"You are a very disagreeable mouse," he said. "Here." He forked over the last bite of his own biscuit. "If you're eating, you're not talking. And we need to move."

"The rest of them were the Princess, my daughter, and the witch's apprentice, and any of them would have made a negotiable hostage," he pointed out. "Then again, the Princess is a flake and the apprentice involves dealing with the witch. So you make a point."

"Or constant companionship? You might've asked, I could've just lifted you." He pulled open the drawstring for her. "Don't rummage," he said, even though he had no idea how she could avoid rummaging. "Here, I'll leave it untied. It'd be a shame if you smothered."

"Stay out of that!" he snapped. "For god's sake . . . here." He couldn't find a handkerchief, but produced one of the pair of fur-lined gloves he had snitched from a guard. "Don't chew on it. Yes, they are teeth. No they are not mine."

"Nice. Take a nap or something." He moved around to the treeline, trying to get a clear view of the main road--or 'wide flat open grassless space'--parallel to the forest. There was a sound close by but he couldn't quite make it out to be hoofbeats or not. "We have fellow travellers," he said in a low, amused voice to the mouse.