In Search of a Homeland - Part Four

Traveller


The sunlight peeked through a crack in the shutters, and fell onto the sleeping Tiersu's face. She slept on, unheeding, until it made its way down her face and to her eyes. She frowned in her sleep, disturbed, and awoke from troubled dreams. Daybreak. Time to go.

She dressed in silence, not paying notice to her run-down surroundings. All inns were alike, or at least, those that she could afford were. The ill-fitting shutters and sagging bed were inconveniences she had grown accustomed to. It was better than a bedroll in the cold outdoors, with the pre-dawn chorus to waken her, and a cold stream to bathe in.

Her bag bulged uncomfortably as she slung it on her back, and she rolled her eyes. Sighing, she upended it over the bed, and prepared to re-pack it.

Her bedroll, spare clothes and sewing kit she placed at the bottom, re-folding the clothes so they sat neatly around the needles and thread. She hoped she wouldn't need those any time soon. Next came her sceptre, inherited from old Matthias when he'd passed into Grenth's hands. He'd said she was his best student - his only student, mind - and had earned it. She smiled a little as she remembered the first time she'd used it to practice with, and almost set his house alight. He'd set her sweeping his house for a week in return for that one. Her focus was newer, with no sentimental ties, but it did the job. She didn't often use them, in any case.
Those were the big items, the easy ones. She looked at what remained on the bedspread. Odds and ends; trinkets that she kept for small convenience or because she hadn't gotten round to discarding them. She made a pile of the things she could discard - loose threads, scraps of this and that, the detritus that gathered in the bottoms of bags everywhere - and swept it to one side. What was left?

A small knife, twin to the one in her belt. Into the bag it went. A polished metal mirror and a comb, her last scrap of vanity. In. Some animal teeth and claws. Well, she could always peddle them if she got desperate. She glanced down at the last item left on the bed and closed her eyes, breath caught in her throat.
It wasn't much. A small necklace - a carved wooden charm strung on a leather thong. But suddenly, momentarily, she had been a child again, getting dressed ready to go out and play with the other children in the district. Suddenly Grandmama was in the corner again, smiling a wrinkled smile and running her hands over the knots in the staff. Father was-

She shook her head sharply, and looked at the floor, refusing to acknowledge the sting of tears in her eyes. It was over. She couldn't go back. She wouldn't go back, not now.

For a moment she considered throwing the necklace away. She didn't wear it, after all. Then she softened, and picked it up, stroking the familiar shape absently with her forefinger and thumb.

"Ten years," she whispered to herself. "Ten years, and I have changed so much."

She fastened the thong round her neck, and slung the bag on her back. Now it was time to go.