Chapter Fifteen
Helm decided that his time of comparative rest at Newkeep Port had made him soft. Either that, or his age was truly beginning to catch up with him. No, it couldn’t be age, surely; he was only in his middle years and had half a lifetime ahead of him. Half a lifetime in which to get to know his son and his granddaughter. It would be time enough, he promised himself. Still, the going was so heavy across Broad Plain that he found himself calling for rest more often than he liked. Rasti was always pleased to stop, for she found the walk quite difficult, but Helm discovered that her tolerance for rest was short. He had barely found a likely place to sit down, when she would be up and nosing at him to get on the way again.
Or at least, that was how it seemed to him, sitting with
