Circle of Thieves: Legends of Dimmingwood (3 page)

“I
have
questioned—” I tried to interrupt, but he
didn’t let me finish.

“Questioned as a passing thought, I don’t doubt. But you
cannot imagine settling down to an honest life because the idea of a
comfortable, placid existence is so foreign to everything you’ve ever known.”

I couldn’t deny this, and he knew it.

“Think on this, Ilan,” he advised. “If you chose to give up
your outlaw ways and companions, you wouldn’t be doing it alone. I would be
here to offer support and advice as long as you needed it. And although not a
wealthy man, I scarcely live in want…”

I shook my head at the hint, embarrassed at the suggestion I
would accept his money.

“Wait. Don’t refuse before hearing me out,” he cautioned.

Sighing, I waited, regarding him with mingled affection and
annoyance.

He seemed to take the fact I had not walked away as a
hopeful sign. “I want you to imagine your life a few years from now,” he said.
“Envision yourself sitting before the fire in a comfortable, solidly built
cabin on your own holding somewhere. Maybe your children are playing around
your feet…”

I couldn’t hold back a snort, but he was unperturbed.

“Perhaps a husband sits at your side, talking about the
upcoming harvest…”

I hooted. “As if I would marry a farmer. You do make me
laugh, priest.”

He wasn’t fazed. “A baker then.”

I shook my head.

“A blacksmith?” he ventured a little hopelessly. “You cannot
tell me that’s a soft or dull profession.”

I took pity on him, conceding, “Maybe a mercenary soldier. I
can see that.”

Hadrian frowned his disapproval, saying, “Let’s try this
again. You’re an innkeeper this time, or a merchant. Yes, I can see you as an
independent woman of comfortable means and both professions would be enough of
a challenge to hold your interest.”

I cut him off. “Enough, Hadrian. I realize you mean the best
for me, but my future lies nowhere but Dimmingwood. It’s useless imagining
myself anywhere else when my mind is set.”

I glanced overhead. “Now the morning is getting away from
us, and I haven’t time to stand here listening to you discuss improbable
futures for me. It looks like rain, and I’d like to cover some distance before
the storm breaks.”

“You should stay another day and wait out the rain,” he
suggested.

“I’m too impatient for home,” I said simply.

He looked at me searchingly and said, “You’ve changed, Ilan.
When you first appeared on my doorstep, you seemed young and uncertain, like a
child looking for your way.”

“The things I was looking for were my magic and Terrac. I
found both…even if I wound up losing one of them again.”

I cast another impatient glance toward the sky to remind him
I had a two-day journey ahead of me.

“I can see your mind is set,” he said reluctantly. “So I
suppose you’d best be on your way and make what distance you can.”

I was only too eager to escape his thinly veiled pity. “Yes,
well, farewell Hadrian. You’ve been a friend to me, and I’m grateful for all
you’ve taught me. I hope we’ll meet again one day.”

When I extended my hand, he took it in his, saying, “I hope
we will. There’s a good deal more I have to teach you of the talent, when you
have the time to spare.”

I would have withdrawn my hand then if he hadn’t tightened
his grip, adding, “I can’t give my blessing on the path you return to but know
that you take with you my friendship.”

With a stiff nod, I pulled free of his grip a little more
roughly than I intended.

“Goodbye, Ilan,” he called as I turned and walked away.

I raised a hand in acknowledgement but didn’t look back or
slow my steps. I wouldn’t let him make me feel guilty, I told myself. I was
doing what was right for me. I was going home.

Chapter
Three

I traveled the Selbius Road for the better part of the day.
True to my prediction, a light drizzle began to fall a little after noon and
continued on and off throughout the day. By evening I had abandoned the road in
favor of a diverging and less traveled side path. After a long day of slogging
through the mud, I spent that first night sleeping beneath a hedgerow. I felt
encouraged despite my weariness as I curled up into a tight ball and turned my
back to the wind. I had made better time than I’d expected and knew a few more
miles would see me within Dimmingwood’s shadow.

It was around noon the next day that I entered the forest.
The trees had just begun to thicken around me and I was basking in the
comfortable familiarity of the shade, the leaf patterns, and the scent of tree
and earth when I came on a small settlement. I recognized the village as one I
had visited with Brig a time or two in the past. We had occasionally come here
to barter for supplies from the locals.

Hammand’s Bend was a sleepy little woods village along the
outer edges of Dimming, where the trees bordered the flat lands. I studied the
neat ring of log cabins with their shingled roofs and narrow porches tacked
onto the fronts and decided against my first instinct of passing around the
settlement. It had been a year or more since I’d been here with Brig, but I
recalled a local man who used to trade goods out of his home, and who had
connections with our outlaw band. He might remember me from those previous
visits and be willing to direct me to the new location of Rideon’s camp. I had
no fear of being turned upon by the woods villagers, since there was a
comfortable truce between our band and the Hammond’s Bend people. Besides,
these weren’t the kind of folk who asked questions.

I was so preoccupied with trying to remember the name of the
man I sought that it wasn’t until I stood in the center of the village green
that I sensed something had changed here. All the houses looked as I
remembered. The long low-roofed meeting hall still stood, commanding the green
and the shadow of the forest trees still crowded in against the edges of
civilization. Beyond one or two more recently constructed cabins that hadn’t
been there before, nothing physical had changed about the place.

But a subdued stillness was settled over the town, a
suffocating sense of dread hanging in the air. Children played on the grass and
older folk mended their chicken coops or worked in their gardens or hung the
wash on lines out back. But the scene was solemnly muted and even the children
were strangely quiet at their play.

A sudden squeal of laughter rang out from one little girl I
passed, and the guilty youngster was swiftly shushed by her fellows. But it was
too late. All eyes turned inadvertently, almost apologetically, to the meeting
hall at the heart of the clearing.

I followed their glances and froze at the grizzly spectacle
I encountered. An ancient elder tree with sprawling branches stood against one
side of the meeting hall and a neat row of corpses dangled side by side from
the thick branches. The bloated bodies swayed in the gentle breeze, their
shadows swinging like pendulums over the grass below.

I counted six dead, five men and a boy. Immediately
suspecting this was the handy work of the Praetor’s men, I wondered what crime
these people had been guilty of and how long they had been left up there.

The thing that disturbed me most was that the bodies had
obviously been on display awhile but had yet to be cut down by the villagers.
Evidently the Praetor’s fear held a stronger sway over the people of Hammond’s
Bend these days than it used to. I swallowed to clear my throat of a sudden
dryness and hurried past the tree with its gruesome decorations. It was nothing
to do with me, I told myself.

Approaching a middle-aged woman who was dusting leaves off
her porch with a broom, I greeted her politely.

“A fair evening, mistress.”

“I doubt it, stranger,” she said, without returning my
smile. “The clouds have been threatening all afternoon, and I think we will
have more rain before the day is out.”

She delivered this message without ever looking up from her
sweeping.

I focused my attention on the gray bun at the back of her
head, since that was all the view offered me. “Unpleasant weather then for a
traveler to be caught in,” I suggested, wincing at my own lack of subtlety.

The goodwife ignored the hint, saying, “Aye, I suppose so.”

I was surprised at her lack of hospitality because I remembered
the village folk as often willing to offer a bed and a meal in exchange for a
few coins.

I said, “I don’t suppose you could spare a dry place for me
to pass the night? I have a little money to pay for my shelter.”

“No,” she said abruptly. “I have no room for strangers under
my roof.”

Although I felt my face redden at the brisk refusal, I kept
my temper leashed and tried a different tactic, saying, “I understand. If you
could just give me a little direction then. I’m looking for as friend here. His
name is Ryce—no—Ryne, a trader. You must know him.”

Her broom pausing midsweep, her face paled.

“Get off my porch,” she said so stiffly I couldn’t tell
whether it was anger or fear that made her voice tremble.

“Pardon me?” I asked, confused.

“You heard me,” she said. “Get away from here. We don’t want
such as you in our village anymore.”

My heart picked up pace, but I kept my face expressionless,
saying, “I don’t understand. I’ve only come to look for Ryne.”

“Then look at him you will,” she said coldly. “You don’t
have to search far.”

She raised a finger, and my mouth dried as I realized she
was pointing to the row of corpses swinging beneath the elder tree.

It was a moment before I could work enough moisture back
into my mouth to ask, “What happened?”

My question was met with silence as the woman disappeared
into her house, probably bolting the door behind her.

This was more or less the reaction I received wherever I
tried to question her neighbors about the corpses in the tree. Not that I
really needed much answer. It wasn’t hard to piece together. The Fists had come
fact-hunting and Ryne and a few others of our friends had apparently been less
than circumspect about their dealings with Rideon’s band. I tried to tell
myself they’d had it coming for their carelessness. That was what Rideon would
have said, I knew. But I still couldn’t shake the heavy feeling that settled
into the pit of my stomach when I thought of the price the Hammond’s Bend folk
had paid for our friendship.

I eventually gave up my questions as night drew on and
turned my thoughts to other concerns. The sun was sinking low in the sky and
thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Three months in the tight little hut
on a river barge had spoiled me, and I didn’t like the idea of weathering tonight’s
storm outside. I began knocking on doors and asking for a meal and a bed, but
as the goodwife had predicted, no one seemed interested in taking in a
stranger, even for a generous amount of coin. On one or two occasions, I
thought I even recognized the faces of the men and women who turned me away,
but if they remembered me they hid the fact. Recognizing an acquaintance with
one of Rideon’s band had suddenly become unlucky. With that ugly specter
looming out on the green, I couldn’t blame them. Still, understanding didn’t
help to improve my situation any.

At last, as I worked my way toward the end of the ring of
houses, one goodman took pity on me. He wouldn’t let me under his roof for the
night or even long enough to sit at his table, but he said if I was hungry I
could help myself to a handful of winter-fruit growing on the tree behind his
cabin. I could also refill my waterskin at the well behind the meeting house. I
was grateful for even this grudging concession and decided a pocketful of fruit
and a full skin of water wouldn’t be unwelcome.

It was while I was halfway up the fruit tree, head lost
among the golden leaves, that I sensed I was being watched. I feigned ignorance
and continued my fruit collecting until the furtive observer worked up enough
nerve to approach me.

“Are you stealing from Dunnel’s trees?”

I ducked down out of the leaves to get a look at the
speaker. She was a small girl, scrawny and unkempt, and dressed in gray
homespun. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old.

“Not exactly,” I said as I picked my way down to earth.

The girl backed shyly away as my feet hit the ground, but
she didn’t flee altogether.

This was the most interest any of the Hammond’s Bend folk
had paid me yet, and I thought if I handled things right, I might improve my
situation here.

“Who’s Dunnel?” I asked as if not really interested and
turned my back on the child to pluck more fruit from the lower limbs.

After a moment I heard her sidle closer. “Dunell’s the
village head,” she told me, after a long stretch which I pretended to ignore
her. “Those are his winter-fruit trees you’re stealing from, and if he catches
you, he’ll be angrier than Mistress Barkin when the goats got into her wash.

“Or as angry as the men who hung those people in the tree beside
the meeting hall?” I asked.

I turned in time to see her eyes widen and cursed myself for
being too blunt. Not everyone had my violent childhood.

I thought the girl would run away after that, but she
surprised me by lingering.

“Mama says we’re not supposed to talk about what happened,”
she whispered conspiratorially. “But I heard one of the bad men say they wanted
people to see what could happen to all of us. He said…” she scrunched her face
in confusion, “…he said we were to tell our
friends
. But I’ve never had
any friends except the simple boy, Jerrit, and they hung him up in the tree
with the others.”

She looked briefly sad but seemed to shrug the emotion away
quickly. “Jerrit stinks now,” she continued matter-of-factly. “The birds used to
come and peck at him, but they don’t anymore. I don’t think there is very much
left for them to peck at.”

Suppressing a shudder at how easily she discussed such
details, I knelt to be level with her and asked, “How long have Jerrit and the
others been in the tree?”

She thought a moment. “A long time, I think. Since the day
Sunflower dropped her kids.”

I didn’t care anything about Sunflower or her kids. I tried
another approach. “Tell me about the men who hanged them,” I said. “Did they
wear armor of shiny metal? Was it black and red, like the colors on a
crest-feather’s back?”

She screwed up her face. “Maybe. It was a long time ago. But
they were loud and mean. They asked questions and one hit Dunnel. Then they
dragged Jerrit out of his sister’s house ’cause they said he was lawbreaking
.
”
She stumbled over the unfamiliar word before continuing. “His sister said he
didn’t do anything, but they didn’t listen. They took him and a few other
people to the tree, and they hung them up, and then they were dead. Well, not
right away, some of them weren’t, but after a while they all were.”

I felt a little queasy at her crude description. “And then
what happened?” I asked.

“The scary ones made us all stand around the tree while they
yelled about…things. About how we didn’t mind the Praetor good enough, and how
we were friends of thieves. They said if we didn’t all do what we should from
now on, we would be dead too. I don’t remember what else they said, but they
rode away later that day and Jerrit and the others have stayed in the tree ever
since. Dunnel says we’re not to take them down.”

She had drawn me a pretty clear picture of the scene, and
any question I’d had as to the Fists involvement were closed. Clearly the
Praetor had decided to take a firmer stance against the outlaws of Dimmingwood
and their friends.

I felt a stab of guilt, wondering how many more of the woods
villages would suffer similarly for their connection with us. One thing was
certain, the folk of Hammond’s Bend had paid a high price for befriending us. I
wondered if we were worthy of their loyalty but swiftly pushed the thought
aside. I had been living with Hadrian too long.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, and a few fat droplets of rain
spattered on my head and shoulders. I realized the girl was watching me.

“You’d best get indoors,” I advised her absently. “Your mama
will not want you standing around in the rain and tracking mud across her
floors when you get home.”

At my warning, she looked duly concerned, so I guessed she’d
been punished for similar infractions before. She nodded and started to run off
but had gone only a few steps before stopping and turning back.

“What about you?” she demanded. “Won’t you get all wet and
cold?”

I smiled at her concern. “I’ll be all right,” I lied. “I
like the rain.”

She bit her lip, hesitating for a moment. “We don’t take
travelers under our roof anymore,” she told me. “Da says best to take no
chances. But we’ve a shed for the goats behind our house.”

She smiled secretively. “It’d be warm and dry in there, and
Sunflower and her kids don’t take up much room. Da would never know if someone
slept there, especially if they were away early in the morning before he goes
out to feed the animals.”

My gratitude was genuine. “That sounds like a very cozy
arrangement. I just might take you up on it.”

She nodded, pleased, then wordlessly spun away and scampered
off into the rain.

I followed at a discreet distance.

*  
*   *

Sunflower was mean tempered and smelled like a walking
privy, two conclusions I arrived at within moments of bedding down in the
filthy straw of the dark little goat shed. I almost would have preferred to
sleep outside, except a steady downpour was descending now, raindrops drumming
a staccato beat on the low roof overhead. I curled up and pulled my coat more
tightly around me to keep out the cold wind swirling in through the open front
and tried to get a little rest. I eventually drifted off, listening to the howl
of the wind and the soft bleats and rustling noises of my bunkmates.