The Inquisitives [1] Bound by Iron (28 page)

“I meant ‘great’ as in vast and powerful, because this state of being free impacts the entirety of my future existence and requires that I attend to my preservation and restoration in a way that I had not previously been required to do.”

Minrah rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Four.”

In the morning they found an artificer who was able to work on repairing Four. Cimozjen’s coin was running a bit low, but the artificer agreed to work in exchange for a promissory note from Cimozjen, drawn against the coffers of the Karrnath Temple of the Oathbound and redeemable from the moneylenders of House Kundarak. Granted, the artificer appended his usual bill with a hefty “runner’s fee,” but Minrah was nonetheless amazed that someone could garner such valuable services based solely on upon his word. Or, as she put it, “I’m going to have to try that trick.”

The artificer expected the work on Four to require the better part of the day, so Cimozjen and Minrah thought it would be a good opportunity for them to go enquire after the Valleau household and see what they might find out with respect to Torval’s shoes.

They chanced upon a greengrocer’s cart heading out the Galifar Gate to the local farmsteads. It was empty of anything save hay, which the driver had loaded to cushion the more fragile of the produce he intended to buy. With a kind word and a dazzling smile from Minrah, they managed to hitch a ride.

The autumn morning was very crisp and bright. Cimozjen and Minrah sat facing the rear of the wagon, away from the morning sun. The last of the hoarfrost evaporated from the fields around them, coiling wisps of mist demarking the end of its existence. Minrah huddled close to Cimozjen for warmth, and he spread his arm and cloak over her like a protective eagle. The sunshine on Cimozjen’s back was warm, but not enough to overcome the chill in the air, and as a result, Minrah kept herself pressed as close against him as possible. At such an intimate distance, the smell of her hair warred with the metallic bite of the nippy fall air, and eventually won.

For a long, quiet time, there was nothing but the rolling of the wheels across the flagstone road and the occasional nicker of the horse, who seemed ill-pleased to be walking into the rising sun. For his part, Cimozjen felt some measure of peace. The trip brought back memories of time spent with his wife decades earlier,
when they were both young farmers in the awkward courtship of early adulthood. For a few moments he found himself feeling young again, with an attractive young maiden at his side and a vaguely idyllic future in store, the disorienting love of heady youth stirring within him …

Then the whole illusion came crashing down. The woman beside him was hardly a maiden, and her interest in him far lower than the lofty goals of the young Karrn lass of so many years before. Their marriage had been long since consummated, years before the shifting fortunes of the Last War had torn him from his family, his country, and his king. Their promising life together had been destroyed, overrun with slaughter, shame, imprisonment, and the obliteration of an entire nation. He wondered if he would ever see his wife again, if such a thing were even possible anymore.

His conscience told him to loosen his embrace of Minrah, release his grip on her vibrant, feminine, youthful presence … and her hold on him. Yet he was traveling to find the man who’d made the shoes in which a good and noble friend had been murdered as a slave, and he appreciated the company. Any company. Especially hers, so unlike anything else he had known since he last saw his wife, though a part of her charisma was the knowledge of how compliant she would be.

His heart knew he should pull away the protective embrace of his arm, but his brain argued against such a measure by using the protective codes of chivalry—he could hardly delight in making the young girl cold this morning—to keep himself in an embrace too intimate for a married man and a young lass who worried his oaths like a terrier with a bone.

Somehow it never crossed his mind that he should just loan her his cloak.

An hour before midday, they passed through the wooden gate and entered the Valleau fields. Cimozjen paced his steps with his
pole, and Minrah had one arm slipped through his elbow.

“We’re here,” said Cimozjen as he shut and barred the wooden gate behind them.

“Let’s hope our luck holds,” said Minrah.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. Our being here is not the result of coincidence or chance. It was divine intervention.”

“Listen, Cimmer, even if the gods were of a mind to tinker with insignificant gnats like us—which they’re not—there’s no way you could say that for sure.”

“Yes, I can and I do. That was undeniably the effect of their influence. It’s an indisputable fact.”

“Indisputable?” asked Minrah, crossing her arms. “Then prove it to me.”

“You did not notice the beggar’s shoes,” said Cimozjen. “I did. Noticing them was the reward of the Sovereign Host for my devotion. In appreciation for my lifetime of devotion, the Host trained me to have the generosity to give to the needy, the humility to kneel beside them, and the compassion to look after their condition.”

“There. You just said you noticed the shoes yourself, because of your habits.”

“Habits given me by the holy teachings of the Sovereign Host. Intervention gets no more divine than that.”

“You’re annoying,” said Minrah.

They found the elder Valleau behind his farmhouse, whetting a cleaver while sitting against the bole of an old apple tree. A large decapitated pig hung by its rear legs from a tree branch, blood draining into a bucket that sat next to its vacant head. Minrah averted her eyes, then opted to wait on the other side of the house while Cimozjen questioned him.

“Good morning, fellow farmer,” said Cimozjen as he approached. “I hope I am not disturbing anything.”

Valleau looked up from his blade. “You don’t look like one,” he said.

“Pardon me?”

“You don’t look like a farmer.”

Cimozjen nodded ruefully. “Thirty years of military service will do that to a person. But I grew up on a farm not unlike this one. My father raised goats—fur, cheese, and meat. They’re much hardier than cattle.”

“And you sound like a Karrn.”

“I am. My father’s farm was near Vurgenslye, no more than two bow shots from the banks of the Cyre River.”

“Then you can leave,” Valleau said.

“Farmer Valleau, I came to ask a simple question regarding your second son’s handiwork, if you’ll allow me.”

The farmer spat. “I don’t.”

“And to pay you for your answers, if that is the only way I can merit your attention.”

The farmer said nothing, which Cimozjen took as encouraging. He pulled out the shoe from his haversack, kneeled a respectful distance away from Valleau, and extended his arm, holding the shoe. “Do I understand that this design here is your son’s mark?”

The farmer looked at Cimozjen’s extended hand, so he withdrew it, pinned a sovereign under his thumb where it held the shoe, and extended it again.

Seeing the flash of silver, one of the farmer’s eyebrows rose. He reached out, took the shoe and the coin, and tested the silver with his teeth. Satisfied, he tucked the coin inside his wide leather belt, then he turned the shoe over in his hands. “This is his mark,” he said with a nod.

“That’s nice work,” said Cimozjen. “A very sturdy shoe, yet I should imagine it to be fairly affordable, since it is simple of construction and plain of decoration.”

The farmer shrugged.

“I was hoping that you could tell me what sort of people purchase shoes like this,” Cimozjen said.

“Why, did you lose your other one?”

“It belonged to a friend of mine,” said Cimozjen.

“No surprise,” said the farmer. “The Custodians needed shoes for the prisoners. So I had my boy make them.”

“So who buys these shoes now?”

The farmer shrugged. “We stopped making them once the War ended,” he said. “No more need.”

“So all of these shoes your son made, you sold to the Custodians?”

“S’right.”

“But how did you handle that? The Custodians had groups all over the country, did they not?”

The farmer sighed deeply and glared at Cimozjen, making it clear that the interruption, silver or no, was taking too much of his time. “The Custodians had an overseer in Fairhaven, at the temples of the Cathedral of the Heavens. Friar Hannel by name. I brought them all there to him. What he did with them afterwards, I couldn’t give a pig’s eye.” He spat again, and resumed honing his cleaver.

Cimozjen withdrew and rose, then tossed another sovereign onto the ground beside Valleau. “I thank you for your time. You have been far more helpful than I could have hoped.”

The farmer nodded but didn’t look up.

Cimozjen left, idly wondering whether the farmer wanted to see his headless corpse dangling from his tree.

The Custodian
Zol, the 24th day of Sypheros, 998

T
he day was fine, so they ate a light lunch by the banks of the Aundair River before walking back to Fairhaven, and did not return to the city until the middle of the afternoon. They went straight-away to the artificer, to check up on his progress with rebuilding Four.

“I finished repairing him, yes,” said the artificer, “but as for how he is, well, you’ll have to answer that yourself.”

“What do you mean?” asked Minrah. “You haven’t … done something to him, have you?”

“I don’t think so,” said the artificer.

“Where is he?” demanded Cimozjen.

The artificer gestured with his thumb. “In the back room. He’s barricaded himself in.”

“Oh, good,” said Minrah.

“Good?” asked the artificer.

“Never mind,” said Minrah. “We’ll handle it. He’s had a rough life … or whatever you call what their kind has.”

The artificer directed them to the back of his house and pointed to a closed door. “He’s in there. It’s only maybe five feet
wide and eight deep, but he’s in there with his axe, and I can’t get him to come out.”

Minrah walked up to the door and knocked.

“Go away!” came Four’s voice, muffled behind the wood. “I am home!”

“Four, my fine ’forged friend, it’s me, Minrah.”

Silence, then, “You may come in.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Four, I’d rather you came out. Please?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to see you. And because if I come in, you might think I was breaking into your home to fight you. And if that happened, that would be bad for me.”

“That makes sense,” said Four. They heard shuffling noises, and after a moment the door opened. Slowly.

“Everything’s safe, Four, you can come out,” said Minrah. “Cimmer and I are both here.”

The warforged cautiously exited the small room.

“We’re sorry we left you behind,” said Minrah. “We won’t do it again.”

“That would be … good,” said Four.

“So, Four,” asked Cimozjen gently, “how do you feel?”

“With my hands.”

Minrah giggled, and asked, “Have you been fully repaired?”

Four nodded. “Everything is working normally.”

“Hmph,” said Cimozjen. “Puts you one up on me.”

“I am glad you two are back with me,” said Four.

“Come then,” said Minrah. “Let’s go.”

“Are we going back to the Dragon’s Flagons?” asked Four.

“No,” said Cimozjen. “I think I need to avoid that place for a while. We need to get to the Cathedral. Then we’ll go back to our lodgings and plan our next move.”