Just a few days later, only slightly behind schedule, they set out for Ardbarrach. Either way, it was a good, bright January day. The sky was beautiful and high above them, with thin, icy clouds that looked like interlacing fish scales. The landscape was frozen so that nothing moved. Ice coated every single branch so that it glimmered. Every time the horses put a hoof down, it made a delicious crunch through the thin snow.
The hope was to arrive before dark. This was not the most dangerous season for wolves, but it was the most dangerous season for going to sleep and waking up frozen to death. Traveling only when the weak winter sun was out and being tucked away from the weather before the wild winter night wind kicked up was important.
It felt glorious to be out of the castle. Merida couldn’t tell if this was because it felt good to finally be doing something about the bargain, or if it was simply because she’d gotten so used to traveling that staying in one place had started to feel odd. Either way, it was startlingly satisfying to be on the road again.
Unfortunately, they were very slow.
On horseback were Merida (on the Midge, the bitey young mare she’d been gifted when she began her travels last spring) and Gille Peter, one of Fergus’s oldest guards (on Angus, Merida’s former horse, who had been pulled out of retirement as no other horse was tall enough for Gille Peter). Elinor’s two ponies, Humor and Valor, pulled the Friendly Box (which was what the triplets called DunBroch’s old pony cart), which carried Hubert, Leezie, and another of Fergus’s guards, Colban. Following behind was Harris’s terrible spoon-eating dog, Brionn, as he’d shot out after them and no amount of calling would bring him back into the courtyard.
The Midge was plenty fast. Too fast, really, getting her and Merida into and out of scrapes at high speed. Angus wasn’t half bad either, even though he was quite ancient. His long legs covered a lot of ground when they needed to.
The problem was the Friendly Box. It was designed for dry roads, not snowy paths. They had to stop often to give it a good shove through snowy mud, or take a longer route to ford frozen creeks. But the cart was necessary because of Colban, who was so old and crispy that he had to be cradled to keep from shearing into old bits of Scottish bone. Of all the people to choose as escorts! “He knows the way,” Fergus had said, “because he was trained there.”
(“Decades ago,” Hubert had whispered.
“Centuries,” Merida had corrected.)
Gille Peter was slightly younger than Colban, but he was still so old that his words had died long ago and now all that came out of his mouth were nonsense ghosts. He was not there for his oratory skills, however. Fergus had decided he was the best escort for protection.
(“From what?” Hubert had asked.
“Frivolity,” Merida had replied.)
Like most DunBroch solutions these days, they were solutions of either convenience or emotion, rather than practicality.
They were never going to make it there by nightfall at this rate. Merida had only recently nearly frozen to death herself and was not at all eager to do it again, but no one else seemed to share her urgency. Gille Peter moved with the ponderous grace of the extremely tall. Leezie was regaling Hubert with tales of some island saints and their daily rituals, and he was having a grand old time listening to stories about demons in milk pails and monks in barrels. Colban did not seem to notice the passage of time at all; he had to be shaken awake to ask for directions.
Only Merida and the Midge fretted as the journey used up the short day.
Eventually, Merida lost her patience, told the others she was scouting the road ahead, and let the Midge quicken her step.
She hadn’t gotten very far away before she heard a voice from deep in the snowy trees:
“It won’t work.”
The Midge spooked mightily at the sound. Merida kept her seat with some effort and then looked over her shoulder.
Feradach.
Feradach stood among the trees, his cloak dark, his mane of hair bright. His gloves were firmly on his deadly hands. He did not look anywhere near as uncanny as he had by moonlight. His cheeks were reddened from the cold like any mortal’s would be, and his breath puffed out in visible clouds just like Merida’s. In this clear light, she saw that the broad furred shoulders of his cloak were dusted with powder, and that there were footprints through the snow behind him, as if he had arrived here by ordinary means. If Merida had not seen him at their first meeting in a very different context, she would have simply thought he was a young man on a journey, just like them.
And yet her heart was pounding dance steps against her ribs.
It seemed unfair that just the sight of him sent her body straight back to how it had felt the night of the bargain. Liquid terror and dread. Not magic. Just ordinary fear. Merida, annoyed by this unbidden response, told her body to calm down. It didn’t, so instead, she told Feradach, “That’s very rude! To just…appear!”
Feradach bowed his head apologetically. “I should have announced myself. Good afternoon.”
“How long have you been following us?” Merida let the Midge sidestep uneasily away from him; it let her keep her eyes on him while still putting a little distance between them. “You told the Cailleach to not cheat; you can’t cheat, either.”
“I’m not here to cheat. I just wanted to see what you were doing.”
“We’re out for a nice walk.” To demonstrate, Merida urged the Midge down the path back toward the others.
Feradach strolled alongside. “A nice walk with your brother and foster sister, far from home.”
Merida had to think about it for a moment before realizing he meant Leezie. “How far is far, really. What do you mean it won’t work, anyway?”
“Changing other people. You can only change yourself.” Feradach watched the Midge stumble into some fallen branches; she spooked and had a bit of a temper tantrum until her legs were free. “And you should be. Working on yourself. Saving yourself.”
Merida did her best to look regal as she maintained her balance on the shivering Midge. “You’re always full of advice.”
“Just the truth.” Feradach tilted his head. “What’s your plan?”
“Like I would tell you!”
“What could it hurt?” he asked. “I’m not going to stop you. I don’t need to. I will win this bargain, and not by tricks; DunBroch is winning it for me just by continuing as it is.”
Merida, who had previously felt quite annoyed by her family, now felt very defensive of them. “And yet who’s in that cart up there? Two people who haven’t traveled this far away from the castle in ages!”
“Change comes from the inside, not the out,” Feradach reminded her, not unkindly.
“Hubert’s never seen another kingdom,” Merida said. “He’s only ever been as far as the blackhouse village.”
“What if he changes in a way you don’t like?”
The Midge pranced some more; Merida had gotten so annoyed with Feradach that she’d tightened the reins, and now the mare felt persecuted. Merida loosened her grip on the bit. “Now you’re just being contrary. Don’t you have a village to ruin somewhere else?”
“Yes,” Feradach said. “Actually. Are you going to Ardbarrach?”
“Please don’t tell me that’s where you’re headed!”
“No, but neither are you,” he said. “You’re going the wrong way, did you know?”
Now Merida was completely flummoxed. She pulled the Midge to a complete halt. Both girl and horse stared angrily at Feradach. Merida demanded, “Why should I believe you?”
“Again, I have no need of tricks to win,” Feradach said. “And it would bring me no valor to win just because you’ve frozen to death on this road only a few weeks in. Don’t believe me. Ask your guardsman.”
“Ho! Fanfarich tol de parsesh!”
Both Merida and Feradach turned to see Gille Peter and the horse Angus picking their way slowly through the brambles the Midge had dashed through helter-skelter. Gille Peter’s words, as ever, were all squashed into something else, everything in an old dialect lost to time. “Drownt mootin dar!”
“This is about to be odd,” Feradach warned Merida in a low voice.
“How do you figure?”
“Everyone sees me as something different,” Feradach said. “I don’t know how you see me, but he will see me as something else.”
Merida frowned. “Like, as a bear or something?”