In the dim light from the cracks in the wall, a figure was squatting beside his pack. “I can’t figure if you’re abysmally stupid or abominably clever.” It was Attise, her voice heavy with weariness.
Will did not relax. It was dark in the shed, they were alone, and for all their traveling together, he still did not know this woman. “You tried to lose me.”
“Yes, I did, and made a poor job of it, I can see.” She sighed in exasperation and rose. “Come on.”
He managed to stand. “Where are we going?”
“To Carroll’s house.”
“ ‘Carroll’?”
“Our host. Let’s see what—what Sala can make of you.”
She strode off, leaving him to scramble his possessions together.
She led him to a small cottage that seemed more a small hill of ivy than a dwelling. The leaves pattered and trembled in the drizzling rain.
As they entered, a rotund woman looked up from setting the table in the front room. Her black hair was pulled back severely from her face and bound in a single greasy braid, and her shapeless clothes had seen too much use and too few washings. “That him?”
“Our wandering lad,” Attise confirmed. Her carefully affected voice covered her annoyance.
Sala entered from an adjoining room, carrying a kettle for tea. “Willam!” She was delighted and put down the kettle to clap him on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry I got lost,” he told her, trying to look sheepish.
“No harm done; we’re all together again.” She beamed up at him.
The housewife seemed satisfied. She gestured at the table. “Well, have some breakfast, then, or maybe it’s lunch—who can tell the hour in this weather?” she grumbled.
The travelers seated themselves and made an attempt at casual conversation with the woman. This proved futile in the face of her continuing diatribe against her husband, delivered in monotonic segments as she moved to and from the kitchen. “I know he’s at Miller’s again, deny it as much as he likes, drinking that brew old Grandfather Miller makes, coming back at all hours. Useless he is, or next to it. No skill, no money—” She raised her voice a bit. “And no children here either, if you haven’t noticed.” She grunted disparagingly. “Useless.”
Attise attempted to redirect her conversation. “Well, we’re certainly grateful for the lodging . . .”
“Hmph. No skin off his bum; I do all the work, not that we can’t use a few coppers. I tell you . . .” She wandered off, still muttering, and a long pause followed until it was clear that she intended to remain there.
Sala went to the window and peered outside. Attise passed Willam a bowl of cold stew, yesterday’s by the look of it. Will set to with a wooden spoon and a chunk of black bread, and found that his hunger made its flavor incidental.
“How did you find us?” Attise asked him.
He spoke between mouthfuls. “I knew where you were going. Ingrud told me.”
“Ingrud?”
“That’s right. You kept me away from her after you talked, I guess because you thought I’d ask about what you said to her. But before that, earlier that evening, I talked with her a lot.”
Oddly, Attise looked a little regretful. “Yes, I remember.”
“Well, I asked her where Shammer and Dhree kept residence. She didn’t really know, because all that’s new since last she was in these parts. But from what she’d heard from the people coming back from the fighting, most of the action was taking place near someplace called Lake Cerlew. I asked her how to get there. It’s north, and this was the first northbound road I found when I doubled back.”
“And you assumed we were going to Shammer and Dhree?”
He nodded, tearing off a piece of bread to soak up the last bit of stew. “Where else would you go? But I didn’t think I’d actually catch you up.”
Sala turned from the window, pulling the shutters against the rain. She wiped mist from her face with one hand. “You didn’t catch up with us,” she told him, shaking water from her fingers. “We doubled back.” She sat down next to Attise.
“We left the road, circled the town, and entered from the north,” Attise told him. “We wanted to prevent anyone from connecting us with the caravan. We’re claiming to be traveling through from Morriston, between here and Lake Cerlew.” She turned to Sala. “And now he arrives in town, coming from the south, telling everyone he was with us.”
Willam stopped eating. With a strange thrill, half fear, half excitement, he realized that this was no mere stop along the way. Attise and Sala had intended to come here; there was some job, some mission they had in this town; and if he could help them, somehow, their recommendation would carry more weight with their master.
“People haven’t been very curious,” the mercenary pointed out to Attise. “Perhaps those who spoke to him won’t be the same as those to whom we gave our story.”
“It could be awkward.” Attise considered carefully. Watching her face, Willam could sense her sifting through possible explanations, alternative deceits.
“This wouldn’t happen, you know, if you didn’t keep me in the dark,” he said.
Attise looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues. “What?”
Rain hissed in the dirt of the street outside. “You’re always deciding for me. You never let me know what’s going on. If I knew, I wouldn’t make these mistakes. I could help you.”
She seemed unable to find a reply. After a moment with nothing forthcoming, Sala took over. “The less you know, the less danger you’re in. And we abandoned you because we like you, and we don’t particularly want you to die. If you stayed with us, one day you’d follow us into a trap.”
Attise found her voice. “Perhaps today.”
Will was shocked, then thrilled, then wary. “Here?”
Sala disagreed. “If anyone wanted to harm us, they would have tried already,” she said to Attise.
“Assuming they know I’m the right person. They certainly don’t—yet.”
“Perhaps the whole thing is innocent. Perhaps Ingrud was right. She’s not a fool, you know.” Already, Willam realized, it had happened again; he was once more mere spectator to some incomprehensible exchange between the two mysterious women.
“She’s a steerswoman,” Attise conceded.
“There you are.”
“No. The conclusions one reaches depend on the information one has. She may have been fed deceits.” Attise drummed ink-stained fingertips on the table, considering.
“Then let’s assume that she was, and that you’re right, and there’s nothing in this town for us. Let’s go on our way.”
Attise said nothing, but sat thinking.
“What you’re going to do will identify you, just as if you shouted your name,” Sala noted.
To establish his presence in the conversation, Will said, “Your right name.”
Attise’s blue-gray gaze flicked in his direction. “True.” She tilted her head to the sound of someone dashing across the street at a staggering run, escaping the drizzle, and turned her attention back to her bowl an instant before the door clattered open. Their host entered, and proved to be the same fellow Willam had met by the well. Faintly weaving, the man discovered the trio in his front room and regarded them with a certain amount of foggy confusion.
“No, one shouldn’t make assumptions of that sort,” Attise spoke up, fabricating a conversation to continue. “One region’s commonplace is another’s rarity.” She gestured with her spoon at Willam, marking him the recipient of her opinions. “Even a dreary little spot like this one; I have every intention to visit the shops and manufactories before we leave. The possibility always exists, and nothing’s so satisfying as cornering the market on some lovely item that your competitors will never be able to obtain.”
Will glanced at Carroll, then tried to play along. “As long as people want to buy it.”
“Exactly.” She nodded. “To be desirable, any product should be either beautiful, or rare, or
uniquely useful. Better, some combination of the three.”
He made a wild guess. “And there’s shipping cost.”
Her smile seemed genuine. “Of course. The smaller, the better.”
Will began to enjoy the game, until he saw Sala’s expression. She had her back to Carroll and so was free to let her face show her thoughts. She disapproved. She glowered at Attise. It came to Will that when a mercenary disapproved of something, it was something dangerous.
There was a noise: “Ah!” It was a nasal sound of discovery and confirmation, and it came from the kitchen. Carroll’s wife swept in with a display of self-righteous dignity, a shrewish expression, and a wooden ladle, which she brandished at Carroll. “Look at you, this early in the day, and in front of guests!”
Immediately, with perfect grace, the man corrected his posture, composed his expression, and stood regarding her coolly. Will, who had seen many persons drunk, marveled at his control. “Woman,” Carroll intoned in a dignified voice. “You do carry on.”
His wife gathered herself for a reply, then wavered. His act was perfect. She began to doubt.
He crossed his arms, perhaps a trifle slowly but without difficulty. “Tend more to your work, and less to your—” He paused to choose the exact word. “Intrigues,” he finished.
She squinted up at him, then turned the squint on the others in the room, as though suspecting them of collusion. Attise watched with bland disinterest. Sala studied the pair as if she anticipated a sporting event. Will contrived to appear stupidly puzzled.
The woman made a throaty sound of disappointment and left the room. Carroll sniffed wetly.
Turning to his guests, he greeted them gravely and inquired after their comfort. Attise looked aside, as if wishing to find a polite way to express her opinion, then gave it up. She pushed out a chair. “Why don’t you join us for some tea?”
The man looked toward where his wife had gone, then glanced back at the door. He stepped to it, pulled a little cloth-wrapped jug from a hiding place behind the brick doorstop, and brought himself to the table. “Well, thank you, I don’t mind at all.” Seated, he laid one finger aside his nose conspiratorially and added a bit from the jug to each cup, hesitating only momentarily before Willam’s.
Will found that the stuff evaporated on its way from the front of his mouth to the back, and he coughed. Carroll nodded gravely at him as if he had expressed some deep insight.
Attise tried to draw the man into conversation, but he seemed far more interested in replenishing his cup, and he replied vaguely to questions about the types of local handicrafts. Yes, there was a tanner, a weaver, a potter, a silversmith. Yes, they did fair enough work. Eventually Will, who had politely drunk three cups of the fiery tea, discovered an urgent need to visit the outhouse and excused himself from the stilted conversation.
The back yard was as shabby as its inhabitants, unkempt, with a large trash heap tucked in one corner. Will thought it was a shame; the house itself was lovely, old stone and ivy. But as he looked about, he noticed that the adjacent yards all had their own piles of odd discards, items not useful for compost or fertilizer.
As he emerged from the bushes that discreetly screened the outhouse, he heard a crash of pottery. Carroll was standing by the trash heap; he looked up suspiciously as Will approached, then relaxed as he recognized the boy, taking rather long to do so. Will glanced down and noticed the liquor jug on the pile, smashed, and several more of its mates, some new, some of them very old indeed. He laughed to himself and leaned toward Carroll confidentially. “Your secret is safe with us.” The man regained his careful dignity and wandered off on his own mission.
When Willam reached the front room, Attise and Sala were in deep conversation, listing the different types of shops Carroll had mentioned. Will found his chair and picked over the remains of their meal.
Pulling her purse from inside her blouse, Attise inspected the contents. She passed some coins to Sala. “Get a few supplies, from as many different shops as possible, and see how much gossip you can collect in the process.”
“Are you going to try our hostess?”
Attise looked toward the kitchen and winced. “I’m not certain I can coax her away from her favorite subject. I’ll check a few of the other shopkeepers, in my role as a merchant. The weaver, perhaps, or the tannery.”
“To begin with,” Sala noted.
“Of course.” She looked in her purse again, seemed to calculate, and was displeased with the result. She returned it to its hiding place.
“What about me?” Willam asked.
“Stay out from underfoot.”
“That’s stupid,” Sala said vehemently.
Attise looked at her in surprise.
The mercenary continued. “If you must go about advertising your presence, at least try to confuse them. If this is a trap, then they’re expecting a woman traveling alone. They may not have caught up with the fact that Willam and I are with you. If you keep him by your side, you might throw off some suspicion, and they may be slower to realize what’s afoot.”
“I’d rather work with you,” Willam said to Sala.
“I don’t need help. I’ll be doing the easy part. She’s the one who’s jumping into the fire.”
“If there is one,” Attise commented. “And that’s what we need to discover.”
They passed the tannery by, but tucked between two houses Attise found a potter’s, little more than a ramshackle shed. The front was constructed of ill-sorted planks of varying ages and colors. No door was visible, but a merry whirring was heard from inside, and Will and Attise made their way around the side to an opening that had been created by the simple expedient of removing several planks from one wall.
Outside the rain had stopped, but the single room inside was dark and dank, save for a shaft of weak sunlight that descended from the ceiling, where a section of the roof had been levered up and propped with a pole.
In his patch of sun, the potter was happily at work, humming a little tune, a lean, fair man with wild curly hair. He spared the visitors a friendly glance; then a second, speculative; then, surprisingly, a third, amused. “Give me a moment,” he called, and braked his wheel.
“Well, strangers.” He turned on his stool and leaned, elbows on his knees, to examine them with twinkling blue eyes. “Are you lost? Looking for directions? You can’t have come in here on purpose!” Will noticed that the lower half of one leg was missing, replaced by a long wooden peg.
Attise laughed a bit. “Actually, I did.” She introduced herself and Willam. “I’m a merchant, passing through on business to the south. I thought it might be useful to examine the local wares. Occasionally one can find something worth transporting, something unusual, perhaps, or fine work.”
“Fine work?” He leaned back and laughed out loud. “Well you certainly won’t find any of that here.” He made a sweeping gesture to indicate his workshop.
Attise eyed the rickety shelves and their contents with an expression almost apologetic. “I’m afraid not.” She was acting more natural, Will noticed, easy and friendly, without her usual, close-watched stiffness.
“No, cheap and sturdy, that’s my stock-in-trade. The things I make are easy to replace, and people break them without a second thought. Sometimes they do it just for fun. In fact, around winter solstice I make a hundred plates, just for the folk to smash at midnight. You could never eat off those plates, but they do make a lovely sound.”
Watching Attise’s reactions, Will noticed that she and the potter seemed to have some natural affinity for each other. He wondered if she planned to seduce him. Spies often did, he understood, for information.
But Attise inclined her head politely, with a cheerful smile. “Well, I won’t take any more of your time.” She glanced up at the little skylight, checking the hour, then stopped, curious. “That can’t be very efficient.”
“It isn’t,” he admitted ruefully. “But then, neither am I, and it suits me well enough. When the sun mo
ves, I move too. It’s a good excuse to take myself off for a bit of friendly conversation and a pot of brew.”
“But there’s no tavern in this town.”
“No, but we manage well enough. Old Grandfather Miller supplies the brew, and the best conversations are always found in your neighbor’s kitchen.”
“There is that,” she said. “But it makes it harder on the stranger. After days traveling, a brew and a conversation are things to cherish.”
He made a wry sound. “It’s all local gossip, local intrigues; you’d find it boring, I’m afraid.”
“Not at all. If you travel long enough, everything feels local.”
“There is that,” he said, and at that phrase, he and Attise suddenly looked at each other in mutual astonishment and spoke simultaneously. “Where are you from?”
They laughed together, and she went on. “You’re not from here?”
“No, not at all. My town was Denham Notch, on the West Road. It’s far north, off the western curve of the Long North Road.”
“Where the West Road turns from northwest to southwest.”
He clapped his hands. “You know it! I thought you might. Skies above, you’re like a fresh wind off the desert. I knew I liked you as soon as you spoke. Where’s your town?”
“Terminus, at the other end of the road.”
They were going to reminisce, Will realized; bored with the conversation, he took himself off to one side to examine the potter’s ware. Attise and the potter kept chatting like old friends.
“Terminus! I’ve been there a dozen times when I was a point rider on a caravan. That was before this.” There was a thump as he slapped his peg.
Behind one of the shelves, the wall was stone, not wood; the outside of the adjacent building, Will realized. He reached behind a row of pots and touched the wall. Pulling back his hand, he found it coated with a damp powder. He smelled it, then tasted it.
“But I never saw you there,” the potter said to Attise.
“I’m hardly memorable.”
Will turned back. Attise had found a seat on a workbench and was swinging her legs cheerfully. “You know,” Will began, and the potter turned back, a little annoyed. “This stuff that’s growing on your walls, it’ll get on your pots.”
Steerswoman Page 18
