Kiel didn't speak figuratively, Maia soon realized. The band kept purposely to open ground, where speed was good but the horses' hooves also left easily-followed impressions. "It's part of our plan, so's to make the Perkies lazy," Thalia explained as they rode along. "We have a trick in mind. Don't worry."
"I'm not," Maia replied. She was too happy to be concerned. After running the horses for a while, they halted, and the tall, rough-looking blonde rose high in her stirrups to aim a spyglass rearward. "No sign of anyone breathin' down our necks," she said, collapsing the tube again. The pace slowed then, to keep their mounts from tiring.
Prompted by a brief query from Thalia, asking how she had been treated in prison, Maia found herself spilling whole run-on paragraphs about her arrival at the stony citadel, about the terrible cooking of the Guel jailers, how awful it had been to spend Autumn End Day in a place like that, and how she never hoped to see the insides of a man sanctuary again. She knew she was jabbering, but if Thalia and the others seemed amused, she didn't care. Anyone would jabber after such a sudden reversal of fortunes, from despair to excitement, with the fresh air of freedom filling her lungs like an intoxicant.
There followed another period of quick trotting and more brisk walking. Soon a lesser moon — Aglaia — rose to join Durga in the sky, and someone started humming a sailor's chantey in greeting. Another woman pitched in with words, singing a rich, mellow contralto. Maia eagerly joined the chorus.
"Oh How, ye winds of the western sea, And blow ye winds, heigh-ho! Give poor shipmen clemency, And blow, ye winds, heigh ho!"
After listening a few rounds, Renna added his deeper tenor to the refrain, which sounded appropriate for a sailing ballad. He caught Maia's eye at one point, winking, and she found herself smiling back shyly, not terribly displeased.
More songs followed. It soon grew clear to Maia that there was a division among the women. Kiel and Thalia and one other — a short brunette named Kau — were city-bred, sophisticated, with Kiel clearly the intellectual leader. At one point, all three of them joined in a rousing anthem whose verses were decidedly political.
"Oh, daughters of the storm assemble, What seems set in stone can still be changed! Who will care whom you resemble, When the order of life is rearranged?"
Maia recalled the melody from those nights sharing a cottage at Lerner Hold, listening to the clandestine radio station. The lyrics conveyed an angry, forceful resolve to upset the present order, making a determined break with the past. The other four women knew this song, and lent support to the chorus. But there was a sense of restraint, as if they disagreed in some parts, while thinking the verses too soft in others. When their turn came again, the others once more chose songs Maia knew from school and creche. Traditional ballads of adventure. Songs of magic lamps and secret treasures. Of warm hearths left behind. Of revealed talents, and wishes coming true. The melodies were more comforting, even if the singers weren't. From their accents and features, she guessed the two shorter, stockier ones must be from the Southern Isles, legendary home of reavers and sharp traders, while the other two, including the rangy blonde, spoke with the sharp twang typical of this part of Eastern Continent. Maia learned the blonde was named Baltha, and seemed to be the leader of the four.
All told, it seemed a tough, confident bunch of vars. They had no apparent fear, even if by some chance Tizbe Beller and her guards caught up with them.
The singing died down before their next break to adjust tack and trade mounts. After resuming, for a while everyone was quiet, allowing the metronome rhythm of the horses' hooves to make low, percussive music of an earthier nature. No longer distracted, Maia took greater note of the cold. Her fingers were especially sensitive, and she wound up keeping her hands in the pockets of the thick coat, holding the reins through layers of cloth.
Renna trotted ahead to ride next to Kiel, causing some muttering among the other women. Baltha was openly disapproving.
"No business a man ridin' like that," she said, watching from behind as Renna jounced along, legs straddling his mount. "It's kinda obscene."
"Seems he knows what he's doing," Thalia said. "Gives me chills watchin', though. Even now that he's got a normal saddle. Can't figure how he doesn't cripple himself."
Baltha spat on the ground. "Some things men just oughtn't be let to do."
"Right," one of the stocky southerners added. "Horses were made for women. Obvious from how we're built an' men aren't. Lysos meant it that way."
