Across the Face of the World Read Online Free Page B

horses in Loulea, and the council even kept an elderly mare for the children to ride, but Leith had never heard of any of the farmers owning more than one. Leith wondered how such an insignificant old man came to have horses in his barn. Perhaps they were stolen! He could hear them moving about in their stalls, eating their feed and occasionally nickering softly to each other. After listening for a while he decided that there were four of them. Four! A fortune. However he had come by them, the old farmer was a wealthy man by North March standards.
    It became harder and harder for Leith to see what he was doing. At first the youth imagined that it was the onset of evening and he would soon be allowed to go home, but after a while he heard the wind rise and then rain began to drum on the wooden roof high above. The weather was closing in. It was definitely getting colder. With the gloom and the chill he was having difficulty in undoing the stitching; his fingers wouldn't work and his eyes began to swim.
    Time seemed suspended. Leith was having trouble with a particularly stubborn piece of stitching and his frustrations boiled near the surface. He was cold and he had a headache and he just couldn't get this thing undone, and he didn't want to be here at all. Grinding his teeth together didn't seem to help any.
    A sudden powerful gust of wind shook the barn and snuffed out the torch by which he was working, leaving the building in semi-darkness. Leith shouted out in fright and jumped to his feet, and there was the old farmer at the door, lamp in hand.
    'Better get inside the house, boy,' he said quietly in between gusts, then set the lamp down on a rough wooden table and extin¬guished it. 'The weather's coming in from the sea at present, but the Icewind is out there just waiting for a chance to blow. Leave the awning there for now and come inside. No telling when the lskelwen might come to try its strength against this old barn.' He clapped himself on the shoulders, folding his arms across his chest, gnarled hands on threadbare cotton.
    lskelwen, Leith thought. The Icewind. It had been a long time since he had heard words in the old language from anyone but his mother. No one bothered with the old tongue any more.

    Outside the rain leaned in from the southwest, driven before a persistent sea breeze. Leith could taste the salt in the air, and even though he knew the sea was more than two leagues distant he imagined he could hear the booming of huge white breakers on pale sands. It was getting quite dark. He wondered how he was going to find his way home.
    'Quickly, now!' he heard the farmer call from somewhere in front of him, and he scurried through the rain towards the patch of yellow light.
    Inside he found hot tea waiting for him. He drank it with relief, warming his numbed hands on the mug and his insides with its contents. He thought he heard someone coughing in another room and looked questioningly at the farmer, who returned his word¬less inquiry with a flinty stare. After a moment the old man got up and left the room, leaving Leith alone with his thoughts.
    As soon as some warmth had returned to his body and he could once again think straight, Leith put his mug down and looked around the room with frank curiosity. Not the sort of house a man who owned four horses might be expected to live in! It seemed large enough -
    there was a hall leading to what were obviously separate bedrooms - but it was untidy, run-down, a little ragged around the edges. Pale whitewash, yellowing slightly and peeling in the cobwebbed corners, lent a shabby, neglected feel to the room. It was obviously some sort of sitting room, not often used; musty-smelling, cluttered with fragile ornaments placed carelessly on sharp-edged tables, it was not the sort of room a person lived in.
    Leith's musings were interrupted by the old farmer returning with another mug, seemingly empty.
    'Better get you home, boy. Sounds like the weather's easing off a