Thrice Bound Read online

  She tied the limp body to her belt with some of the loose bits of Kabeiros' harness and went on gathering firewood, hoping for another small animal to come her way. She was not fortunate enough to make another kill, but she returned to the campsite in good spirits and became even more cheerful when she found that the dog had been busy too. Both packs, which she had cast away rather hastily, had been dragged to the side of the stream where she had spread the herbs. One had been opened and a modest sheet of oiled leather drawn out and spread. Beyond that a place had been pawed free of growth and a circle of stones set around the raw earth. Now how had he managed to clear the tough grass with one forepaw badly strained?

  More stones were nearby, as if the dog had intended to make the circle either higher or wider but had been defeated by the lack of dexterity of his mouth. Hekate set down the firewood and spent some time fitting the readied stones into a second row. While she was bracing a slightly rounded rock with some pebbles, the hound came into sight past a group of bushes at the side of the stream. He carried another rock in his mouth.

  *Is your paw better?* she sent to him. *How did you get across the stream?*

  *I intended to wade, but when I stepped in, my foot felt so much better that I just stayed until the pain was gone. I thought maybe it was just numb, but the swelling was down. Maybe the stream has healing qualities, or all that magic you were throwing around dissolved in it.*

  He jumped across, landing more heavily on one side, but when he came toward her he was hardly limping. Hekate smiled at him, took the rock, and found a place for it.

  *Unfortunately I don't think it's healed enough for me to hunt,* the dog remarked, sitting down across the fireplace from her. *Too bad. The banks of the stream are full of the smell of rabbits and wild goat, too. If I could run, I could bring down a kid.*

  *No kids or lambs,* Hekate said sharply. *We don't know how the people on this side of the mountains graze their animals. One look at you in the first town we come to—unless it's farther away than I hope it is—and they'll start pointing at you and yelling `cattle-killer.' Stick to deer and hare. I don't want you blamed for domestic rabbits that disappear either.*

  *As you say.* But the dog uttered a deep sigh. *I am not that fond of dry meat.*

  "And tonight you will not need to eat it," Hekate said aloud, having satisfied herself that she could send to and hear the dog at twenty or thirty arm lengths. She gestured toward the hare lying atop the firewood. "I will gut it and skin it in a few minutes, but I want to start the fire first."

  The dog snorted. *That will take more than a few minutes, but I can wait.*

  "I have only to break up the sticks." She did so as she spoke, casting several onto the patch of raw earth surrounded by stones, gestured—and they burst into flame. "The guhrt is gone—I hope for good, but if not, at least out of this plane—and my father is too far away to reach me in such a way he can force me to obey." She hesitated, then nodded decisively. "Yes, it would be to my benefit if he could sense that I was getting farther and farther away from him. I hope he will be confident that I am too afraid of him to come back. That will work to my advantage, so I am free to use magic again."

  *While we are away from humankind.* That thought was all from Kabeiros the man, no tinge of the dog in it. *When we come to a village or a road, you will need to be more careful. We don't need a village full of superstitious peasants after us because they fear your powers—or an army, if magic is forbidden in the lands through which we must travel. I know nothing about them. When I first came to Ur-Kabos, I meant to travel on eastward to the fabled lands of the Indies and the Chin, but I found drinking and playing companions and I put off my going from day to day, and then . . . *

  "Colchis first," Hekate said, busily breaking more wood and laying some branches on the fire, others nearby. "Then Olympus if necessary. I can't go too far from my father until I deal with him and there are times when I would like to have the man Kabeiros near so we must solve that problem also. But after that . . . why not the Indies and Chin? We are two together—"

  She stopped abruptly and shrugged, got up to fetch the dead hare from the diminished woodpile. The dog needed her because she was the only one who could talk to him and keep his humanity alive. But what if, after they discovered the way to bring back Kabeiros' control over his shifting ability, he found he preferred other company?

  Having cut off the head and legs and gutted the carcass, Hekate brought the offal to the dog and laid it near him. She then turned away slightly and began to skin what remained of the hare; it was the one time she found it disgusting to see the man Kabeiros melded with the dog. She hated to connect the sound of cracking bone and liquid gulping as the skull was broken and the brain devoured with the handsome young man she knew.

  Skinned and quartered, pieces of the hare were impaled on peeled sticks of green wood that Hekate got from the brush around the stream. She then piled the two packs one atop the other and leaned back against them. The dog was finished, licking his whiskers clean.

  When the meat was cooked—or mostly cooked—Hekate ate two of the quarters with some waybread. She was too tired to bother seeking bulbs or edible plants by the stream. The other two quarters she gave to the dog, silencing his protests by pointing out that he was larger and heavier than she and that he would have the more arduous task the next day, specially if they found a village and he had to bring in several animals to buy them a welcome.

  However, no such demand was made on the hunting skill of the hound the next day, since they saw no sign of habitation in the rough terrain they scrambled through. It was just as well because, although his foot continued to mend, they did need to stop to rest it from time to time. The slowed pace produced a nice compensation; Hekate found a number of medicinal herbs that she culled, tied in bunches, and hung from her belt and pack to dry in the sun as they walked. And, before the light failed, they came down out of the most precipitous portion of the foothills into still steep but more fertile ground.

  When they had negotiated their way down one last steep drop they came to an area where grass and low bushes grew in abundance though there weren't many trees. They camped there even though there were no deadfalls and they had to make do with brush for their fire.

  Hekate thought that the land had been grazed over earlier in the year and then left to grow again. If the same patterns prevailed here as in the foothills around Ur-Kabos, it would be several ten-days, or even months, before the shepherds brought their herds back. Still, that shepherds had been there at all meant that there must be villages not too far distant.

  They found clear signs of human habitation the next day. Not long after midday, the hound stopped and began to sniff. Leaning on her staff, Hekate watched him but did not extend her senses. If Kabeiros could indeed smell magic in the dog form and, in addition, was immune to it, she would be ten times a fool to open herself to what might be great danger.

  *What is it?* she asked.

  *I'm not sure, but domesticated beasts—asses or goats, I think, not cattle or sheep. They're too far away for me to pick out the smell, but if it is asses, then we may be near a road.*

  "Good. A road means a village sooner or later."

  *And you are hungry for human company?*

  Hekate had begun to stride on down the hillside, but something in the mental quality of the dog's statement made her stop and look at him. *What do you mean, human company?* She pointed at him with her staff. *I have human company, which I don't doubt is more interesting than shepherds and village idiots. What I do not have is a decent garment and an ax, and perhaps a pallet to lay between my tired bones and the hard earth and beer or wine to drink and fresh bread and—*

  The hound laughed, and Hekate's spirits lifted. She had managed to soothe whatever had caused that thread of bitterness she had detected. And then she thought remorsefully that it could not be easy to look and feel like a dog when, perhaps, you wanted to be a man. As they began to walk forward again, she glanced side
long at Kabeiros. Could he want to be a man because she was a woman?

  CHAPTER 9

  Hekate fought the temptation to raise again the question of how Kabeiros felt about their relationship. She did not know whether she would be relieved or disappointed if he answered once more as he had in the past that he was a dog and felt to her as a dog to its master. She never thought of him as a dog, feeling bereft when he only offered a warm back as a comfort if the night was cold. Although she knew how ridiculous it was, Hekate inwardly blamed him for being unable to put his arms around her. She knew he was there . . . and yet, he wasn't.

  "Kabeiros—" she said.

  *Quiet!* he replied. *I smell dust. That means a road close by and likely animals or people that have walked along it to stir the dust.*

  *Why quiet? Don't we want to find people?*

  *Not until we can give good reasons for why we are here, from where we came, and why. Hasn't it occurred to you that a young woman traveling alone is very unusual?*

  *Mother save me, I'm an idiot. It's so unusual that I'm sure anyone we met would take me for a runaway slave.* She laughed softly. *In a way I am, but at least my father never branded my outward flesh.* Then she laughed again, a bit louder. *Thank the Mother for your brains, Kabeiros. Even as a dog, you are cleverer than I.*

  *I wouldn't say that, but before my misfortune I did travel a long way and I know how suspicious people are of strangers and the kinds of questions they ask. Also, in all that traveling I don't believe I ever saw a woman alone.*

  *Hmmm. That will take some thinking.* She was mentally silent for a while, one hand on her staff, the other automatically splaying the herbs fixed to her belt and the two packs to open the interior of the bunch to the sun. *A healer. Healers do travel.*

  *Yes. You should claim healing as your craft, but we need a reason for you to be . . . Wait. A childless widow with no family of her own, put out by her husband's family. But why? You're a beautiful woman. Surely one of your husband's brothers would have married you.*

  *No brothers and no sons.* Hekate thought back promptly. *Aha, an old man. A rich old man who purchased me from his old friend, my father, to warm his declining years. Then he outlived them all. His brothers and my father are now dead and he had no sons, only daughters. And the daughters were all jealous of me, unwilling to have me taken as a concubine by their husbands.* She tousled the dog's ears roughly. *And that will account both for my rough gown—doubtless they put me out in the coarsest clothes they could find—and for the silver I have, too. That would be my tirhatu—the gifts and money the old man gave me upon betrothal to make me willing to be married to him.*

  *Yes, and the reason you still have it is that he never told the daughters he had given it to you lest they nag at him.* The dog, who had sat down while they were talking, got to his feet and pulled open the knot of his harness. *Stay here,* he said, shaking free of the pack and straps. *I'll go scout out how far the road is and how heavy the traffic is. If I can find a good patch of brush or trees by the road, we can stop there until the road is empty, then come out as if we had been resting in the shade. From where are we coming?*

  *Damascus, I think. I don't want to admit coming from anywhere too close to Ur-Kabos, like Byblos, lest my father has alerted other sorcerers about my escape. I hope Damascus is far enough away that no one will know any more than the little I've heard about the city from traders who visited Perses.*

  *And you wouldn't know much anyway if you were wife to a sickly, jealous, old man. He'd keep you close in the house and not let you wander about to see the city.*

  *True enough.* Hekate grinned and scratched the dog's head again. *But you be careful. You're a valuable dog. If anyone sees you, he might try to catch you for his own.*

  The dog loped off and Hekate shed her pack, pulled the dog's close to her, and went about spreading the herbs, picking out any well-dried swatches and exposing those still damp. After a while she closed her eyes.

  A gentle lick on her temple and a cold, wet nose pressed to her hand woke her. She drew in her breath sharply when she saw the hound; that touch on her temple had felt like a man's lips.

  *I have a good place for us to wait by the road. Even if someone comes upon us there, which is not impossible because it's near a camping place, our being there will seem natural. There is water at the camping ground, so we could have stayed more than one day. It's empty now.*

  They moved along quickly, since it was already past noon and some groups stopped early, especially if they had women and children with them. Although the road was empty when they reached it, dust was still settling and it appeared that their anxiety was justified. By the time they came to their goal, people were already in the camping place. Hekate and Kabeiros crossed the road and went into the brush and tall grass that bordered it until they were clear of the camp, noting from the sounds and the shouted orders that the group was newly arrived; however, the area that Kabeiros had picked for them, some hundred paces down the road, was still empty.

  It was a much smaller open area and had no water; the entrance to it was narrow and less inviting than the main campsite, and the brush concealing it from the road was thick. Once behind the screen of bushes, Hekate chose an area close to a thinner spot in the brush farthest from the road that she wished to mark as her own. If they were seriously threatened, she thought, she and Kabeiros could push through the somewhat scraggly growth there and escape into the open countryside where she could make herself disappear and Kabeiros could hide.

  When Kabeiros agreed with her choice and her reasons, she decided to make it seem they had been there for some time. She undid the packs, laying out her blankets and spreading the culled herbs on the piece of oiled leather she usually used between the blanket and the earth. All the while she had been listening to the sounds coming from the camping place. When she was sure the party was settling in, rather than stopping to rest and water their animals, she sighed.

  *They aren't going to leave,* she said to Kabeiros. *So, do we try to hide and take the chance they will come on us by accident, or do we try to act like ordinary travelers?*

  *I think we'll have to let them know we're here. They don't sound like thieves or outlaws,* the hound said slowly, thinking hard. *You'll have to get water, and we have to cook the hares I caught and that bird you brought down, but there's no wood here for a fire. Maybe they'll trade some charcoal for one of the hares.*

  *Do you smell any magic?*

  *Not the tiniest whiff. I'd have told you right away if anyone smelled of spells. But that doesn't mean there isn't someone who can do magic. If a person isn't casting or carrying working spells and isn't strongly Gifted, it's possible I wouldn't sense him.*

  *I wanted to use the look-by-me spell so I could see what kind of people they are without showing myself. It's not strong magic. Would it be safe?*

  The hound wrinkled his muzzle. *How can I tell? Not everyone who can do magic can sense it. We can try. Cast the spell and I'll see how much it affects me and from how far away.* And when she had done as he suggested and he had retreated first to the edge of the clearing farthest away and then right across the road, he returned and said, *I can smell you from anywhere. It isn't strong or unpleasant, but it isn't anything natural either. So, if they have someone with them who can detect magic, he or she will probably sense the spell.*

  Hekate sighed. *The question then is whether I want to take the chance that they're just traders and will ignore us or leave us in peace or take the chance that I'll be exposed as using magic.*

  *I think it more dangerous that you be exposed as spying on them using magic.* The hound panted for a moment in mental silence and then continued. *Veil yourself—I think there's a piece of cloth that you can use to cover your head and hold across your face—and take one of the hares and some of the herbs. Offer to trade for charcoal. If you are threatened or in danger, call, and I'll come. I'm sure a sudden attack from a hound as large as me will cause shock and free you. Then if you want, cast
your spell and we can go our way. I doubt anyone will wish to meddle further with you when you are known to be a sorcerer.*

  While she sought out and covered her head with a cloth from the dog's pack—it was meant to serve as a kilt if Kabeiros should recover his human form—Hekate considered the few other options they had, such as continuing on down the road or slipping back up the hills. To retreat to the hills would only delay, not alter, the problem of meeting other people, and continuing down the road could be as dangerous or more dangerous than taking their chances with this group of travelers.

  *I can't think of a better plan,* Hekate agreed finally. *I'll take the waterskin and see if I can refill it before I'm noticed. Then I can reveal myself and ask about trade.*

  The hound lay down near the herbs and Hekate took the waterskin, emptied what little it held into the brush, and then picked up one hare and two bundles of herbs in her other hand. She went out on the back side of the clearing, through the thin section of brush and found, as she had hoped, a rear opening into the camping place. From the odor, she guessed that that exit led to the privy ditches.

  The stench made her glad that she and Kabeiros had taken care of their needs, neatly burying the debris, before they reached the place. Still, it was an advantage to come in from that exit. If no one looked closely at her, she might be taken as a member of the party returning from a trip to the necessary.

  She paused to one side of the entrance and glanced quickly around. Her dress would not betray her. Men and women wore very similar garments—the men's being only somewhat shorter, and Hekate's was ragged enough that the original length was not too easy to determine. No one was veiled, and many of the men had long hair; however, they wore hats of some kind or turbans, and all of them were heavily bearded. She shrugged mentally, stepped back a couple of paces, and quickly wound the cloth around her head into the semblance of a turban.