Chapter 165

We rode out by the north gate on the last day of April, four of us and a pack mule, with the whole of the spring coming down the valley to meet us.

Rowan on Pudding, with his leg healed enough that he only swore at it in the mornings. Lucien on a long-legged Seelie bay that disliked mud and said so at every ford, with no glamour on him, as he had gone since the day he gave up Ellisar; he looked younger without it, and less sure, and Saskia had stood at his stirrup at the gate and said something to him that made him go red to the hair. Lyra on a rough little hill pony from the Crown stables, with everything she owned in two saddlebags, riding a length ahead of the rest of us because she was the one who knew the road. And me on Mist.

Caspian came down to the gate on his stick.

He had wanted to ride. He had said so plainly the night before, and then said, as plainly, that he could not sit a horse for an hour yet without the wound opening, and that he would not make me