Jenny: Images

The Guttersnipe whirled and barely resisted clamping her hand over Domitia's mouth. "Shush, you!" she snapped in a panic. She glanced around, trying to look calm, heart pounding in her throat. No one was around. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "There are so few places where we can talk." She gave Domitia her attention again. "Yes, we're leaving before the sun comes up. Long before the sun comes up. Wulf and I will be droving the herd and you'll have to keep close to Master Lucius. Don't - " she squeezed the word out between her teeth, " - don't fall off. I'm worried enough about Master Lucius as it is - and everything else."

She turned, knuckles pressed tightly against her teeth, surveying the green-coated herd of young horses. They had had their basic training and needed only the hands of experts to turn them into the wheeling, ducking, diving, winglessly-soaring weapons her Lord Ambrosius so prized. Her eye fell on the bronze-and-black colt again, and in her mind she saw Jason with him as she has seen him before, shoulders back, arms outstretched with lunge-line and whip, and that keen yet patient look of absorption on his face as he blended with his four-legged pupil.

The object hanging round her neck seemed suddenly very heavy.

"Don't ask any questions yet, Domitia," the Guttersnipe said presently. "I know you want to know, but I can't tell you. Not yet. You'll know soon."