Son of Avonar (28 page)

“Where the trees take the road,” said the girl, pointing to the west.

I didn't quite catch her meaning, until I found the inn. It was the last structure in the town, and the forest did indeed appear to have swallowed whatever of the town or the road that had ever existed beyond it.

Leaving the horses with a ragged boy I found sleeping on a mound of hay beside the stable, I took a deep breath and walked into the inn. The common room was gloomy, lamps already lit despite the early hour. Five roughly dressed men sat at a large round table in the middle of the room, drinking ale and regaling each other with raucous commentary on a hunting trip gone awry. One of the hunters, a bear-like man with a red beard, whistled through his teeth, bobbed his head at me, and elbowed a sinewy youth beside him. Halting in midsentence, the youth looked me up and down, grinned wide enough to show a mouthful of stained teeth, and tipped his hat. The elbowing and crude politeness completed the circle of the table. I smiled back at them and dipped my head, from habit as much as anything. I had grown up around my father's soldiers. Rough manners often masked good hearts.

I sat at a table near the door and asked the proprietor for a cup of cider and a bowl of whatever he had simmering over his cookfire. He hovered near my table once he'd brought my refreshments, asking me three times if he could do anything for me. Women rarely traveled alone.

“I'm supposed to meet a party of friends here,” I said.

“My cousin, young Lord Elmont, with his friend, and his sisters. Two women and two men.”

“Got no party of that description, miss.” The man retreated a step at the mention of the unsavory local nobility.

“A messenger then? They'd send a messenger ahead if they were to be late. Are there any strangers about?”

“None save the two in the corner there. Shall I ask them if they're sent to you?”

I hadn't noticed the two men in the dim corner farthest from the fire. “No, certainly not.” I sniffed and wrinkled my nose. “I'm sure Lord Elmont would not have used any common messenger. I'll wait.”

“As you wish.”

I dawdled over my meal. A few local tradesmen came in. A thin, twitchy man in a many-colored coat ordered a mug of ale. The tradesmen called him Weaver and teased him for being away from his loom in the middle of the day. The thin man turned scarlet and said he was waiting for a cartload of wool due in at five. The hunting party grew louder in their cups. The two from the corner left. By this time I'd sat for two hours and began to feel conspicuous, so I left a coin for the proprietor and strolled into the yard. The sky above the trees was still ruddy with late afternoon, but in the premature darkness of the forest, the lamplighter was already flitting about like an oversized firefly.
It's not nightfall yet. Not yet.

I wandered back to the stables and explored a path that led around behind the ramshackle building and through the encroaching trees. As I approached the fence and the little gate where the path returned to the stableyard, I heard quiet voices.

“Don't look like aught's comin', Sheriff. P'raps you got a bum turn.”

Sheriff . . .
The word froze my steps.

“When the clock strikes, we'll have him. Lynch drives his route as regular as clockwork.” The dry chuckle held no mirth. “Remember you're only to hobble the beast, so he can do no harm until we have him properly restrained. Kill him and your own life is forfeit. Understood?”

“Aye. I've never seen one, you know. A priest told me they can set a man afire with their eyes.”

“He can do no harm if you're quick and do as I've told you. There's reward enough in this to pay well for any risk.”

Heart racing, I crept back along the stable wall until I could peer around the far corner of the stable into the yard. Like two great spiders, the strangers from the common room lurked in the shadowed niche where the tall wooden fence met the stable building. One of the men wore a broad-brimmed hat with a feather. The flaming sword blazoned on his cloak glared boldly in the failing light. The giant body of his companion slouched against the fence. That one's leather vest, worn over a long tunic and baggy trousers, along with his wide belt with a short sword dangling from one side and an iron bar from the other, named him a hireling thug of the sort one could find in the alleys of Montevial. He would have four more knives hidden in boot top or sleeve, and perhaps a vial of lye tucked in his sleeve. A soft cap was pulled low over his brow.

When the clock strikes . . . Lynch drives his route . . .
And the weaver was expecting a wool cart at five. I imagined I could hear the grinding of the gears in the clock tower. How long had it been since the last quarter struck? No time to plan.

Yanking the narrow brim of my hat lower to shade my face, I marched out of the trees toward the sleeping boy. “You lazy beggar, I'll have you flogged.”

The poor lad sat up, rubbing his eyes.

Calling to mind every tantrum of spoiled nobility I had ever witnessed, I stamped my foot and yelled. “Idiot boy! If I miss my reunion with Uncle Charles and Aunt Charlotte because of you, I'll personally remove your ears! My whole life is at stake—my inheritance, everything—and to have it ruined by a filthy stable beggar is insupportable.”

As the bewildered child shot jumped up and ran into the stable, I hurried across the yard to the two lurkers. “I commanded this lazy, insolent boy to have my horses ready so I can leave this dunghill before nightfall, but he's not even got them saddled. And my cousins have contracted for a reliable guide to lead me out of this pestilential forest. I suppose there's no possibility that either of you is my guide?”

“No possibility, madam,” said the cloaked man. His eye sockets were almost flat, his eyes protruding like those of a fish. His bulbous lips, protruding from a thicket of dark, wiry black beard, curled in disdain.

Several passersby stopped to see what was the disturbance. Good. I wanted a crowd. “Good fellows, I'm not an unreasonable woman. I'll pay you well. But I must insist—Ah, you, sir!”

The sallow-faced proprietor had stepped into the stableyard, looking annoyed.

“I must have an escort, hostler,” I said. “My party has not arrived, my cousin is laid up with the gout, and your fool of a stable boy is only now saddling my horses, though I've no one to ride with me.” I dragged the speechless proprietor into a position that would prevent the two lurking men from leaving their corner without walking over us. From the lane, a plodding horse's hooves clopped on the cobbles, and the wheels of a wagon creaked and slowed. I forced myself not to look. “Tell these two to escort me. If I don't get satisfaction at once, I shall remember the poor service I received in Threadinghall and at the Bronze Shield, in particular. You'll get no more trade from my family. . . .”

The jolly hunters from the common room had wandered out into the yard, as the proprietor scratched his head and questioned the stable lad who had just returned with my horses. The poor boy was likely more befuddled than ever, having remembered how I'd specifically instructed him
not
to unsaddle the pair when I'd arived.

The creaking wheels turned into the stableyard. The two strangers stiffened and shuffled their feet. Grabbing the reins from the boy, I maneuvered the horses to where they would block any view of the yard.

“Sirs, are you honorable men?” I said to the two. “Does your road take you north? I know I'm bold to ask it, and Aunt Charlotte will be horrified at the impropriety, but if you deliver me to my relations at Elmont Castle this night, you can demand a prince's ransom. I've an extra horse—”

“Get out of the way, woman, and your filthy beasts with you,” said the sheriff. “We've business with this wagon.”

“Curse you, black-hearted villain,” I shouted as loudly as I could, praying that Karon was listening. “What business with this wagon could possibly be more important than my inheritance?” I backed away from the men, keeping close enough to prevent any passage around my horses, and clapped my hand to my breast. “Why, I'll wager you plan to rob it! Help! Thieves! Driver! You on the wagon! These two plan to rob you. Beware!” My brother had always accused me of having the most piercing scream in the Four Realms.

Several bystanders closed in on the two angry men, who were now trying to force their way past me and the horses. The situation quickly degenerated into chaos. “A pox on you, whore!” With a bone-cracking grip, the fish-eyed sheriff shoved me backward into the horses. “I am a king's sheriff. Get out of my way.”

I pulled back just enough to make room for the hunting party who had crowded up behind me growling. The cornered pair tried to push their way out of the ring, but my rescuers had drunk enough ale to make their courage and honor invincible. The red-bearded storyteller quickly pinned the sheriff against the wall. As I slipped backward, the pushing and shoving gave way to serious fisticuffs. The crowd was large enough and confused enough and drunk enough that no one could tell who was who.

The proprietor was shouting at the combatants over the heads of the crowding observers, and I thought matters were well in hand. But as I led the horses away from the melee, the sheriff's thuggish companion dodged the flying fists and squeezed along the shadowed edge of the stable toward the yard, where the wagon had come to a halt under a spreading oak.

A dark figure dropped lightly from the back of the wagon. The thug crept up behind him, iron bar in one hand and a loop of heavy chain in the other.

Karon! Watch out!
No one was watching. Everyone was occupied with the brawl. Holy Annadis, he didn't see. . . .

I drew my knife. Ducking between the two horses, I called up every skill my father and his soldiers had taught me and let fly my weapon. With a harsh expulsion of air, the brute straightened and pitched forward into the dirt. Satisfyingly still.

Heart and stomach threatening to choke me, I dragged the horses toward the wagon and the newcomer, who had slipped behind the bole of the great oak.

“Please, madam”—I flinched and spun backward, but it was only the flustered proprietor who had popped up at my side—“forgive this misunderstanding. Allow me. . . .” He gestured toward the horses and offered his hand.

Taking a quick breath, I stiffened my chin and raised my foot purposefully. The proprietor quickly linked his hands and gave me a leg up. “Since my honest guide has not arrived to escort me, I suppose I must ride alone,” I said.

“So sorry, madam, but for me to leave the inn—”

“I am the guide hired for you, madam.” The figure in the hooded cloak stepped out from behind the tree and bowed, interrupting the innkeeper before he could grovel further. “My apologies for my tardiness.”

“Hold up there,” yelled the grizzled driver of the wagon, as he stood shading his eyes and peering into the noisy fracas. He waved his arm toward the corner, but the sheriff was fully occupied, and Karon was already on Karylis's back.

In moments, we were racing out of Threadinghall and down the forest road, back the way I had come earlier. The full moon lit our path with the brightness of day.

For an hour we rode without stopping and with no possibility of speech. When we emerged from the dense trees into the rolling moonlit meadows, Karon pointed to the right branch of an upcoming fork in the road. We thundered down the dusty track, winding through gentle hills until at last we came to a grove of willows bordering a wide stream. The water rippled merrily in the silver light.

We pulled up, and I slipped from the saddle straight into Karon's arms. I whispered into his neck, “I was so frightened for you.”

“I'm so sorry,” he said, stroking my hair and pressing me fiercely to his breast. “I had no idea. Never, never would I knowingly call you into such danger.” He was trembling.

I pulled away and laid a finger on his lips. “Judge on the merits of the deeds alone, not on what the circumstances of life have made of them. Have I got it right?”

“Yes. Of course you do.” He smiled weakly. “My chief counselor never forgets anything that can be used to refute a fool's premise.”

“Should we not ride on now? I can go farther, you know.”

“We should, but I can't. I have to rest for just a bit.” Karon's trembling was not just the released anxiety of the evening's events. His skin was hot and dry, a fever that had nothing to do with sorcery, and his rigid posture told me that sheer strength of will kept him upright.

“What have you done to yourself?” I asked, stroking his haggard face.

“Nothing that a year of sleep and a lifetime of you will not take care of. And to my great regret”—leaning on my arm, he sank to the spongy ground of the willow thicket—“a little of the sleep must come before anything else.” His eyes closed as he mumbled. “Just an hour, no more than two, then we must go. . . .” And while holding my hand as if it were his last connection to life, he was asleep.

For a long while I sat and watched him sleep, knowing full well that the night's events had changed my life forever. Karon had come a finger's breadth from capture. I had killed a man to protect him. Full of uncomfortable musings about what else we might have to do to keep him safe, I pulled his cloak around us both and fell asleep.

 

The moon hung like a huge yellow lantern low above the mountains in the west when I woke. Karon slept unmoving, his scarred left arm thrown over me. “Wake up,” I said, shaking his shoulder. “You said two hours, no more.”

He buried his face in my tunic and emitted a muffled groan. “But this feels so marvelously fine.”