Warrl obviously didn't care about poor Kethry.
"You're being very unfair to her, you know. And
you're supposed to have been her familiar, not mine.
You're a magic beast; born out of magic. You belong
with a spell-caster, not some clod with a sword."
Warrl was not impressed with Tarma's logic.
She doesn't need me, he spoke mind-to-mind with
the swordswoman. She has the spirit-sword. You need
me, I've told you that before. And that, so far as
Warrl was concerned, was that.
"Well, I'm not going to argue with you. I never
argue with anyone with as many sharp teeth as
you've got. Maybe being Kal'enedral counts as being
magic."
She pushed Warrl's head off her lap and went to
open the shutters to the room's one window. Moon-
light flooded the room; she seated herself on the
floor where it would fall on her, just as she did
every night when there was a moon and she wasn't
ill or injured. Since they were within the walls of a
town and not camped, she would not train this
night, but the Moonpaths were there, as always,
waiting to be walked. She closed her eyes and found
them. Walking them was, as she'd often told Kethry,
impossible to describe.
When she returned to her body, Warrl was lying
patiently at her back, waiting for her. She ruffled
his fur with a grin, stood, stretched stiffened mus-
cles, then stripped to a shift and climbed in beside
Kethry. Warrl sighed with gratitude and took his
usual spot at her feet.
"Three things see no end—
A flower blighted ere it bloomed,
A message that was wasted
And a journey that was doomed."
The two mercenaries rode out of town in the
morning, obviously eager to be gone. Grumio watched
them leave, gazing sadly at the cloud of dust they
raised, his houndlike face clearly displaying his
disappointment. His fellow merchants were equally
disappointed when he told them of his failure to
persuade them; they had all hoped the women would
be the solution to their problem.
After sundown Grumio took a cart and horse out
to his farmstead, a saddled riding beast tied to the
rear of it. After making certain that no one had
followed him, he drove directly into the barn, and
peered around in the hay-scented gloom. A fear
crossed his mind that the women had tricked him,
and had truly left that morning.
"Don't fret yourself, merchant," said a gravelly
voice just above his head. He jumped, his heart
racing. "We're here."
A vague figure swung down from the loft; when
it came close enough for him to make out features,
he started at the sight of a buxom blonde wearing
the swordswoman's clothing.
She grinned at his reaction. "Which one am I?
She didn't tell me. Blonde?"
He nodded, amazed.
"Malebait again. Good choice, no one would ever
think I knew what a blade was for. Or that I ever
thought of anything but men and clothing, not
necessarily in that order. You don't want to see
my partner." Her voice was still in Tarma's grav-
elly tones; Grumio assumed that that was only so
he'd recognize her. "We don't want you to have to
strain your acting ability tomorrow. Did you bring
everything we asked for?"
"It's all here," he replied, still not believing what
his eyes were telling him. "I weighted the boxes
with sand and stones so that they won't seem
empty."
"You've got a good head on you, merchant," Tarma
saluted him as she unharnessed the horse. "That's
something I didn't think of. Best you leave now,
though, before somebody comes looking for you."
He jumped down off the wagon, taking the reins
of his riding beast.
"And merchant—" she called as he rode off into
the night, "—wish us luck."
He didn't have to act the next morning, when a
delicate and aristocratically frail lady of obvious
noble birth accosted him in his shop, and ordered
him (although it was framed as a request) to in-
clude her in his packtrain. In point of fact, had he
not recognized the dress and fur cloak she was
wearing, he would have taken her for a real aristo,
one who, by some impossible coincidence, had taken
the same notion into her head that the swordswoman
had proposed as a ruse. This sylphlike, sleepy-eyed
creature with her elaborately coiffed hair of plati-
num silk bore no resemblance at all to the very
vibrant and earthy sorceress he'd hired.
And though he was partially prepared by having
seen her briefly the night before, Tarma (posing as
milady's maid) still gave him a shock. He saw why
she called the disguise "malebait"—this amply-
endowed blonde was a walking invitation to impro-
priety, and nothing like the sexless Sworn One. All
that remained of Tarma were the blue eyes, one of
which winked cheerfully at him, to bring him out
of his shock.
Grumio argued vehemently with the highborn
dame for the better part of an hour, and all to no
avail. Undaunted, he carried his expostulations out
into the street, still trying to persuade her to change
her mind even as the packtrain formed up in front
of his shop. The entire town was privy to the argu-
ment by that time.
"Lady, I beg you—reconsider!" he was saying
anxiously. "Wait for the King's Patrol. They have
promised to return soon and in force, since the
bandits have not ceased raiding us, and I'm morally
certain they'll be willing to escort you."
"My thanks for your concern, merchant," she
replied with a gentle and bored haughtiness, "But I
fear my business cannot wait till their return. Be-
sides, what is there about me that could possibly
tempt a bandit?"
Those whose ears were stretched to catch this
conversation could easily sympathize with Grumio's
silent—but obvious—plea to the gods for patience,
as they noted the lady's jewels, fine garments, the
weight of the cart holding her possessions, and the
well-bred mares she and her maid rode.
The lady turned away from him before he could
continue; a clear gesture of dismissal, so he held
his tongue. In stony silence he watched the train
form up, with the lady and her maid in the center.
Since they had no driver for the cart—though he'd
offered to supply one—the lead-rein of the carthorse
had been fastened to the rear packhorse's harness.
Surmounting the chests and boxes in the cart was a
toothless old dog, apparently supposed to be guard-
ing her possessions and plainly incapable of guard-
ing anything anymore. The leader of the train's six
guards took his final instructions from his master,
and the train lurched off down the Trade Road.
As
Grumio watched them disappear into the distance,
he could be seen to shake his head in disapproval.
Had anyone been watching very closely—though
no one was—they might have noticed the lady's
fingers moving in a complicated pattern. Had there
been any mages present—which wasn't the case—
said mage might have recognized the pattern as
belonging to the Spell of True Sight. If illusion was
involved, it would not be blinding Kethry.
"One among the guardsmen
Has a shifting, restless eye
And as they ride, he scans the hills
That rise against the sky.
He wears a sword and bracelet
Worth more than he can afford
And hidden in his baggage
Is a heavy, secret hoard."
One of the guards was contemplating the lady's
assets with a glee and greed that equaled his mas-
ter's dismay. His expression, carefully controlled,
seemed to be remote and impassive; only his rap-
idly shifting gaze and the nervous flicker of his
tongue over dry lips gave any clue to his thoughts.
Behind those remote eyes, a treacherous mind was
making a careful inventory of every jewel and visi-
ble possession and calculating their probable values.
When the lady's skirt lifted briefly to display a
tantalizing glimpse of white leg, his control broke
enough that he bit his lip. She was one prize he
intended to reserve for himself; he'd never been
this close to a highborn woman before, and he in-
tended to find out if certain things he'd heard about
bedding them were true. The others were going to
have to be content with the ample charms of the
serving maid, at least until he'd tired of the mis-
tress. At least there wouldn't be all that caterwauling
and screeching there'd been with the merchant
wenches. That maid looked as if she'd had a man
betwixt her legs plenty of times before, and en-
joyed it, too. She'd probably thank him for livening
up her life when he turned her over to the men!
He had thought at first that this was going to be
another trap, especially after he'd heard that old
Grumio had tried to hire a pair of highly-touted
mercenary women to rid him of the bandits. One
look at the lady and her maid, however, had con-
vinced him that not only was it absurd to think
that they could be wary hire-swords in disguise,
but that they probably didn't even know which end
of a blade to hold. The wench flirted and teased
each of the men in turn. Her mind was obviously
on something other than ambushes and weaponry—
unless those ambushes were amorous, and the weap-
onry of flesh. The lady herself seemed to ride in a
half-aware dream, and her maid often had to break
off a flirtation in order to ride forward and steady
her in the saddle.
Perhaps she was a tran-dust sniffer, or there was
faldis-juice mixed in with the water in the skin on
her saddle-bow. That would be an unexpected bo-
nus; she was bound to have a good supply of it
among her belongings, and drugs were worth more
than jewels. And it would be distinctly interesting—
his eyes glinted cruelly—to have her begging him
on her knees for her drugs as withdrawal set in.
Assuming, of course, that she survived that long.
He passed his tongue over lips gone dry with antic-
ipation. Tomorrow he would give the scouts trail-
ing the packtrain the signal to attack.
"Of three things be wary—
Of a feather on a cat,
The shepherd eating mutton
And the guardsman that is fat."
The lady and her companion made camp a dis-
creet distance from the rest of the caravan, as was
only to be expected. She would hardly have a taste
for sharing their rough camp, rude talk or coarse
food.
Kethry's shoulders sagged with fatigue beneath
the weight of her heavy cloak, and she was chilled
to the bone in spite of its fur lining.
"Are you all right?" Tarma whispered sharply
when she hadn't spoken for several minutes.
"Just tired. I never thought that holding up five
illusions would be so hard. Three aren't half so
difficult to keep intact." She leaned her forehead
on one hand, rubbing her temples with cold fingers.
"I wish it was over."
Tarma pressed a bowl into her other hand. Duti-
fully, she tried to eat, but the sand and dust that
had plagued their progress all day had crept into
the food as well. It was too dry and gritty to swal-
low easily, and after one attempt, Kethry felt too
weary to make any further effort. She laid the bowl
aside, unobtrusively—or so she hoped.
Faint hope.
"Sweeting, if you don't eat by yourself, I'm going
to pry your mouth open and pour your dinner down
your throat." Tarma's expression was cloyingly
sweet, and the tone of her shifted voice dulcet.
Kethry was roused enough to smile a little. When
she was this wearied with the exercise of her mag-
ics, she had to be bullied into caring for herself.
When she'd been on her own, she'd sometimes had
to spend days recovering from the damages she'd
inflicted on her body by neglecting it. Tarma had
her badly worried lately with all the cosseting she'd
been doing—like she was trying to keep Kethry
wrapped safely in lambswool all the time—but at
this moment Kethry was rather glad to have the
cosseting. In fact, it was at moments like this that
she valued Tarma's untiring affection and aid the
most.
"What, and ruin our disguises?" she retorted with
a little more life.
"There's nothing at all out of the ordinary in an
attentive maid helping her poor, sick mistress to
eat. They already think there's something wrong
with you. Half of them think you're ill, the other
half think you're in a drug-daze," Tarma replied.
"They all think you've got nothing between your
ears but air."
Kethry capitulated, picked up her dinner, and
forced it down, grit and all.
"Now," Tarma said, when they'd both finished
eating. "I know you've spotted a suspect, I can tell
by the way you're watching the guards. Tell me
which one it is; I'd be very interested to see if it's
the same one I've got my eye on."
"It's the one with the mouse-brown hair and ratty
face that rode tail-guard this morning."
Tarma's eyes widened a little, but she gave no
other sign of surprise. "Did you say brown hair?
And a ratty face? Tailguard this morning had black
hair and a pouty, babyish look to him."
Kethry revived a bit more. "Really? Are you talk-
ing about the one walking between us and their fire
right now? The one with all the jewelry? And does
he seem to be someone you know very vaguely?"
"Yes. One
of the hired swords with the horse-
traders my Clan used to deal with—I think his
name was Tedric. Why?"
Kethry unbuckled a small ornamental dagger from
her belt and passed it to Tarma with exaggerated
care. Tarma claimed it with the same caution, cau-
tion that was quite justified, since the "dagger" was
in reality Kethry's sword Need, no matter what
shape it wore at the moment. Beneath the illusion,
it still retained its original mass and weight.
"Now look at him."
Tarma cast a surreptitious glance at the guard
again, and her lips tightened. Even when it was
done by magic, she didn't like being tricked. "Mouse-
brown hair and a ratty face," she said. "He changed."
She returned the blade to Kethry.
"And now?" Kethry asked, when Need was safely
back on her belt.
"Now that's odd," Tarma said thoughtfully. "If
he's using an illusion, he should have gone back to
the way he looked before, but he didn't. He's still
mousy and ratty, but my eyes feel funny—like some-
thing's pulling at them—and he's blurred a bit
around the edges. It's almost as if his face was
trying to look different from what I'm seeing."
"Uh-huh. Mind-magic," Kethry said, with satis-
faction. "So that's why I wasn't able to detect any
spells! It's not a true illusion like I'm holding on us.
They practice mind-magic a lot more up north in
Valdemar—I think I must have told you about it at
some time or other. I'm only marginally familiar
with the way it works, since it doesn't operate
quite like what I've learned. If what I've been told
is true, his mind is telling your mind that you know
Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound Page 26
