“They bought four horses?” asked Umbo.

Rigg knew what he was thinking. Nobody in Fall Ford could have bought four horses, all at once.

“They must have pitched in together to buy them,” said Loaf.

“Well, they never replaced them,” said Rigg, looking at the paths. “For a while they pulled the carriage with three horses, and then two. And then the carriage never went out again after that. So they had the use of the carriage as long as the horses lived.”

“Probably worked the horses to death at the plow and harrow, or pulling wagons at harvest,” said Loaf.

“I wonder if they thought it was worth the price, to have the carriage to take out now and then.”

“Our little gift cost them,” said Rigg.

“Come on, they loved it,” said Umbo. “What if we could have had carriage rides when we were little, Rigg?”

“Imagine your father chipping in to buy a pig, let alone four horses, and then sharing!”

Umbo shuddered. “Let’s get back up to the road. They haven’t been waiting somewhere till we finished our business. What if they came up the road right now? What would we do?”

Rigg led the way back up the slope toward the horses. He could see that uphill was hard for Param, but then Olivenko was instantly there, helping her, and so Rigg ran on ahead. At the top of the hill, as he stroked the horse that he had decided was his, he scanned for new paths being formed in the road behind and below them. For miles out he scanned, and saw no paths except those of animals and local people going about their business. No urgency yet.

For a moment Rigg thought it might be a good idea to go back a few days into the past, all of them, including the horses, putting more time between them and any pursuers. But then he nixed the idea without saying it aloud. To go back, they’d need to latch on to someone the way they had with Olivenko. That would be memorable, and when General Citizen’s men came along, they’d know that Rigg’s party was time-jumping.

And if they jumped ten years, or fifteen years, or a hundred years into the past, then what? How could they guess what troubles they might run into? Or how they might change the future? Maybe they’d start a legend about travelers appearing out of nowhere—or, worse yet, about a prince and princess appearing out of the sky. Either General Citizen or Mother would have guessed what happened and been ready to intercept them as soon as they got on this road. No, they’d travel in the present until something forced them to do otherwise.

The journey went faster now, even though three of them were walking. Param started out astride a horse—that was hard enough work—with Loaf taking the other to ride ahead and scout the way. Before long, Param insisted on dismounting and taking a turn walking. “I’ll never build up my walking strength by sitting on a horse. Besides, it isn’t all that comfortable. It chafes my thighs and I feel all stretched out.”

They traveled for another couple of weeks this way, Param walking farther and farther before needing to ride again, until she was walking all the way. They bought more provisions at two different farmsteads, and at the last one, the farmer said, “Don’t know where you think you’re going, but it isn’t there.”

“What isn’t there?” asked Olivenko.

“Anything,” said the farmer. “Ain’t nothing at all that way.”

“Maybe nothing’s what we’re looking for,” said Olivenko.

“You think to find the Wall,” said the farmer.

“Wall?” asked Olivenko.

“Ayup,” said the farmer. “At’s right, then. Oh, you’ll find it. All up that way. Day or two beyond.”

“Are there any brigands living in that area?” asked Loaf.

“Might be,” said the farmer. “If they is, they an’t bothering us here.”

“Then we’ll do fine,” said Olivenko.

“What you running away from?” asked the farmer.

Rigg didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “You,” he said. “We want to get to a place where nobody pries into other folks’ business.”

“Soldiers patrol along there, you know,” said the farmer, not taking the hint. “You never know when they’ll come along. Just thinking you might want to know that, if you’re running away and don’t want to get caught.”

Rigg changed his estimation of the man at once. “Thank you for the warning.”

“Why do you think a man moves to this part of the wallfold?” said the farmer, grinning. “Run off with a rich man’s wife, you got to get off to a far place where you’ll never meet the old cuckold by chance. Close to the Wall, but not too close. I know what it is to run. So does my wife.”

Rigg looked at the half-toothless woman and the five children who huddled around her and thought: Is she happy with the bargain that she made? He could see that she had once been pretty.

They paid the man for the provisions—paid exactly what he asked, with no bargaining, since they were buying silence as well, if it could be bought, or at least thanking him for his attempt at good counsel.

There was no road now, and as they moved out across country, up hill and down dale, Rigg kept thinking about the farmer’s wife until he finally spoke up. “Why would she give up a life of comfort for what she has here?”

“She didn’t know it would be like this,” said Umbo, “and then it was too late.”

“She knew how the world works,” said Olivenko. “Her beauty would fade, her rich husband would replace her with someone younger.”

“She loved the man,” said Loaf. “Probably loved him before she ever married the rich man—bet her parents talked her into that. Bad advice, and she decided she’d been wrong to take it. That’s the whole story, I think.”

Rigg looked at Param. Param smiled a little and said, “She wanted his babies, and not the other man’s.”

The others laughed.

“Is it that simple?” asked Rigg.

“It may not be the story she told herself,” said Param, “but it is that simple. That’s what Mother said.”

Ah yes. Mother. “Is that the reason she gave for marrying Father Knosso?” asked Rigg.

“She was talking about other women,” said Param. “Other women marry for that reason.”

“And her reason?”

“For the good of the royal line,” said Param.

“In other words,” said Loaf, “she wanted to have his babies.”

They all had a good laugh at that.

They came to the Wall four days after leaving the farm instead of two, but that was no surprise, they’d been angling southeast, not east. They found the Wall, not with their eyes, but with their minds.

“You notice how we’ve turned south?” asked Loaf.

“Have we?” asked Olivenko.

Rigg and Umbo didn’t need to ask. “I know,” said Umbo. “The horse won’t go to the east at all anymore.”

“They sense it. The aversion,” said Loaf. “The wish not to go that way.”

Param shuddered. “I didn’t realize that that feeling was the Wall.”

“You just think of going that way, and it makes you a bit tetchy, right?” said Loaf.

“It would be like volunteering for a nightmare,” said Param.

“Very good,” said Loaf.

Olivenko handed the reins of the horse he’d been leading to Rigg. Then he strode out going due east, up a rise of ground. Soon he disappeared on the other side.

“He’ll be back,” said Loaf.

Sure enough, Olivenko reappeared farther south, walking resolutely, until he finally heard them calling him and saw them waving. He seemed genuinely astonished to see them and ran to them. “How did you do that?” he demanded. “How did you get ahead of me like that?”

They laughed, and Loaf explained. “It’s the Wall. It steers you clear. You just kept walking, fast and hard, right? Thought you could bull your way through. But the Wall bends you. Every step you shift direction a little more, bending farther, and then you’re heading away from the Wall. Thinking you’re still heading for it.”

“You didn’t move?” Only then did Olivenko seem to notice how the horses were pretty much where they had been when he left. “You just stood here waiting?”