He shook his head. “The healer dressed the wound, but he was burning with fever when I left. I hid him in the mountains.”
“You must go there yourself, Jon Tayt,” she implored. “Go and guide travelers through the peaks again. It is not safe to be near me.” She sighed and tugged her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. “I could not bear it if you or Argus were harmed because of me.”
He snorted. “I fear not the Dochte Mandar,” he said in a low voice. “They have hunters to be sure, but I am better. We can slip away if we are wary and quick.”
“No,” Maia said, a little too forcefully. She wrestled with her emotions. “It is not safe to be near me. There is good reason the Dochte Mandar hunt me. I am a danger to everyone. Even you.”
She heard him scratch the whiskers at his neck. “You felled the abbey.”
“Yes,” Maia confessed.
“Why? Did they threaten you?”
“No, they were innocent.” She felt her throat catch and coughed to clear it.
“Then why, Lady Maia? Why did you do it?”
She stared miserably into her lap. “I was not in control of myself. At night, I have strange visions of the past. They are so vivid and real. When I sleep, I lose control of myself and . . . am taken over by another force. It is like a sickness. I thought the Aldermaston could cure me. Instead, I harmed him.”
Jon Tayt sniffed, but he did not look accusing. “Best to keep you away from abbeys then, my lady.”
She looked up at him. “I urge you to abandon me. I am hunted by the Dochte Mandar. Now I will be hunted by the Aldermastons. The Naestors, whom I seek, will slay me when they find out what and who I am. I cannot—will not—ask anything further of you.”
“You’ve said your piece. Let me say mine.” He was silent a moment, the only sounds the rustling of the wind through the trees and Argus’s panting. “It gives me some comfort that you did not destroy the abbey deliberately. I have suspected for some time that you suffer from a fever or delirium at night. We have tried to keep watch over you—the kishion and I. The two of us had a truce, so to speak. But you should have told me, Lady Maia. I have an herb, valerianum, that can cause drowsiness and deep slumber when mixed with a tea. It is worth trying, at any rate. Or I can bind and gag you at night . . . truss you up like a slaughter-bound boar and tie you to a tree. If you had told me, I could have helped ere it came to this.” He grunted. “You were foolish and you were proud. But you are not guilty. I have seen your heart, and you are fair and just, even to those who do not deserve it. You stopped Feint Collier from hanging us. You have always tried to save innocents, even at great cost to yourself. So I will say this one thing and then we are done, by Cheshu.” He scooted forward a bit, staring her full in the face, his eyes boring into hers with an almost feverish intensity. “You cannot dismiss me. I am not your servant to be banished. I am your friend. If Argus trusts you, and he nary trusts anyone but me, then you are fit companionship. A friend does not abandon a friend during troubled times. That is when the friendship is needed most.”
Maia’s eyes pricked with tears. Something had come loose inside of her during Jon Tayt’s speech. She was grateful beyond words and felt a soothing balm of relief as tears slipped from her moist lashes.
“I do not deserve your friendship,” she said, swallowing her tears. “But thank you.”
“Bah, do not weep, lass. You do not shed tears on a trifle, which is one of the things I admire most about you. There are only two good reasons to weep, by Cheshu. The death of your mother or the death of your hound. Everything else is a trifle to be endured.”
Maia laughed softly at the sentiment. “Well, my mother is still alive. Still banished at Muirwood Abbey, so it seems.” She thought of the letter Maderos had given her. “I may not be fit to be called her daughter, but I hope to change that. And Argus . . .” She reached over and pet him. “He has not forsaken me either.”
“Get your own hound,” Jon Tayt said teasingly. “Every lass deserves a good hound. When Argus sires some pups, one shall be yours.”
Maia sat quietly for a while, massaging her shoulders in the gloom. “So you left the kishion burning with a fever. Will he survive?” she asked finally, almost dreading the answer.
“He is a hardy man,” Jon Tayt said. He sniffed. “I gave him some feverfew. He was very low and may not survive the day. But if he does recover, I would not be offended.”
Maia smiled sadly and shook her head. Part of her was relieved, but she would miss the kishion. He had come to feel like a friend.
Argus’s head snapped up, his ears taut.
“That would be a sign,” Jon Tayt whispered, “that we should be on our way up the mountain.”