The Rebellion (13 page)

Only the plague-scarred Oria continued her scrutiny. I entered her mind and discovered she believed me to be a spy left by Domick to garner information. It was clear this disturbed her, but I did not trouble to delve deeper to learn why. I merely grafted into her thoughts a memory of having seen me before with different men at different inns and of having observed enough of my behavior to judge me defective.

Her disquiet faded, and she dismissed me from her mind. Turning to the old man, her brow creased with exasperation. “You are a fool with a mouth big enough to lose yourself in, Col. Don’t you know who that was?”

He shrugged. “Some official or other. What do I care who he is? I’ve seen him here before.”

“And that makes him safe?” she hissed. “He works for the Councilcourt.”

“He sweeps the floor an’ runs messages,” said the highlander, Ruga, from down the table. “I heard him say so once.”

Oria sneered at him openly. “Of course he would say that.”

The old man frowned. “Well, what does he do, then? Is he a spy?”

I felt myself start, but no one noticed. The blonde leaned
across the table and lowered her voice. “You heard what happened to Jomas?”

Col merely nodded, so I was forced to read the memory evoked by the woman’s question directly from his thoughts.

Aman called Jomas had spoken out against a Councilman, claiming the official had charged his father with sedition in order to obtain his farm. Jomas had been arrested and charged with sedition the very next night and was tortured so savagely that he had never walked again.

“So what? Everyone knows they torture seditioners,” Col said.

Oria looked around before speaking. “Neither Jomas nor his father were seditioners and well you know it. But the point of the story is that Mika was here when Jomas was mouthing off about that Councilman.”

Col snorted. “And for that you’d have me fear him? This place is full of folk who’d sell their mother for the price of a mug. Anyone could have reported Jomas’s mouthings.”

“I went to see Jomas when he recovered,” Oria said fiercely. “He told me he was there when they tortured him.”

“He?” the oldster echoed, confused.

“He,” Oria repeated. “Mika.” She lowered her voice. “He is a torturer.”

I was so shocked that my probe faltered in its hold on the group.

“We should not talk of such matters,” Kerry said, his tone suddenly anxious. “People who talk too much have a way of disappearing into the interrogation rooms beneath the Councilcourt.”

“Sometimes elsewhere,” Oria added darkly as I regained control.

I could barely follow the turn in conversation as someone else asked if there were truly prospects for war in Sador.

“That’s not why they’re recruitin’,” retorted Ruga. “They want more soldierguards because of them rebels with Henry Druid gettin’ too big for their boots.”

“Henry Druid is dead,” Oria interrupted. “He died in a firestorm in the highlands. The rebels they’re after now are those led by Brydda Llewellyn.”

“Not Brydda. Bodera,” Kerry said.

“What does it matter who leads them?” sneered Col, glaring into his mug. “I hope there
is
a war, whether it is with them demonish-looking Sadorians or the rebels, and they all kill one another.”

The table fell silent again as Domick reappeared bearing a small jug.

“I don’t know how you drink that mucky syrup,” Oria said brightly. “But if you ordered it more often, old Filo would keep some for you instead of your having to wait while he sends out.”

The coercer made no comment. He drank with every evidence of enjoyment, then set the mug down and looked around the table.

“You should be careful of loose talk,” he said casually. There was something in his voice that brought everyone in the immediate vicinity to silence.

“There are those who are not what they seem,” he went on in a sinister tone. My heart began to thump.
Now
what was he doing?

“Take that man.” He pointed to a drunkard at the nearest table, staring about owlishly. “He seems no more than a sot. But is he really? Perhaps he is something more than he seems.
Perhaps he has drunk less than he makes out and flaps his ears for seditious talk.”

Oria laughed uneasily. “You jest.”

Domick smiled and sipped at his golden mead.

Suddenly the oldster beside me slammed his fist down. “I’ll not pretend! I am no seditioner to sit here cowering. You think we don’t know what you are?”

The room fell silent, and all attention was on Domick, waiting to see what he would do.

“And what am I?” he asked in a soft, dangerous voice.

“I’ve a right to speak,” Col blustered, the silence penetrating at last.

Domick sipped the last of his drink; then he dabbed fastidiously at the edges of his mouth with a handkerchief. “You should use your tongue for less dangerous talk, old man,” he said at last. “Fortunately for you, I sweep, I write letters, and sometimes I deliver them. That is all I do. Anyone who would say otherwise … should think twice.”

He rose, pulling me up with him. I kept my head down, trying to look moronish and insignificant. Domick nodded languidly to Kerry and Oria. “Perhaps, when next I come, the company will be better.”

Kerry smiled stiffly and bade us walk safe.

Outside, I pulled on my cloak with suppressed fury. “Are you crazy? There is not a person in there who will forget your face or mine after that little display. And how is it so many people know you work for the Council? Is this some brilliant new strategy based on telling your business to every stranger you meet?”

Domick was looking out into the night, his face empty of expression. “A Council employee is often investigated in the
interests of security. If I had no life to investigate, I would be instantly suspect. I must have a background to fit my role, and those people are part of it.”

“You might have warned me,” I snapped. “What if I hadn’t been able to improvise?”

“Guildmistress of the farseekers, veteran of hundreds of daring and brilliant rescues unable to improvise?” he demanded dryly. “Yet I would have warned you, had I expected them to be there.”

“Perhaps they deliberately came tonight to avoid you,” I snapped.

He shrugged. “That is likely true. They have no love for me. Why are you so angry? I would have warned you if I could, but once inside, it was too late.”

I opened my mouth to deny anger, then realized he was right. My temper had risen from fear.

“That was unnecessarily dangerous,” I said, forcing myself to be calm. “You deliberately frightened them. Why?”

Domick’s eyes were like the holes of the Blacklands as he stepped out into the night. “The people back there are not bad folk. They are just poor and ignorant. They speak too freely of matters better left unsaid. I am trying to teach them to keep their mouths shut.”

“And what if there had been trouble in there? What would Mika have done? Would his job protect him if someone decided to take offense to his bullying?”

“You don’t seem to grasp what it means to be employed by the Council,” Domick said softly. “There is little it would not protect me against.”

I snorted in disbelief. “Only those high up in Council employ warrant that sort of protection. Not a sweeper of floors.”

“You think that after so many seasons of faithful service
the Council would not reward a loyal worker?” Domick asked quietly.

A chill crept along my veins. “You mean …”

He laughed hollowly. “Let us say that it has been some time since I have swept a floor in the Councilcourt, Elspeth.”

I licked my lips. “The people back there believe that you are a torturer. Why didn’t you coerce them against believing such a rumor? It can’t help you to spy. What possible advantage could it give you to let them think it?”

“The protection and power wrought by fear,” Domick said. “But even if the rumor had served no purpose, I cannot stop it. I could not coerce everyone to disbelieve a rumor that is so universal.”

“This … this rumor that you are a torturer … how did such a thing begin?”

He did not answer, and my heart began to beat unevenly. “Domick, what is it you do at the Council now?”

“I am not a torturer,” he said at last in a grim voice. Then his eyes went over my shoulder. I turned to see a hooded figure standing in the rain.

“Look, there is our man,” Domick said. “Brydda has sent him to collect us.”

10

I
DRIS BOWED, HIS
round face lit by the sunny smile that I remembered from my last journey to the coast. “It is good to see you again, Elspeth.”

The young rebel had appeared outside The Good Egg wrapped up in a cloak and gestured for us to follow. It was not until we reached a small dark hovel, a few streets away from the inn, that he had drawn back the hood of his coat to greet us.

“What is this place?” I asked as the blond rebel turned to the door of the hovel. It seemed to be nothing more than an abandoned husk and was surely far too small to be useful as a safe house.

“It is just a house,” Idris said, forcing the sagging door open and ushering us before him. Inside the front hall, it was dark, and we stood in silence as he found and lit a lantern. The hall was empty, its walls scored black from fire. Idris removed his cloak and carefully hung it on a wall peg. Following suit, I remembered that he had always been meticulous and slightly plodding.

He brought us through empty, musty rooms to the back of the place, saying, “There are any number of houses standing vacant since the plagues.” He pointed to an outbuilding’s door, under which a slice of light showed. “They have proven very useful to us as temporary residences.”

“Don’t people wonder at seeing lamps in abandoned houses?”

Idris shrugged. “No doubt, but it does not matter. We rarely spend more than a few days in any one. This is the last night we will spend here.” He pushed open the door.

The room behind it was a complete contrast to the great, warm homelike place Brydda had used as a headquarters in Aborium. It was bare but for a number of rough stools and chairs drawn around a little fire, a table piled with scrolls and maps, and a small supply of firewood stacked up on the floor. It was clearly hastily assembled, and no attempt had been made to render it comfortable. The room was dimly lit by a single guttering candle stuck in a mug on the table and by the warmer glow of the fire. Black cloth had been tacked over the only window, but as soon as we entered, Idris extinguished the brighter lantern he carried, the gesture belying his unconcern about being seen.

“Where is Brydda?” I asked.

In answer, the large-backed chair directly before the fire swiveled to reveal the big rebel holding a knife.

“Little sad eyes,” he said in his rumbling voice.

Watching him sheath the knife and rise, I thought the old nickname suited him better than it had ever suited me. The rebel leader seemed more hugely bearlike than ever, his hair falling almost to his shoulders in a great shaggy pelt of midnight curls. Yet there was a tinge of silver amidst the darker hair at his temples and in his beard, and fine lines about his eyes that I did not remember. The unsheathed knife told its own story. This life was taking its toll on him, as Domick had said. Brydda was like a lamp, with the flame burning dangerously low.

He gathered me into the affectionate ursine hug I remembered so well. That at least was unchanged, and my heart swelled with a gladness that startled me and made me feel absurdly like bursting into tears.

I watched as he greeted Domick with warmth and was interested to see that, for a moment, even the coercer lost some of his icy reserve.

“Let me give you both something to eat.” Brydda gestured to the fire where a battered pot hung. “It is only a broth, I am afraid. These days we do not have the time or leisure to feast.” The note of regret in his voice was palpable.

“I will do it,” Idris said, pushing Brydda’s hand aside and lifting the pot from the hook. He opened the lid and a delicious odor wafted out. My stomach, ever ready to herald its state, growled loudly.

Brydda burst out laughing.

“I have not eaten for ages,” I defended myself. “I do not feel so hungry when I am traveling, and we have just arrived.”