallina agreed to go to Godiva. The old man told them how to get there by taking the old stone paths that ran back and forth across the forest, left over from long ago, when the forest was not a forest, but part of The Empire. Sallina wanted to draw a map, but Garibaldi said he could remember the directions in his head.
Sallina shrugged, "Okay, but I hope we don't get lost."
"Trust me," Garibaldi said, "I know my way around a forest."
The old man gave them a bag of flour and the two blankets they had slept under, in case they lost their way and had to spend the night in the forest. They could use the flour to make bread. He gave them two onions, six apples, and three potatoes as well.
"Thank you," Garibaldi said, "How can we ever repay you?"
"You could give me some more of that gold of yours, young man, I'm not too proud to ask for it."
Sallina opened the chest and took out a small handful of coins, perhaps twenty of them, and gave them to the old man. "There you go, don't spend them all at once."
The old man laughed. "I won't, young lady, I won't, and good luck to you, go on now, don't wait any longer, you must be on your way."
Garibaldi mounted Eliza and helped Sallina up behind him. Sallina put her arms around his waist. The old man smiled.
"Some advice before you go," he said.
"Please let us hear it," Sallina said.
"Your only hope is to work together. Don't let your greed and your fear trick you into fighting with one another. And don't think that you have no greed or fear. We are all greedy, and we are all afraid."
"Wise words, Ephistra," Sallina said, "Thank you."
"Goodbye Ephistra," Garibaldi said. He squeezed Eliza with his legs and she cantered off into the forest.
As they went along the path, the yew trees ended, and in their place there grew large beech trees with smooth bark and shiny leaves. Sallina was glad. She liked beech trees.
Eliza was breathing hard when they found the first of the old stone roads the old man had told them about. They slowed down and let Eliza walk. They followed the path to the west. For the rest of the morning, they took a turn here, a turn there, and crossed a river, all according to the instructions the old man had given them. They said very little to one another. The forest was quiet and calm. At lunch time, they stopped and ate a some apples and drank from a small, clear stream.
After lunch, they rode along a broad path, looking for a turning to the left
"What a nice man he was," Sallina said.
"Yes, he was a nice man," Garibaldi said, "but I don't think you had to give him a whole handful of our gold. If you keep going like that, we won't have any left before the week is finished."
"Oh, come on, he did so much for us, and there are at least a thousand pieces in that chest. In fact, we haven't even counted them yet. There might be ten thousand in there for all I know."
"There might, but I think you should ask me before you give away so much of the money that is at least half mine."
"At least half?" Sallina said, in a loud voice. "What do you mean at least half? Why should you get more than I?"
Garibaldi noticed that she said "more than I" instead of "more than me", and it sounded strange to him that she spoke like that, but he supposed she must be speaking in the proper way. What was the point in arguing with someone who was so clever with words, because that was what arguing was all about wasn't it? Being clever with words.
"Well?" Sallina said. She leaned around his shoulder to look him in the eye.
"Take all the gold if you want it," Garibaldi said, "I'm not going to argue with you."
"Oh, that's great! Don't think about what you said, just tell me to take all the money!" Sallina took her arms from around Garibaldi's waist and put them on her hips. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't want to take all the money, all I want to know is why you think you should have more than half of the money."
Garibaldi did not answer. Anything he said would make him look stupid, so he should just be quiet, and Sallina would think he was more clever than he really was.
Sallina was furious.
They rode on in silence. Garibaldi saw a turning on the left, and they took it. The turning put them on an overgrown stone road. Every one hundred steps or so there was a broken stone statue lying by the side. Sallina wanted to get off Eliza's back and look at one of the statues more closely, but she was too angry at Garibaldi to ask him to stop the horse, so she said nothing.
An hour later, the road ended at a large pit with a pond in the bottom. Eliza stopped at the edge. She put her head down and started chewing some grass.
"Well?" Sallina said.
"Ephistra said nothing about this pit," Garibaldi said.
"Perhaps it's new."
"No, it's at least a hundred years old. You can tell by the size of the trees growing out of the side of it."
"So what's going on?"
"Either he gave me the wrong directions, or I have forgotten the directions, or we missed a turning while we were arguing."
"Let's go back, then, and find the turning."
They went back. When they found another turning, they took that one instead. Half-way through the afternoon, they decided that this turning must be wrong as well, because it was not taking them in the right direction.
"Now what?" Sallina said.
"I don't know," Garibaldi said.
"If we go back, and the police are coming after us, we my bump into them."
"True."
They sat on Eliza's back while she drank from a little puddle in a hollow stone by the road.
"We could leave the paths and go through the forest and try to find the correct road," Garibaldi said, "and then go towards Godiva."
"Okay, let's do that. Do you know which direction to go?"
"Yes," Garibaldi said.
"Are you sure?"
Garibaldi frowned. Why did she ask the same question twice?
"What do you want me to say? Yes or no?"
"I want you to tell me if you are absolutely sure that you know the way."
"No, I'm not absolutely sure."
"Thank you."
"Now what do we do?" Garibaldi said.
"We do what you said we should do, try to find the right road."
Garibaldi frowned and stared at Eliza's neck. He shook his head.
They tried to find the right path, and perhaps they would have found it if it had not started to rain. It was not the rain that made it difficult for them to find their way, it was the clouds. Garibaldi could tell which way they should go so long as he could see the sun through the trees. When the clouds hid the sun, he tried looking at moss on the tree trunks instead. In his experience, most tree trunks had more moss growing on one side than the other, and the side with less moss was the side the sun shone on the most, which was usually the south side. But in the Deserted Forest, the moss seemed to grow all around the tree trunks, or on different sides from one tree to the next.
Towards the end of the afternoon, they found another one of the ancient stone roads. They followed it in the direction Garibaldi thought was west. The rain was still falling. It soaked their hair and their clothes. Even though it was summer, and the rain was warm, they were cold sitting on Eliza's back. They wrapped the blankets Ephistra had given them around their shoulders.
The road brought them to a large clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a ruined stone cottage. The roof had fallen down in most places, and one of the walls had fallen over. To their left was a hill that rose up steeply. The top of the hill was rocky and bare.
The road continued on the other side of the clearing.
"We might see Godiva from the top of that hill," Garibaldi said.
"Let's go up and look before it gets dark," Sallina said.
"It's too steep for Eliza to climb."
"So go up on your own. I'll wait here."
Garibaldi did not say anything.
"What are you waiting for? Are you too tired to climb the hill? Do you want me to climb it for you?"
"I'm not too tired."
"What is it, then?"
Garibaldi stared at Eliza's neck for a while. Sallina waited.
"I think you might want me to leave you alone with my horse and the gold so that you can ride off and leave me."
Sallina got down off Eliza's back and stood on the ground. She looked up at Garibaldi.
"Didn't you listen to what the old man said? About greed and fear?"
"I'm not afraid. I'm not greedy."
Sallina shook her head. "Well, I'm not climbing the hill on my own either. If you don't trust me, why should I trust you?"
Garibaldi slid off Eliza's back and stood beside her. "It's raining and it's getting dark. Let's stop here for the night." He pointed to the ruined cottage. "We can make a fire under what's left of that roof and get some sleep. We can decide what to do in the morning."
Sallina nodded. "Okay." She was hungry and wanted to make some bread.
They tied Eliza up under the cover of a big oak tree. They brought her water from a stream they found nearby. Garibaldi gathered dead wood from the forest. There was still some dry wood under the largest trees. He lit a fire with the matches he kept in Eliza's saddle bags. Sallina made bread in the fire by putting a heavy lump of dough in the coals. There were not many things that Sallina knew how to cook, but camp-fire bread was one of them.
After supper, they sat leaning close to the fire with their blankets wrapped around them. The rain was still falling, but the roof kept most of it off them. They sat without speaking. The only sound was the rain pattering upon the forest and the crackle of burning wood.
The sun went down and it was dark.
"Did you forget the directions?" Sallina said.
Garibaldi put two more sticks on the fire. "I don't think I did" He spoke the directions out loud again, and they seemed to be exactly as the old man had spoken them.
"I think you remembered." Sallina said. She stared into the warm light of the fire. "We became lost because we argued."
"Maybe," Garibaldi said.
He lay down beside the fire. Sallina did the same. "Sleep tight, Garibaldi."
"You too."
They woke up in the middle of the night, shivering with cold. The fire had gone out. It was still raining and it was absolutely dark. Garibaldi lit a match and looked at the fire. A puddle of water had formed upon the ground and all the coals were wet. The match went out.
"The ground at the bottom of the wall is dry," Sallina said.
They lay along the bottom of the wall. The ground was dry, but it was hard and cold. The stone wall was cold too, and their blankets were thin and wet.
Garibaldi wanted to say that if they lay close together and shared the blankets, they would have two bodies and two blankets to keep them warm, and that way they might be able to sleep. But he didn't say anything. If it had been colder, he would have said something. But they were not so cold that they were going to be hurt. He started hoping that Sallina would say the same thing instead of him. She was a clever woman, why didn't she suggest that they lie close together? Perhaps she did not want to lie next to him. Or perhaps she was nervous about asking him for the same reasons that he was nervous about asking her. Never mind. It was not worth worrying about. They would be tired in the morning, but they were young and strong. They would still be able to ride to Godiva.
The rain stopped just before the sun came up, but the clouds remained. When the first light of day entered the valley, Garibaldi pushed his blanket aside and rose to his feet. Sallina sat up and leaned against the wall. Garibaldi stretched his legs and arms. He walked out from under the roof and jumped up and down to warm himself up.
When he came back under the roof, he knelt next to the remains of the fire. It was wet and cold. "I should have saved some dry wood from the fire last night."
"Don't worry about it," Sallina said, "We'll be in Godiva by nightfall. I have the answer to the problem of climbing the hill."
"What's that?"
"We put the gold in a bag and carry it up to the top of the hill together. We leave Eliza here at the bottom. We look around at the top, and then come down and go."
Garibaldi nodded. "I like it."
They took the saddle bag with the chest of gold off Eliza's back. Garibaldi carried his axe in one hand. He slung the bag over his shoulder with the other. The hill was higher than they guessed, and difficult to climb. They helped one another up the steepest parts, and stopped to rest a few times.
When they reached the top, they looked down into the valley where they had spent the night. There was the ruined house. There was Eliza under the oak tree. There was the ancient stone road winding up the valley and out the other side of the clearing.
Sallina looked up at the sky. She could see the yellow disk of the sun through the clouds to their right, in the direction they had come from. She pointed to it. "That must be east." She turned her back to the sun and pointed the other way. "So that must be west."
"Yes," Garibaldi said.
In the distance, beyond several hills and valleys, they saw smoke rising from a town. On the other side of the town, something flat and gray stretched on into the farthest distance beneath the clouds.
"The sea," Sallina said, "We are not as far from it as I thought."
They looked at one another and smiled.
A noise came up the valley. It was a clomping and clattering noise. Both of them knew what it was, and they stopped smiling. It was the sound of horses on the road.
They dropped to the ground and lay on their bellies behind a bush. They stared through the bush down into valley. They heard another sound, one they liked even less than the sound of horses. They heard dogs barking.
Four dogs came running into the clearing. Eliza let out a whinny and reared on her hind legs. The dogs went in four different directions, sniffing the ground. Three soldiers rode in on large horses. They carried swords at their belts, spears in their hands, and crossbows on the backs of their saddles. They wore chain mail shirts. (A chain mail shirt is one made of thousands of little metal rings attached together.) Behind the soldiers rode another man. He was not wearing armor, but he carried a long-bow.
Sallina and Garibaldi had never spoken to any of these men, but they recognized them all. Three of them were the Duke's soldiers, and the last one was one of the Duke's rangers.
The soldiers dismounted. They searched the cottage and the space around it. The Duke's ranger jumped off his horse and looked at the ground at the base of the hill, where two of the dogs were sniffing and barking.
"They have found our trail up here," Sallina said.
"Yes, we have to run," Garibaldi said.
"But what about Eliza?"
"We have to say goodbye to Eliza. She'll be okay. I'm glad we came up together, and with the gold, too. That was smart of you."
"Where do we go?"
"Down the other side of the hill."
They ran down through the trees on the other side of the hill and into another valley. they ran up the other side of the valley to the top of a ridge. The chest of gold banged against Garibaldi's back. At the top of the ridge, he stopped and waited for Sallina to catch up with him.
"I have to rest," he said, "The chest is hurting me."
"I'll carry it," Sallina said.
Garibaldi looked at her.
"Garibaldi," Sallina said, "Why do you suspect me? Are you crazy? You're carrying your axe as well. Let me carry the gold."
"I don't want the chest to hurt your back."
"Really? Or are you worried I'm going to run off into the forest with the gold and leave you? And if you are, how do you think I could run faster than you if I was carrying the gold?"
Garibaldi looked down at the ground. Is that what he was thinking, that she would steal the gold? It seemed to him that he was just worried about her getting tired and hurt. But perhaps she was right. Perhaps he did not know what he was thinking.
He gave the bag to Sallina.
They started running again. Soon, Sallina's back began to hurt too. With every step she took, the bag flew up and bumped her. The heavy weight of the gold pushed the hard edge of the chest into her skin. After half an hour, she stopped.
Garibaldi took the bag from her and looked inside. "The chest has sharp corners. Let's pour the gold out of it into the bag and throw it away."
Sallina nodded. She was breathing so hard she did not want to speak.
Garibaldi poured the gold into the bag and threw the old chest as far as he could into the forest. He did not want the soldiers to find it. He looked at Sallina.
"Are you ready?"
Sallina nodded. They started running. On and on through the forest they ran. They heard no sound of the soldiers and dogs behind them.
They came to a stream that was too wide to jump across. They stopped and looked at the cold, noisy water. Garibaldi pointed down the hill. "Let's wade in the water, down the stream, for a hundred meters, and get out on the other side. That will make it difficult for the hounds to follow us."
"They will be expecting us to go down the stream," Sallina said, "Because that's the way they know we want to go. What if we go up the stream, then off in a strange direction, and then go west. Will that be better?"
Garibaldi nodded. "Good idea."
They waded in the center of the stream, up against the current. When they came to a gravel bank, they jumped out and ran into the trees.
At mid-day, they found a blackberry bush. Its blackberries were sweet and large. They stopped and ate as many as they could. They drank water from a spring. The spring water came up out of the ground in a pool.
"Such delicious water," Sallina said.
Garibaldi nodded. He picked up the bag that held the gold. "Have you drunk enough?"
"Yes."
"We must keep running."
Sallina stood up. "Okay, let's go."
They ran through the trees. Sallina followed Garibaldi. He seemed to know where he was going. She was lost completely in this forest, with no idea which direction was north, south, east, or west. It began to rain again. Big drops of water fell from the branches of the trees. She watched the ground in front of her. She was wearing only sandals. She did not want to trip up, or cut her foot.
Garibaldi was a strong young man, and he could run a long way. But he did not think Sallina could run far. As he ran through the forest, with Sallina behind him, he was trying to decide what they would do if Sallina became too tired to run any farther, or if her feet became too sore. He was worrying about how they were going to get away if they had to stop.
But time went by, and Sallina kept running. When they looked out across the forest from the top of a hill, Sallina seemed exhausted, but she did not complain. Her dress was torn in several places, and dirty all over. Her hair was wet with sweat and her face was red. She had been carrying the bag of gold.
"Thank you," Garibaldi said, "It's my turn to carry it."
He took the bag from Sallina's back. She stood up straight and stretched. She winced. Garibaldi shook his head. "I'll carry it from now on."
Sallina did not argue with him. Garibaldi looked down the hill. The fields of Godiva were below them. The light of the sun shone through the clouds ahead of them.
"It's not far now, anyway," he said.
"How much daylight do we have left?" Sallina said.
"An hour or two." He looked at her. "Can you start now?"
"Yes, let's go."
The last half hour of walking through the forest was hard. The forest was thick and it was dark beneath the trees. Garibaldi had a scratch on his face from a thorn bush he had not seen. Sallina stubbed her toes many times on tree roots. They pushed their way through spider webs and hanging vines. But as they approached the first houses of Godiva, they agreed that it was a good thing that they arrived just after the sun went down. They were both so dirty, wet, scratched, and tired that if it had been bright daylight, people would have stared at them and asked themselves, "What are these two young people running from? What were they doing in the Deserted Forest?" The town police might have stopped them and asked them questions, questions such as "What do you have in that bag, young man? Why are you carrying that axe?" As it was, nobody paid any attention to Sallina and Garibaldi as they walked along Godiva's main street to the Dalmatian Hotel and went through the front door.
Once inside, they nearly bumped into a big, tall, man with a chest that stuck out and arms that were even larger than Garibaldi's. He was wearing a cooking apron.
"Well, well," he said, "two young lovebirds run away?"
Sallina was about to say something like, "We are not young lovebirds," but she decided against it. She looked up at the man's face to see if she could tell what sort of person he was.
He smiled at her and at Garibaldi. He was the innkeeper. He looked Sallina straight in the eyes and waited for her to speak. Sallina reached into the bag that Garibaldi carried and took out five coins.
"Here's five gold pieces for a good room," Sallina said, "with hot water, a good supper, a change of clothes for me, and your respectful silence upon the matter of our presence here."
"Rest assured, my dear lady," the innkeeper said, "our discretion we provide at no charge to all our guests, but your money will pay for the best of the other items you desire. Come this way. You can sign the guest book in the morning if you like. Here, follow me, up the stairs. I see you travel light. Well, we will provide you with all you need." He turned and winked at them. "Including a nice soft bed."
At the top of the stairs, he opened the door to a room and stepped aside to let them through. Sallina and Garibaldi walked in. The room was large and clean. It had its own fireplace. There was one bed against the wall with a thick, down-filled comforter on top. The bed was big enough for two people to sleep in side by side.
The innkeeper stood in the doorway. "My wife will be up to measure you for clothes and bring you hot water."
Sallina turned to face him. "Thank you."
"I remember when my wife and I were young," the innkeeper said. "My wife's father said to her, 'That boy will never amount to anything'." The innkeeper laughed, and put his hand upon his belly. "Meaning me. We ran away from our village and came here to the big city. We've lived here happily ever after. Raised two children. Bought this inn." He sighed and looked at the ceiling. "So you came to the right place."
He winked again and closed the door, leaving Garibaldi and Sallina alone in the room. They looked at one another. Garibaldi raised one eyebrow. Sallina shrugged her shoulders.
Sallina walked to the window and looked out. It was dark. There was an alley below the window. She closed the thick curtains and turned to Garibaldi.
"We made it."
Garibaldi nodded. He looked at Sallina's face. She smiled at him. They both looked at the bed.
"My gosh," Garibaldi said, "That looks comfortable."
"It does. Comfortable and warm," Sallina said, "I was cold last night. Tonight I want you to make sure I'm warm."
"How am I going to that?" Garibaldi said. "By keeping the fire going all night?" He looked at the fireplace. There was some wood next to it. But not enough to keep the fire going all night.
"No," Sallina said, "By holding me."
Garibaldi looked at her. "Oh," he said. "Okay."
Sallina smiled. "But I'll let you have your supper first."