We slept very well in the hay-loft, close together under the rough blankets. When we woke up our seal was still there! We said our prayers and repaired the holes in our heads — I still couldn’t see what Vurian did but I could see that it worked. “If I’m going to die,” Rhinla said to Vurian, “you have to kiss me as if I’m a woman. Before I die I want to be kissed.” “I don’t,” I said. Because kissing is stupid! We went down the ladder and into the kitchen and we got porridge. Rhinla didn’t even wait until she got a spoon but crammed the porridge into her mouth with both hands. “The faster you eat, the less chance someone comes and takes it away before you’re finished!” she said. But there was nobody here who wanted to take our food away, and there was enough for everybody! Then we offered to do the dishes (well, I offered, and I got Vurian and Rhinla to join in) and we talked about how you can be sure that something exists: if you’ve seen it? if you’ve heard of it? if you’ve made it? if you’ve made it up? […]

After a couple of days I felt better. At least I didn’t feel sick all the time any more, only when there was a bit more wind than at other times, and when I ate anything and forgot to look at the sea for a while afterwards. Rhinla was high up in the mast most of the time being lookout, lucky girl! And even Vurian was climbing up now though he wasn’t nearly as good at climbing as us. But there it went up and down, and back and forth, much more than on deck so I didn’t even try. It wouldn’t do to puke from the mast and hit someone below! But at least I felt a bit like myself again and Cynla saw that and wanted to practice with us. Rhinla still got a headache if she used her mind too much, but Cynla said we’d only practice a little. “I expect there will be fighting,” she said, “so I want to teach you how to defend yourselves!” We’d already made the shield when the man in Veray threw the knife at us, but that was only on one side, now we were going to make something on […]

After all the hard work we put ashore and made a small fire and sat there eating some more of the pancakes. Not all, so we’d have some left for breakfast, but a lot, because we were all very hungry. Rhinla thought of making fireworks! She took a willow-twig, lit it in the fire and threw it up and towards the water so it made an arc of sparks first and then hit the water with a psssh! and a splash. Vurian and I joined her, until we were so tired that we couldn’t help falling asleep. In the morning we caught fish first, and then we swam (and taught Vurian to swim a bit) and then ate the fish. And the last pancakes, too. I rinsed the barrel in the water, we’d find a use for it! We took turns poling, that was another thing we taught Vurian. He was strong in the shoulders, so when he got the hang of it he did well enough. We went on like that for a couple of days, stopping at dusk, fishing in the shallows. catching crayfish and sharing them with the cat. (The cat was catching water-rats too, but we […]

We set out on the reed boat as soon as everything was ready. Rhinla had made a special thick piece of boat to hide the purse full of money in! We put Vurian between us and taught him to paddle, but he was too tired to paddle so we wedged him more securely so he could sleep. And I put my head on his butt and slept too, because I hadn’t had much sleep last night. When I woke up we were already almost in Veray! It really went a lot faster downstream. We put the boat ashore in a reed-field so it wouldn’t stand out, and hid ourselves as well as we could, and went to Maile’s house where Master Jeran had had a room. We couldn’t have that room but we could have a room, for a day and a night, and we could pay for it, too, we had the money-purse for that kind of thing! Now Rhinla wanted to sleep because she’d been paddling the boat to Veray all night long, and she locked herself in the room with Vurian and I went into town with the purse to buy a boat. Not that I knew […]

I slept through most of the feast! But Rhinla (and everybody else) told me I’d been almost dead after I fell off the horse. Or perhaps I fell off the horse because I was almost dead. Someone had hit me inside of my head! I think I woke up a little because Anshen was poking me but I told him I was too tired to listen, so I only got to the bonfire when it was almost out. And Lady Rava told me not to do anything with my mind for a week, but I could swim and practice stick-fighting and climb trees, no problem! So I swam and practiced stick-fighting (there’s a farm boy about my size only fatter, and he’s really good at it, so I practiced a lot with him) and climbed the trees. Apple trees are easy! And willow trees are fun, they’re in the water and they’re very bendy so you can pick a branch that can just carry you and swing and then drop, or pick a branch that bends over so far that you can swing in and out of the water. Rhinla made drawings of everything! But after a few days Lord […]

We went to Master Jeran’s house to ask him if he’d be lonely on the feast. He was painting something with the blue paint we’d helped him make from the blue stone! “That’s pretty,” I said, and we said some more things like that (“you have to do a lot of talk first,” Rhinla said) before we asked him what we’d come to ask. “No,” he said, “I won’t be lonely, I’m celebrating the feast with a lot of people.” “But are they nice people?” I asked. “Of course they are! Or I wouldn’t want to celebrate with them.” Rhinla went to get the painting of the fish with all the teeth that she thought would be too scary for the little kids in hospital, and Master Jeran agreed. Not only the fish, but also the person looking at it, which was me from the back, but you couldn’t see that, you could only see a dark scary figure like a thing from a nightmare. “I’d better paint a big pie then,” she said. “Yes!” I said, “then all the kids will get hungry, and they have to eat a lot to get better!” We went to tell Lord Vurian […]

We’ve already been in Turenay for weeks! And I know all my letters now and can write words with them, and even Rhinla knows all her letters because they’re all birds for her. I like her letter-bird drawings! And I’m learning to do sums and to fight with a stick. But it’s not called a stick, it’s called a staff! I don’t have one of my own yet so I’m using one that the school has for people to practice with. The staff needs to be one hand longer than you are, and they do have one in my size! School is nearly over because it’s summer and lots of people are going home because they only live at school when there’s school and they live with their family when there isn’t. Master Senthi is still teaching us, but not the people she’s teaching languages from far countries because there’s only one still here, Venla who we met on the first day, and then the others would have to catch up later anyway. We have a lot of time to do fun things! We took Radan fishing, because Rhinla wanted to teach him to catch crayfish, and we tried to […]