Amazon Companion (17 page)

"Yes."

"Will you trade both of those for dinner tomorrow?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I need to help Nori check her rabbit snares." She smiled. I'm sure she understood. Everyone had seen me serving Nori again, and I'm sure a few people had guessed why.

After that, I found Vorine and traded two nights of dinner duty she was assigned for the one night I'd had assigned. I had tried for one-for-one, but she was a tough negotiator. I was willing to offer two-for-one when they were breakfast and lunch, as those meals are typically less complicated, but I wasn't upset with Vorine's negotiating. I made the changes to the posted duty rosters, arriving at the training grounds seconds before I would have earned a punishment for being late.

"Close one," Neela whispered to me as we began to stretch.
"Or wouldn't Malora punish you for being late?"

"Oh, I don't believe I am immune," I said. "But I wasn't late. Unless Nori waited for me."

"If she did, it wasn't obvious."

Training started when Nori started it, after all, and the definition of "late" was to miss the first stretching exercise.

We worked with swords that day, and I was hot and sweaty when we were done. As I lay panting in the grass after the final run, Nori knelt down and told me, "Clean up and meet me at the stables as quickly as you can."

"Yes, Nori," I replied. I turned to Malora, expecting her to bathe with me, but she told me to go ahead; she could see to her own needs.

"But-"

"Go on," she said with a smile.
"Don't leave Nori waiting."

I ran.

Ten minutes later, I entered the stables. Nori was waiting for me.

"Did you free your schedule?"

"Yes. That's why I was almost late for training. Nori, did you deliberately wait for me?"

"I let a conversation go another minute or two than I would have if you had been on time. I may not do it again."

"Thank you."

"As you are free for the next few afternoons, today we will check my existing snares and set one more. We'll set another one tomorrow and two more the day after."

I smiled.

"Saddle both our horses." She sat and waited for me.

The horses weren't kept in stalls; instead, we had a large paddock for them, half open field, half in the trees. I had to find both horses, and neither of them was accustomed to me. Nori's, of course, wouldn't remember me from our trip here, and I hadn't ridden mine that many times.

I found mine first, leading her to the stables. I tied her off to the hitching post then went in search of Nori's. The search took a few minutes, and Nori looked impatient when I returned with her horse.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I caught the wrong horse first."

"What?" She said. "Oh. I was thinking of something else. You're doing fine, Maya."

I saddled first her horse, then my own. When I was done, I checked them both again, the way Malora had taught me, tightening the cinches one final tug. Nori checked them herself as well, then she pointed to a small backpack. "Bring that as well." I collected the pack and climbed on top of my horse, a gentle filly named Fleetfoot. It was a misnomer, which is probably why Malora had given her to me. She was steady and willing, and that was the type of horse I could ride.

"My snares are to the north," sh
e said. "Can you find Backbend Gulch?"

"Half an hour..." I looked. "That way?"

"Yes," she said. "Good. All my snares are near Backbend Gulch, and we will set one more today."

She had me lead, and once I took the wrong path. It took me several minutes to realize it. I turned my head to look at her. She returned my gaze, offering an innocent expression. "How far would you have let us go this way before you turned us around?"

She smiled. "Another few minutes."

"I'm sorry."

"You figured it out."

I turned us around, eventually leading us to the gulch.

"Can you find this place again without getting lost?"

"Yes," I said.

"The path will look different in different light."

"Maybe that was what confused me," I said. "I came in the morning the last time, and it was cloudy."

She nodded. "I do not believe your warrior will want you venturing this far from the village alone."

"Afraid I'll take off?"

"Afraid you'll get lost. All right. We leave the horses here. They'll enjoy the grazing." We were in a small field at the exit of the gulch, the river forming the gulch here muddled but moving slow and wide. "I have three snares on this side of the river, and we will set the new ones on the other side."

"There is a safe place to cross?"

"A half mile that way," she pointed downstream. "It is wide and shallow. The horses can take us easily, and we won't even get our feet wet. And they do not seem to mind wet feet, at least not in the summer. In the winter, it is a different story."

I nodded understanding.

Nori showed me how to find her snares. The first one was empty, but she showed me how to check for it and taught me how it worked. She let me reset it when she was done.

"Good," she said after making minor adjustments. "We'll check it again tomorrow."

Her next snare held a rabbit. We could hear it even before we saw it.

"Do you know how to dispatch it?" she asked.

I shook my head.

So she showed me, explaining what she was doing. She clasped the squirming creature by the neck, removing the snare, and then stepped twenty steps away. Soon the rabbit hung limply from her hand. "Reset the snare," she said. I did, then looked closely and made my own adjustments to hide it better.

"Good. Do you know why I didn't kill it in place?"

"Because this is a rabbit run." I indicated the path the rabbits took. "But they will stop using it if they become scared of it."

"Yes. I move my snares if I go a week without success or every few kills. Do you know what to do with this?" She held up the rabbit.

"I have cleaned countless fish. Is it similar?"

"Is your knife sharp?"

It was. I didn't have a sword, but Malora had given me her second best knife, and maintaining all her weapons and my own was one of my duties. I nodded.

"Right now, we only gut the rabbit. They are easier to transport while still wearing their skins. We will skin them at home." She watched as I carefully cleaned the rabbit. "Good," she said when I was done.

"No more difficult than a fish," I said. "And less slimy."

She smiled.

Her third snare was empty. "If this one is still empty the next t
wo days, we will move it," she said. "Let's go set a new one across the river."

We returned to the horses. I tried to give the rabbit to Nori, but she said, "Oh no. Carrying those is your responsibility. You're here to help me. Remember?"

"Yes, Nori," I said. And I strung the rabbit over the front of the saddle. Nori led the way to the crossing. Once across the river, we climbed back off the horses and she led the way to a "likely place to find more rabbit runs."

She talked as we searched, explaining what she was looking for. Finally she turned and smiled. "Do you see?"

I nodded. I even found a pair of rabbit tracks in the dirt.

"Supplies are in your backpack," she said. "But tomorrow we'll need to assemble more." I pulled off the backpack, and she showed me the snare, ready to attach to a trigger branch o
f the tree. By now I had a basic understanding, and Nori watched as I set the snare, offering only two suggestions as I did so.

"Good," she said when I was done. "You'll be an expert by the time we're done. Now, do you think you can get us home without any wrong turns?"

"Yes."

"Lead the way."

I didn't take the wrong path, although it was close once. I stopped at a branch in the trail and wasn't sure which way. Nori stopped behind me and waited.

I looked over my shoulder at her. "Which way?"

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "You said you could find the way home."

I climbed from my horse and stepped down one of the paths. I found a soft place, but I didn't find any sign of recent hoof prints. I did find deer tracks. "The deer have been here more recently than we have."

She smiled but didn't say anything.

I found hoof tracks on the other path. I climbed back on top of
Fleetfoot and set down the trail. I looked over my shoulder.

"What would you have done if you had
found hoof prints on both tracks, or on neither of them?"

"Asked you which way."

She smiled. "And if you were alone?"

"I would have marked the turn and proceeded down one of the paths somewhat further. I can always backtrack."

"If you become hopelessly lost, stop wherever you are when you realize it. Settle in and wait for us to find you."

"I'd be so embarrassed."

"And you should be, but that is better than many of the alternatives, and the further you wander, the further you will travel from your expected route, and the longer it will take us to search for you."

"I understand."

"The policy for people who are late is to wait half again as long as they were gone before sending searchers. So if you were to be gone for two hours but are not back after three, then we would begin to look for you. If night falls, then we assume you will make camp. If you are to be gone for more than a day, then we give you one extra day in good weather and up to three in foul weather." She paused. "If we do not find you readily, we may assume you have chosen to run. I strongly encourage you to be where you are expected to be."

"Share my plans and stick to them?"

"Yes. If you depart from them dramatically, even innocently, it may not be interpreted innocently."

"I understand."

"Can you make a fire?"

"Yes."

"In the rain?"

I thought about it. "Yes."

"If I asked you to make a fire right now, could you?"

"I didn't bring anything-"

"I better never hear that answer again."

"Nori, you didn't exactly give me the
option to pack when you took me from my home. I don't have a fire starter kit. Or a spare pair of socks."

"What are you going to do about it?"

I thought about it. "Tomorrow I will ask to borrow from my warrior. I do not have a permanent solution. I will find one. Are you angry with me?"

"No. I am impressing upon you the importance of being prepared."

I looked over my shoulder and grinned at her. "I came quite prepared."

"Oh?"

"I'm with you."

She laughed, and I turned back to the path.

We arrived back at Queen's Town. Nori watched as I settled both horses, thanking each of them quietly for her service to us. "Let us skin my rabbit," she said.

"One rabbit seems like a poor return for an afternoon's outing," I suggested.

"Which is why we're setting more snares," she replied. She led the way to the kitchen. Serra was already working on dinner, but she saw what we carried.

"Oh, fresh rabbit. We'll add that to the stew. Hurry up and get it
skinned." She gestured to the chopping block used for skinning and dismembering the smaller creatures that made their way to our kitchen. I set the rabbit in place.

"Start here," Nori said with a gesture.

I worked slowly, doing what she said, and soon I had divested the rabbit of his skin.

"Quarter that,"
Serra directed. So I cut the rabbit into sections and delivered them to her. "Thank you."

After that, Nori showed me the remaining preparations for the skin. "Now it must dry," she said. "We will hang it in my hut." I followed her to her hut and hung the skin as she indicated.

"Good," she said. "Same plan tomorrow."

"Thank you, Nori." I replied. "How did you know?"

"I asked your warrior why you had started serving me again."

"And she told you I wanted you to teach me to snare rabbits?"

"Yes. I thought perhaps you were hoping I would go easy on you during training."

"I do not believe I have enough to offer you that you would ever go easy on me during training."

She laughed. "You are right."

"My warrior was wrong."

Nori lifted an eyebrow.

"I had no expectation you would offer to teach me to snare rabbits simply for serving you a few meals."

"Perhaps you will continue to serve them to me."

"Perhaps I will," I agreed.

"If you didn't expect me to teach you, then what did you expect?"

"I expected to wait another week then ask what I could trade for lessons."