Rahlizje spotted Taltaz and the man he’d called Mattheus—who still looked so much like Nina—still sitting at the table beside the dark, empty fireplace. They too had frothing tankards in front of them, the ale spilling into their bears, one black and wild, one white and thinning. The thief only had eyes for that ale as Nina led her toward her captor.
Taltaz looked up with his one eye at their approach, and his eyebrows twitched briefly in surprise. “That’s an improvement.”
“So is that,” Rahlizje muttered, staring at the tankard in his hand.
The merchant gave her another sweeping glance from top to bottom. Mattheus stroked his beard, then took a long draught of his own ale. “One.” Taltaz nodded at Nina before the old woman transferred the prisoner’s rope into his hand, and only when the she walked away did Rahlizje let herself meet her captor’s gaze.
“I don’t suppose it’s a strong one,” she said.
Mattheus snorted into his tankard.
“Believe me, thief,” Taltaz said, his voice low in his throat, as if he were about to share some baffling secret, “if there were anything stronger in this place, I’d be taking it all with me. Sit.”
Rahlizje eyed the merchant’s mostly full tankard one more time before she kicked out the chair behind her and sat at the next table over. The rope hung slack between them, falling to the floor with a soft whisper of woven hemp on dusty stone.
“It’s piss-poor swill is what it is.” The huge, muscular bald man stepped from behind the bar with two tankards in hand, his boots thumping across the room. The half-dozen young men at the bar lifted their drinks and shouted their agreement with his statement, if not their approval. The bald man smirked and stopped in front of Rahlizje’s table to set the tankard, dripping with foam, right in front of her. Then he sat with Taltaz and Mattheus beside the empty hearth. “Apparently, it’s enough to keep our labor at an affordable price.” He nodded toward the men at the bar.
“Only because we’d spend the extra coin on your swill, anyway.” The man who’d raised his comment from the bar also lifted his tankard toward the bald man, followed by a few hearty laughs from his fellows on the tall stools around him.
“You’re worth the swill,” the bald man retorted with a smirk. “Not the extra coin.”
Another round of laughter rose at that, and the younger employee slapped his hand down on the bar before draining the rest of his drink. “Looks like I need another, old man.”
“You can get it yourself, or you can wait. The old men are busy.” The bald man sat back in his chair, took a long drink from his own tankard, then rubbed a hand over his glistening, hairless pate. His eyes flickered toward the untouched tankard in front of Rahlizje, whose hands remained bound behind her back in what was now a torturous predicament, merely because she could not touch the ale. “That’s a fine way to treat a prisoner, Taltaz. Finer than any I’ve seen.”
The merchant of Gethlem squinted at Rahlizje. “We’ve had our moments. Might be we’ve come to an understanding.”
Rahlizje licked her lips, then looked up at her captor again. “No cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Is that it?”
The bald man snorted.
Taltaz grunted and leaned toward her in his chair. “Not if it’s unnecessary.” Then he grabbed the dripping tankard in front of her and brought it to her lips, sloshing a bit of it down onto the table and spattering against her new garments. Rahlizje sucked down the ale as quickly as she could in those few seconds before he lowered the tankard again and released it on the table. Most of it was foam, and she coughed once. “Looks like you’ve got about as much as you can handle.” Ignoring Rahlizje completely, the merchant nodded toward the half-dozen laborers sitting at the bar, who’d now begun their own round of bawdy conversation without their employer.
The bald man grunted and waved dismissively at the bar. “Those lads have been here for longer than I care to admit.” A round of chuckling rose from the table beside Rahlizje.
“We’re fortunate,” Mattheus added, stroking his white beard. “Some places around here are finding their help all taken away. Snatched up. All by smoke and children’s tales.”
The bald man eyed his friend with a sideways glance. “No one’s snatching anyone.”
“You can’t honestly tell me, if you were twenty years younger, that you wouldn’t feel the fire beneath you to get out there and chase the winds of fortune.” Mattheus folded his hands on the table. “Isn’t that just exactly how we found ourselves here?”
“We didn’t chase the winds of anything.” The bald man snorted again, took a long pull of his ale, then dropped the tankard again with a loud sigh. Rahlizje couldn’t keep watching these men drink when she herself remained at Taltaz’s mercy to do so. She closed her eyes but was forced to open them again to stare at the foaming head dripping down the side of her tankard. “We followed your sister and her hunch. We followed the coin. There’s plenty of that in any merchant’s route, and everyone here knows it.” He chuckled. “Unless, of course, one spends it all as a first-time mercenary and abandons that route.” He gestured tersely at Taltaz.
The one-eyed merchant dipped his head in acknowledgment of the jibe. “Not all of it, Sid. The winds of fortune blow in every direction.”
Mattheus spread his hands on the table and leaned forward. “And you mean to chase them however you can into the Bladeshales, on your own route, not ours. Is that it?” Taltaz smirked at the older man and raised an eyebrow, his wild black beard twitching.
Rahlizje was about to scream for her captor to give her another godsbedamned drink. The merchant of Gethlem beat her to it.
He looked at her only long enough to position the rim of the tankard against her lips before turning back to his fellows. “I wouldn’t dare poach your course, old man. And you know it.”
The thief at the table beside him guzzled as much ale as she could, deliberately failing to take a breath so as not to miss a single drop. Then Taltaz lowered the tankard, and she wanted to kick him again.
“So then tell me where you go.” Mattheus squinted at the merchant of Gethlem, a smile playing on his lips. “I’m too old to fall prey to legends and hearsay. You’ve been spinning the same frayed yarn for years, and I’m ready to know the truth.”
Taltaz grunted and took another long drink. “I don’t have another story for you. I’ll take what my coin can get me here, and then I’ll move north. There are plenty of posts in the Bladeshales that offer exactly what I need to take with me to Arahaz, and then—”
“The Forgotten Priests. Yes, yes.” Mattheus tossed his hand and slapped it down on the table. “And you still expect us to believe you barter with some secretive order of… what? Cloaked frauds? Hermits?”
The merchant of Gethlem shook his head. “I don’t expect anyone to believe anything. I know my route, and I know my trade. Whether or not you tear yourself apart trying to dissect it is your own business.”
Mattheus stared at his guest with wide, glistening brown eyes, then glanced at the bald man named Sid. “All these years, and this one thinks he can still pull the wool over my eyes.”
Sid cocked his head. “Not that hard when you’re already creeping up on blindness…”
“I’m not likely to be nearly as blind as him. The man has one eye.”
They broke into hearty laughter again at that, and Rahlizje found herself glaring at the table of aging idiots, all of whom were distracting themselves from the fact that she sat here, waiting to be helped with her ale again. A spitting insult built on her lips, but she never had the chance to release it.
“Sid!” The guttural, irritated shout came from behind the bar. “Unless you’re partial to eating your supper off the floor, I suggest you make yourself useful for once.” The younger men at the bar lifted their tankards in a rowdy, jesting toast at whoever hid behind the bar, spouting these frustrations.
Sid leaned toward Mattheus, the low light glinting off his bald head. “Your cousin grows bolder every day.”
“My cousin. Your friend.” Mattheus raised an eyebrow. “Bold only in word, but I’d expect to find something nasty in your bed tonight if you don’t answer his call for help.” The man smirked.
“Such a fine line between a call and a command.” With a chuckle, Sid stood from the table. “I suppose I’m too comfortable to fight it.” Then he turned and headed toward the bar.
“Sid! Gods damn you. I need—”
“Don’t hurt yourself, Cor. I’m coming.”
Taltaz and Mattheus exchanged an amused glance, and Rahlizje cleared her throat. The merchant of Gethlem looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “Still thirsty?” She glared at him, biting her tongue, but that was all the reply he needed before he lifted the ale to her lips for another agonizingly short drink.
For the first time since the one-eyed merchant had set out from Vereling Town with his prisoner, they both slept indoors and under a solid roof that night. Rahlizje briefly wondered what sort of lodgings her captor enjoyed while she’d been locked in what was little more than a cabinet—a lumpy pallet on the floor and a woolen blanket, no windows, and no light.
“This way, we can all get some sleep,” Taltaz had told her before shutting the door between them and heading off for his own quarters.
Rahlizje’s only true protest was that she hadn’t drunk enough ale to not care about the circumstances as much as she would have liked.
Chapter 6
When the door opened the next morning, Nina greeted her on the other side of it. “The road waits for you both,” the woman said with a grunt. “Best answer the call.”
Rahlizje blinked against the sudden light spilling into her cramped, makeshift prisoner’s quarters. It felt an awful lot like waking from an ale-induced stupor, only she’d not had the luxury of that stupor’s temporary relief.
Nina bent to retrieve the lead rope Rahlizje hadn’t bothered to untie from around her waist; there was no point in it if she couldn’t avoid being strung up again in the morning. The old woman paused with the rope in her hand, then gave it a quick whip. It wasn’t violent or startling, merely enough to get the point across. The thief was being told to move, and the thief had no choice in the matter at all.
With a snort, Rahlizje pulled herself from beneath the woolen blanket and stood. Nina raised her eyebrows, gave the prisoner an appraising glance up and down, and turned back out into the hall. The captured thief didn’t move until the rope pulled taut and the old woman gave it a warning tug.
The men were already gathered in the main room at Gileath Junction to break their fast, the hearth still empty and cold. What little light existed came from the lanterns mounted on the walls, and it wasn’t much brighter than it had been the day before. Nina led Rahlizje only as far as the table where Taltaz sat with Mattheus and Sid. Then she dropped the lead rope to the floor and turned to leave.
“Feeling a little reckless this morning?” Taltaz asked, not once looking at the prisoner standing before him.
Nina paused, turned slowly, and nodded toward Rahlizje. “I’m not a gaoler. I’m not a wet nurse or a matron. Despite the fact that I care very little for your plans, this was done as a favor. I’d say it’s fairly reckless of you to expect more than that.” Then the woman turned and headed for the bar and the back of her establishment on the other side of it.
Taltaz merely grunted, which sounded very much like his way of laughing without wanting anyone else to know it. Then he rose from his chair just enough to grab the end of the rope from the floor. The only acknowledgment he gave Rahlizje was a quick glance and a finger pointed at the chair beside him by the other table. Rahlizje let out a slow, defiant sigh and did not take a seat until the man tugged on the rope and muttered, “Sit.” She might have been his prisoner, but she would not make it easy for him by responding to gestures. But once she’d obeyed, the man tossed two slices of buttered bread and a wedge of hard cheese onto the table in front of her. With her hands still momentarily free to use as she wished, Rahlizje busied herself by eating. “Did I strike a nerve with your sister?” the merchant asked, turning toward the white-haired man beside him.
Mattheus raised his eyebrows and stroked his white beard. “Hard for me to say what does and doesn’t strike her these days.” He shrugged. “But I’d wager she believes your tale of Arahaz and those dark savages.”
“Then she’s at least half the fool you are, old man.” Taltaz smirked. “I have no other tale to tell. That’s where we’re headed.”
Mattheus studied the one-eyed merchant with the ghost of a smile. “And you’d be twice the fool I am to go anywhere near those temples. If they even existed.”
“No one’s stopping you from seeing it for yourself.” Taltaz took a long drink from the cup of what Rahlizje knew was water, only because she couldn’t smell anything but the bread she now hurriedly consumed. “Though if you did, it would have to be as a traveler only. No trade. I’d qualify that as a breach of our agreement.”
Mattheus snorted and shook his head.
“I honestly can’t see the difference between competition and comradery with you two,” Sid added, wiping the crumbs from his mouth with the back of a hand.
“It’s all the same.” The one-eyed merchant of Gethlem waved a dismissive hand, shook the drops of water from his fierce black beard, and stood.
“Just mind you stay off the northern route,” Mattheus muttered. For a short moment, none of them moved. Then Taltaz barked out a raucous laugh and slapped the white-haired man on the back. Mattheus and Sid chuckled along with him, but they remained seated.
“You know you have my thanks.” Taltaz extended a hand.
“As long as it doesn’t bring more trouble than it’s worth, I’ll accept it.” Mattheus shook the merchant’s hand.
Taltaz nodded at the bald man next. “Sid.”
“Storyteller.”
The men smirked at each other and shook as well, then the merchant returned his attention to Rahlizje. As soon as she felt his gaze on her, she crammed the last of the cheese and bread into her mouth; she’d be damned if she let him take her away from an unfinished meal, however bare. “Get up,” he muttered. Rahlizje flicked her burning gaze up at him and glared, chewing slowly. “You’ve had your bit of freedom, thief, but you and I are nowhere near finished. Get up.”
She rolled her eyes and stood from the table, her mouth still quite full, and refused to put her hands behind her back again so he could tie her up that way once more. Taltaz grunted and reached for both her wrists to pull them back himself.
“I’m surprised she doesn’t fight you.” Sid folded his arms and watched.
Taltaz snorted. “Aye, well she learned that lesson well enough. But she doesn’t make it easy for me, either.”
Even as he tightened another rope around her still chafed wrists, Rahlizje smirked.
By the time Taltaz led her outside again at the end of that lead rope, the empty wagon in which he’d carted her around thus far was no longer empty. Now, it seemed, Rahlizje would be traveling with the man’s provisions and—as he and everyone else called him a merchant—whatever wares he’d purchased from the traders at Gileath Junction to sell along the way.
“Last chance to tell an old man the truth,” Mattheus said as he walked alongside the merchant of Gethlem toward the cart. “Where are you really headed?”
Taltaz merely shot the white-haired man an amused glance, but Nina seized her opportunity to reply first. “You never can look past the nose on your own face, can you?”
Mattheus let out a huff of surprise and turned slightly to look at her. “I don’t see what children’s tales have to do with my nose, Nina.”
“My point exactly.” The old woman folded her arms, her muscles pulled taut in agitation despite their age. “Anything mysterious, inexplicable, or outside your realm of comprehension is an immediate threat to you, brother. Something you can neither believe nor accept. And that’s always been your problem.”
Rahlizje’s lips twitched in
amusement as she listened to them bicker. Before they’d broken their fast that morning, it had never occurred to her that Nina and Mattheus were siblings. Taltaz had revealed that truth first, and now the two white-haired traders proved it in the way they spoke to each other, despite their age. If she’d known this sooner, she might have played their filial relation to her advantage, but it seemed there was no longer time for it. The thief found this rather ironic, as she was soon to spend more time than she’d ever spent in one place merely sitting in the back of that wagon.
Matheus shook his head. “At least I can say I haven’t spent my entire life believing I’m the first Oracle in the last five hundred years…”
“You’ve spent your entire life believing absolutely nothing.” Nina snorted and nudged Taltaz’s arm with the back of her hand. “Safe travels, merchant. I expect you to return with plenty for the rest of us.”
The merchant of Gethlem turned to shake the old woman’s hand. “I’ll be back this way before I head east again.”
Matheus puffed out a surprised breath. “You still make it all the way out to the Amneas?”
“Aye.” Taltaz unlatched and lowered the back of his cart, pausing only briefly to shoot Rahlizje a warning glance before heading toward the front again, where his horse was once more hitched and ready to proceed. The man tightened the slack on the rope around her waist, and the thief rolled her eyes.
Then she found Nina watching her from the side of the cart. The old woman pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow, as if to warn the merchant’s prisoner that she ought to do what was expected of her. For now, at least, Rahlizje knew this was her only option; she leaned against the back gate of the cart, then kicked up her legs and rolled into a stack of canvas-covered crates, listening to the continued conversation at the front of the cart while she situated herself among the merchant’s new provisions.
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