Son of Avonar (16 page)

“Filthy, bloody damn.” Paulo never had a lot of words.

We crept out onto the road. I told Paulo to wait for me while I stepped cautiously to each of the five men that lay on the hard-packed dirt.

“Are you loony?” said Paulo. “Get away!”

“I need to make sure they're dead.”

“It's only thieves.”

“They're men.” Well, they had been men. Now they were all quite dead. Outlaws, yes, murderers themselves, no doubt, many times over. Yet I found myself with an odd sense of sympathy. If I had been empowered to choose the victors in that battle and entangle my fortune with theirs, I would have, quite irrationally, preferred to take my chances with the highwaymen.

 

As a child I had adored my family's winter stays in Montevial. The crush of people and society in the city, the music and torchlight and carriages, even the spine-chilling sight of criminals hung up in cages or locked in pillories had been a thrilling change from our dull castle in the country. But now I found the stench and din of even so small a town as Grenatte made my head throb. Wagons of hay and wood rumbled noisily through the cobbled streets, and the walls of a blacksmith's shop bulged with deafening clatter. A leather-aproned tradesman stood in the door of his shop, arguing loudly with a driver over a wagonload of hides, while a slack-mouthed girl drove a herd of bleating sheep through the square and yelled lewd insults at a man locked in the stocks and emitting a thready moan. The prisoner had evidently borne false witness; flies crawled on the bloody void where his nose had once been.

I sat tiredly on the stone steps that encircled the public well in the center of the town square, having bidden Paulo go to every inn in town, giving out the story that he had been paid to deliver a message to the person seeking a stolen white horse. The message said to meet the sender, a dark-bearded man wearing red, in the Green Lion common room at sunset. I had no intention of confronting the stranger right away, only to get a look at him. At the end of an exhausting day, my motives were far less clear than when I'd set out.

An army of beggars, the crippled remnants of Evard's Kerotean war, groped at passersby on the peripheries of the square. The Kerotean campaign had been murderous. The Keroteans were a fiercely independent, religious people, sturdy warriors who believed their mountains were the fortresses of their god. Only the sheer numbers of bodies Evard had flung against the heavily fortified Kerotean cities had conquered them. Rumor had it that twenty-five thousand Leirans had died to take Kallamat, the city of golden-domed temples where butter lamps burned to the Kerotean god every hour of every day, a city perched so high in the mountains that men could not breathe the air. Evard had told his men there were chests of gold in every house in Kallamat, but no common soldier had ever seen a single coin of it. And the people of Leire had seen only these armless, legless, or eyeless veterans, if they saw any result at all of twelve bloody years.

In less than half an hour, Paulo came streaking back through the late afternoon crowds, narrowly avoiding tumbling into the well. “Found him.”

“What was he like?”

“Dark. Small. Dressed fine.” Paulo screwed up his face thoughtfully. “He don't fit.”

I wasn't sure what he meant, but could garner no clearer explanation. “What did he say?”

“Tried to grab me, but I nipped off like you said.”

“You should stay out of sight for a while. Have you anything to eat?”

“Got a biscuit.” Paulo touched a limp cloth bag hanging from his belt. I was sure the boy never got enough to satisfy a growing appetite.

I dug into my pack and pulled out a small cloth bundle. “Here's jack and cheese. I'll get a room and we'll see what comes. Jacopo did me better service than he knew when he sent you along.”

“I can do for myself. Innkeeper said I could sleep in the stables if I mucked out the stalls.” He hadn't touched my offered bundle, though his eyes had not left it since I mentioned its contents.

“Go on, take it. I brought enough for both of us.”

Before I could blink, the boy grabbed the bundle and was gone. The light was fading as I shouldered my pack and made my way to the Green Lion. It seemed a decent enough place, with less grease and soot than most Leiran inns. A wide, flyspecked window looked out on the docks. I told the innkeeper that I was a widow, hoping to catch a skiff going south so I could return to my family in Deshiva.

“We've lost ten local boys to the war already this year,” confided the stout, bearded proprietor, who introduced himself as Bartolome. “No one can hardly work the land no more, for lack of hands to hold the plows. More widows like you than children. Don't know who they'll take next for soldiering. I've a hope they're not desperate enough for fat innkeepers!” His thick, hairy fingers traded a mug of ale for a copper coin, even as he talked. Fat or no, I had the sense that he would not even need to see the coin to know whether or not it was genuine. “Shall my wife send supper up to your room? Ladies often prefer it when traveling alone.”

“No, I think I'll sit in your common room. I've been alone too much and could use the sight of people.”

“As you wish. Becky there will see to you.” He waved at a barmaid and was soon deep in conversation with another customer.

Fifteen to twenty people sat in the smoky room: some lone travelers eating soup ladled from the common pot, a few laborers and tradesmen finishing the day with a tankard of the Green Lion's ale, and a prosperous-looking couple with two small, neat children in stiff collars, casting surreptitious glances at the other guests. No one fit my quarry's description.

I settled myself at a small table in the dimmest corner of the room, where I would be able to see anyone who came in the door or down the stairs. The ruddy-faced barmaid brought me a bowl of hot broth, thick with barley and spiced with pepper. The inn was busy; customers flowed in and out like a noisy, thirsty tide. Laughter blared from tradesmen sharing a bawdy story, some tankards were spilled, causing tempers to erupt and two men to threaten fisticuffs. Bartolome shoved the drunkards out the door, and the prosperous-looking family fled up the stairs.

As the light outside the window dulled, a man descended the stairs. I almost laughed. Paulo's description had been so right. He didn't “fit.” He had the look of a Kerotean—dark, almond-shaped eyes, straight black hair, and close-trimmed beard sculpted to a point—and he was dressed in the flowing trousers and colorful, brocaded vest of the Kerotean aristocracy. But his skin was the color of dried oak leaves, not milk. More significantly, his head would only reach my shoulder, and there lived no Kerotean aristocrat so diminutive in size, not even the women, who averaged a full head taller than me. Kerotean nobles killed any of their children that were defective in any way, including those born undersized.

The fidgety little man whispered to the landlord, and when the portly Bartolome shook his head, took a seat at a table not too far from me. His dark eyes darted about the room, and I concentrated on my soup. When next I dared look up, the man was sipping from a tankard of ale. Another mistake. Keroteans drank no ale or spirits of any kind. I had thought to observe the man for a day or two, perhaps question the landlord and servants about him, but my plan suddenly seemed foolish. Paulo and I could wrestle this fellow into submission if he gave any trouble.

But before I could make a move, everything fell apart. The stranger's head jerked up and his eyes grew wide. My gaze followed his. Coming down the stairs were three robed priests, two in gray and one in black. When I glanced back at the table beside mine, it was empty, its occupant already halfway out the front door of the tavern. Judging by his wide-eyed terror, he wasn't coming back.

To be this close . . . I could not lose him. Jumping up from the table, I dodged tables and benches, patrons and barmaids to follow the hurrying man. But when I pulled open the door, ready to dash into the night, I stood face to face with Graeme Rowan, Sheriff of Dunfarrie.

“Are you sure you won't go with us, little girl? Don't like to leave you here alone.”

“I won't starve, Jonah. Anne's left me more than I could eat in the space of a week. I won't set the house afire or ruin your garden or break anything. And the weather's fine, so I won't freeze, even if I can't get a fire going.”

“You'll learn the touch of flint, little girl,” said Anne as her dry kiss brushed my cheek. “Just as you've learned so much already.” She climbed up to the wagon seat. “You know the way down village if aught frights you. Jacopo will take you in.”

Five months with the old couple had taught me one thing for certain: No one had ever been so inept, so useless, as I. Fires were lit by servants, not coaxed grudging from bits of metal and chaff. Food was brought on trays from warm kitchens, not grubbed from the dirt with raw and bleeding hands. I had only played at gardening. I knew nothing of rocky soil, wire-like weeds, or cartloads of stinking manure hauled from the pigsties in the village to feed the impoverished earth. Clothes were always clean and never had to be mended in candlelight with dull needles that tormented raw fingers. And there was always plenty to eat, even in spring when winter stores were depleted, so your stomach never gnawed at you until you were ready to eat sticks and weeds. Indeed I had learned a great deal in five months. Now it was time for me to learn to be alone.

“Be safe,” I said and got on with my lesson.

Just past dawn on the third morning after Anne and Jonah's departure, I lay abed, deciding whether a hot breakfast was worth the hour's struggle with the fire, when I heard a hail from outside the door. “Jonah? Are you in?”

No one but Jacopo had visited the cottage since I'd come to live there, and the unusual stillness had the power to unnerve me. I pulled up the rag quilt and prayed the visitor would go away.

“Goodwife Anne? A word, if you would. And I've brought some oranges from Jaco. Washed up from the barge that wrecked upriver last week.”

I shoved back the quilt with a silent curse. If the man was a friend of Anne and Jonah, it wasn't right to refuse him their hospitality. Hurriedly I pulled on the ill-fitting black dress Anne had given me, smoothed my ragged hair, and opened the door.

The man holding a splintered crate on his shoulder had sand-colored hair and green eyes and looked to be a few years older than me, perhaps as much as thirty. His face was serious, with regular features, a broad forehead, and the network of thin lines at the corners of his eyes that came from spending long hours in the sun. Unremarkable in height, dress, or manner. A ragged scar creased one side of his face from cheekbone to unshaven jaw.

He set the crate on the bench by the door. A dark blue jacket lay crumpled on the top of it, likely shed on the warm journey up the path. “Good morrow, miss.” He did not seem surprised to see me. “I've come to speak with Jonah if I may. Or Goodwife Anne.”

“They've gone to Montevial and won't return for several days more.” Surely he would go now. “May I offer you ale or tea? I'm sure they'd wish it.”

“Ale, then, and I'd thank you for it. The day's gone warm already.” He retrieved the jacket, straightened it a bit, and flopped it over one shoulder.

I snatched a mug from the shelf, filled it from Jonah's little barrel, and shoved it into the man's hand, remaining standing in the doorway lest he decide to stay a while.

He raised the mug slightly and nodded as if answering a question I'd not heard. “I'd be Graeme Rowan from Dunfarrie.” I couldn't remember any mention of that name, but his provincial inflections were much thicker than Jonah's or Anne's, so I couldn't be sure. He downed the ale quickly, but, to my distress, seemed in no hurry to go. “Perhaps I ought tell you why I'm here,” he said, propping one foot on the bench beside the sand-crusted crate. The rotting, fishy scent of river-wrack overpowered any smell from the battered green and yellow fruits. “Aye, it's probably better I speak with you.”

I didn't like the way he looked at me so intently, his expression revealing so little. And his slow speech, as if he weren't quite sure he wanted to say anything, left my jaw tight with impatience.

“I've heard Anne and Jonah had a visitor these few months. Some in the village say it's their granddaughter Jenny, come home after so many years lost.” The moment stretched. His gaze picked at my face. “Last night, three men come to the village. They're the sort who look as if they'll burn their shoes when they leave your town and think no one in a place the size of Dunfarrie can understand words of more than one syllable.”

The long pauses and his unreadable expression goaded me to speak. “And what did these men want?” The planed edge of the doorframe dug into my back.

“They were looking for someone, someone they badly want to find, though they vow they wish her no harm. Told me only that the one they hunted ran away from her family five months ago, that she's five-and-twenty, tall for a woman, and has brown eyes and red-brown hair, cut shorter than the usual. They claim it be a matter of law. The time was the same as when Jonah and Anne came back from Montevial in the spring, so I thought to come up and ask what knowledge they might have of the question.”

As if an executioner's hood had been dropped over my head, the brightness went out of the day. “What did you tell these men?” My voice came out no more than a whisper.

His gaze did not waver. “Naught as yet. But they didn't know who I was. They'll find that out this morning.”

“And who are you?”