The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (43 page)

* * *

Hayden’s directions led Lanokas and Kora to an inn surprisingly clean for all its dreariness. The floor, though swept, had grown dingy through the years. The lamps in the main room had glass shades opaque enough to dim the greater part of their light. The bar and furniture were as plain as could be.

The two arrived early in the evening by design, before Hayden or other gamblers, and found only a handful of patrons, all humbly dressed and minding their own business. “Not exactly a fine establishment, is it?” whispered Lanokas.

“What did you expect?” said Kora. The prince led her to one of the smaller tables near the kitchen, where the sizzle and smell of roasting meat made Kora’s mouth water, though she had eaten a mere hour before. Four middle-aged men sat fairly close-by, with various jugs of ale and unfocused eyes. Lanokas watched them for a moment.

“I’ve never had ale,” he said.

Kora’s eyes grew wide. “Not once? Not one glass?”

“Remember where I come from.”

“You’ve been gone three years. In the last three years you haven’t tried a brew?”

“Don’t tell Ranler, he already thinks I’m soft. But no. Preferring wine’s the one thing I’ve held onto, the one habit I didn’t change, my connection with the old days.”

Kora folded her arms on the tabletop. “You’re having ale tonight. Forget the wine, ale’s cheaper anyway.”

Lanokas copied her gesture, raising an eyebrow. He said, “I’m not having ale alone.”

“Fine. I’m not a huge ale drinker, but fine.”

As if on cue, a short man in his sixties bustled out of the kitchen with two frothy mugs for two men on the other side of the room.  He adjusted his grip and asked Lanokas what he wanted.

“A pint,” he said.

“And for the lady? Water or wine?”

“The same,” said Lanokas. The innkeeper sent Kora a disapproving stare, but Lanokas slipped him some copper coins, at which point he saw fit to serve his other patrons. Kora spoke low, self-consciously.

“I’m the only woman in here.”

“You shouldn’t be for long,” said Lanokas.

“That creep won’t take his eyes off me.”

One of the inebriated foursome was indeed having trouble focusing on any other landmark. Not that anything else in the inn was worth looking at. Lanokas cleared his throat; the stranger turned back to his own table. Soon after, the innkeeper returned with two more mugs of ale and set them both before Lanokas, ignoring Kora.

“I guess women don’t drink ale much in Fontferry.”

“Do they in Hogarane?” asked Lanokas.

“I wouldn’t call it common. But it’s not stigmatized. The last time I had ale was Sedder’s birthday, we went to the local tavern with a group of our friends…. My God, they won’t have heard. I don’t see how they could have, about what happened.”

Lanokas slid Kora her mug and raised the other. “To Sedder,” he said. “And Kansten.”

“And Bennie and Zac,” whispered Kora. They each took a sip. The brew was mediocre.

Lanokas said, “Sedder had character, and a solid head on his shoulders. He’d be a tremendous asset if we had him still.”

“It’s interesting you say that. I get the impression he’s not missed, or at least not remembered. No one mentions him.”

“Has anyone mentioned Kansten these last few days?” he asked.

“You did.”

“I did once. Do you think that means no one’s grieving?”

“Of course not.”

“There you are. We see….” Lanokas glanced around. “We see a lot of people come and go, especially those of us who have been around since the beginning. It may sound heartless, but if we let ourselves feel each absence we’d disintegrate so fast….”

“I know,” said Kora. “Please, we’re away from all of that. Let’s talk about something else, anything else.”

“All right,” said Lanokas. “I was thinking earlier that I know shockingly little about you. The little things, I mean. A reliable source says your father was a reader. And I know you pushed your brother to pick up books. So what’s your favorite?”

“That’s easy,” said Kora. “It’s not a book exactly, it’s a children’s story. A kind of fairy tale, except there are no ogres or witches or pixies. I used to beg my father to tell it when he tucked me into bed. At least once a week I’d ask. I’m sure he got fed up with me, but he never protested. He was always enthusiastic telling it.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s about a boy. An orphan, seven or eight, who was walking through the woods one afternoon and got lost.”

“Wait just a minute,” said Lanokas. “What’s an orphan doing in the woods?”

“I don’t know,” said Kora. “He’s just there. That’s how it starts.”

“If this story’s to make any sense, I have to know how this child found himself tromping through the deep dark forest.”

“I said nothing about darkness. Yet.” Kora put a hand on her hip.

“So why is he there?”

“He stole money from a woman in the village, and some soldiers chased him to the woods. Does that explain it?”

“It’ll suffice, yes.”

“Good. So this child is in the woods.”

“He’s lost,” said Lanokas.

“Eventually darkness falls.”

“So the dark
is
involved.”

“Will you let me tell the story?”

“I apologize.”

“It grew dark. The child was afraid and looked to the sky. He prayed to the Giver, ‘Let someone find me. Don’t leave me here alone. Let someone find me before trouble does.’ The woods are full of dangerous animals, you see. Animals that come out at night.”

Lanokas nodded. “Everyone knows that.”

“Well, the boy, feeling somewhat safer after his prayer but not really, sat down at the foot of the biggest tree he saw to wait for someone to come and lead him to safety. The night wasn’t as dark as it could have been, because the moon was full and the sky was cloudless, and some light broke through the trees. The orphan sat faithfully, repeating his prayer for hours: ‘Let someone find me before trouble does.’ But then he saw, in the branches of a tree, two glowing circles. Panther eyes.

“He ran. He ran as fast as he could without looking back, without stopping, without any idea where he was going. He thought any moment the panther would pounce on him.”

“But it didn’t.”

“It wasn’t hungry. The boy only stopped when he was about to collapse. He dared to glance over his shoulder, but everything looked black. No glowing eyes. He was deeper in the heart of the woods than before, and it was darker, the undergrowth thicker. His clothes were in tatters where they’d caught the bushes, and thorns had scratched his legs. He went to another tree, thinking that now he’d never be found, and jumped back. He’d nearly sat on the coils of a python, a great python. He kept walking, tears in his eyes. It seemed like every place he tried to stop there was a snake, or a nest of scorpions, or of spiders. He just kept walking. And then something grabbed him around the ankle and threw him to the ground, dragging him a foot or so before it hoisted him in the air. Hanging upside down, he heard men shouting, ‘We got one! We got a panther!’ and the boy screamed, ‘Please don’t hurt me!’

“When the hunters realized their trap had caught a boy, they let him out. One man put his cloak around him because he was shivering. They asked what he was doing in the forest, and he told them about waiting and about his prayer, about the panther and the snakes and the spiders. They gave him a sip of wine to calm him and something to eat, and told him they’d come to hunt panthers because the cats were starting to venture into the town on the other side of the woods. The men had been at work for three weeks and were leaving for home in the morning, back to their town sixty miles from the orphan’s village. They said no one was allowed in the woods without the king’s permission, and it might have been months before he sent someone else into its heart. They took the boy with them, and when they reached the town the kindest one, whose wife was barren, took him in and raised him as his own.”

Allowing an appropriate few seconds of dramatic silence to avoid spoiling the ending, Lanokas said, “It’s a sweet
story. I hadn’t heard it before. I liked it.”

“The first time I heard it, I couldn’t have been more than five. I thought it was an adventure story. I remember, I clung to my father’s arm and cried when he mentioned the python. I would cry every time he got to that part. The boy was a, a kind of friend to me. I felt so sorry for him. I’d imagine Sedder in his place, very easily, because Sedder never knew his birth parents. It didn’t help that I was terrified of snakes and still am, snakes and heights.

“One of the reasons I liked the tale so much is that each time I heard it, I understood it a little more. I discovered it had something to teach me. It was a brand new story, but at the same time it wasn’t, and I came to trust that the boy would find the hunters and make it to the town, and the Giver would answer his prayers and grant him a family like mine. I pictured him with a dog, a mutt the size of a beagle. I loved dogs. My parents never let me have one.”

“I like hunting dogs,” said Lanokas. “They aren’t needy.”

“Did you read as a child?” Kora asked. “Apart from your lessons?”

“When Neslan would give me a book. He had a knack for guessing what would interest me.” Kora’s back was to the door, but she heard it open. “There he is,” said Lanokas.

“Neslan?”

“Hayden. Don’t turn around.”

“I wasn’t planning to. What’s he doing?”

“Waiting for someone to deal the next hand.”

“Someone’s playing?”

“Cradle—behind you, to the left. They started up while you were talking. Some came from upstairs, two from outside.”

“I missed that completely,” said Kora. She took a sip of ale to look natural.

The gamblers dealt in Hayden at the end of the hand. Lanokas kept an eye on the game while he and Kora talked. He told her he had never been interested in archery, mainly because his brother was fond of it and a decent shot: not as good as Bidd or Hayden, but decent enough. He himself took more to swordplay, to be different.

“What do you miss most about the old days?” Kora asked him.

“My piano. My father was a lot like my brother, you see, or my brother takes after my father. I respected the man, sincerely, but I vented a lot of frustration through the piano. Pieces with fast tempos. It’s been so long I doubt I could play a thing these days. You?”

Kora told him, “I miss the smell of home. My mother used to bake in the afternoons, just about the hour I’d get back from the schoolhouse. Her bread…. The best bread you’ll find anywhere, I’d bet more on that than Laskenay gave Hayden. You never had a loaf to compare.”

“I believe you.”

“No you don’t. But that’s all right. I’d step inside, and smell the dough, and just know that I was safe, that everything was as it should be. That was before. She had to spend more time weaving after Zalski. Both of us did, to have cloth enough to sell to keep up with taxes. She was faster, a real artist at the loom, so I baked. The smell wasn’t as comforting after that, but it kept my spirits up.” She paused. “How’s Hayden doing?”

“He threw out a pair of aces.” That meant a penalty of just one; it was one of the best moves in the game. “Now he’s won a big hand. An enormous hand. My God, he must have bet everything.”

“Someone at that table must not be happy.”

“No indeed. The man he beat…. Kora, he’s got his hand at his waist. A dagger.”

Kora felt powerless to act without her magic, but only for a moment. Should she trip the man with a spell? Would he suspect the cause?

Lanokas was about to jump up when she shook her head at him, her lips taut. “Lean in,” she whispered. “Lean in and take my hands.”

Lanokas held her hands on top the table, and Kora sprang to her feet. Her chair grated against the floor as she stepped away from the prince. “Marry you? You ask me to marry you in a dump like this? What kind of girl do you think I am?” Her mug was still a quarter full, and she sloshed its contents over Lanokas’s face. “You bring me
here
to
propose
?”

Every eye in the inn was fixed on her. The gamblers stopped in the middle of dealing cards. Kora turned to them: in addition to Hayden, there were four men and a prostitute more or less Laskenay’s age. One of the men, a dirt-streaked field laborer, had a hold on a dagger hilt just as Lanokas said. He let it go as Kora walked up.

“Would you propose to a woman in this place? Don’t I look like I deserve more respect?”

“Honey, I’d propose anything you want me to wherever you want.” Kora patted his cheek before glowering at Lanokas. Whether or not the prince faked his shocked insult, the reaction made Kora’s display more believable; she noticed Hayden’s winnings with a jolt.

“You have the means to treat a lady right. What do you say we leave the pig I came with in his sty and go somewhere with class? Somewhere we can get to know each other?”

Hayden’s confusion was perceptible for the merest instant. Then a pleased expression, strong without exaggeration, spread across his face. With a visible confidence he gathered up his money. “Go,” growled the laborer. He jabbed his dagger in the air; one of his companions took it from him. “Go. I hope she steals it all and leaves you diseased.”