Saddle leather squeaked again. Carin imagined the sheriff turning to point.
“But then a wind blew up from the southwest,” he said, “from the scrublands down that way. And carried on the wind was a great pall of smoke. We thought the world was ending, by Drisha. Smoke choking us, weed strangling us—the whole town in an uproar. But that smoke proved to be our salvation.”
“How so?” Verek asked.
“It drove the weed back. Oddest thing I ever saw.”
In Carin’s mind’s eye, the sheriff was tilting his hat askew and scratching his head. His puzzlement sounded clearly in his voice.
He went on: “The smoke was thick enough to burn a body’s eyes and set us all to coughing. To the weed, though, it was poison. People swear they heard the weed scream when the fumes blew in and swirled down over the docks. Every stem of the stuff turned black the moment the smoke touched it. The wind took that smoke all through the town and out over the harbor. It went on for hours. That’s not the first scrubland fire we’ve ever smelled in Easthaven, but that had to have been the biggest blaze ever to burn through those parts. We were grateful that only its smoke reached us, and not its flames.”
“The smoke blackened the strangleweed?” Megella asked in a tone of more than polite curiosity. “On the docks, you say, and out in the harbor?”
“Aye. It cleared our harbor. Not a sprig of the stuff survived. But when the smoke cleared and some of the men took to the water, they found masses of the weed still alive, out there.”
Carin could not see the gesture, but she could guess what the sheriff was indicating. Strangleweed in water had an odor like cabbage, only stronger. She’d smelled it first on Angwid, and she smelled it again now, a rankness in her nostrils.
“Your fishing boats are trapped,” Verek said, his voice flat. “Is that what you are telling us? Boats can navigate the harbor, but none can go to sea on account of the weed.”
“You have the right of it, sir,” the sheriff said, and sighed audibly. “The stuff is bunched up at the mouth of our harbor, and we cannot find a way to clear it. We’ve tried smoking it out, but nothing we burn does the trick the way the fumes off the scrubland did. We’ve tried burning it bodily. Filled an old skiff full of fatwood, set it ablaze, and rammed it into the weed. Barely made a dent in that wall of green.”
“Huh,” Verek said.
From that one sound, Carin could tell that Theil had gone from bristly to sociable. He wanted to help rid this town of strangleweed. She could almost hear him thinking:
“What won’t yield to fatwood will succumb to magian fire. Let me turn my lady loose on the problem, sheriff, and your harbor will be open within minutes.”
“Well, sir,” Verek said crisply, and in the mental picture Carin had formed of the whole conversation, she saw him gathering his reins, preparing to ride on. “We have detained you long enough. My thanks to you for an interesting talk. We will do as you suggest and stop for refreshment at the inn.”
He paused, then added: “I am also fain to see this great green wall of weed. Would it be possible, do you think, to hire a boat to take us as near as one may safely approach?”
“Certainly, my lord,” the sheriff replied. “But if you would rather ride”—and here Carin imagined the man looking over their five horses—“it is a simple matter to follow the trail along the outer rim of the harbor. The trail curves along to the mouth, where you may look down upon acres and acres of weed.”
The sheriff added, “It’s a pretty sight at night. That weed has a sparkle to it. It flashes like steel on flint.”
“That settles it,” Verek said. “To see such a sight, we can afford to delay our journey by the space of one night. This evening, we will take rooms in Easthaven.”
“Then you’ll want the Harbor Hill Inn,” the sheriff advised. “It’s the finest in town. My youngest brother owns it. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll treat you like royalty.”
Verek thanked the man again, and on they went, the wagon creaking into motion.
Presently the sounds of a lively town came to Carin’s ears. She heard hammering and imagined carpenters building houses or perhaps sheds for drying and smoking fish. Next came the ring of metal on metal, which conjured up visions of a blacksmith at work. Snatches of conversation drifted past. Friends greeted one another, mothers called to their children, two men argued. A loud bellow of “Git, you thieving cur!” immediately preceded a dog’s sharp, short yelp of pain.
The aromas of this seaside burg made Carin’s mouth water. Many of the odors were fishy but had undertones of herbs, spices, and pungent vegetables like onions and radishes. Cedar and other fragrant woods smoldered. Their scents largely subdued the odor of horse manure that also wafted through the air.
Under the wagon’s wheels, the road ran smooth and level. Carin could count the hoofbeats of all five of Verek’s and Meg’s horses, clattering along the road’s hard surface. Megella’s cobs moved with light, nimble steps. The two bobtails clomped along behind the wagon. And off to the side, slightly in front, rang the hooves of Verek’s silver-dapple saddlehorse.
Some of the townsmen gave Verek greetings, addressing him as “sir” or, twice, “my lord.” Even with her eyes shut, Carin could see him, the easy way he sat his horse, how commanding he was despite his frayed, travel-worn clothing and his yeomanly sword in its plain scabbard. People might think he was down on his luck, that he had seen better days, but still they could recognize a man of rank.
Courteously, Verek acknowledged each salute. He was warming to this place. Carin could hear approval in his voice.
Megella sounded absolutely delighted. The wisewoman returned the compliments of women and children, calling out to them: “Good day to you, mistress,” “Fine spring weather we’re having,” “What a beautiful little street urchin you are!” and other banalities. Meg had reined the cobs to the slowest pace to which the eager little beasts could be held, the better to exchange small talk with folks in the street.
The wagon rolled along smoothly, leisurely, and after a bit Carin felt it leave the main road and climb, as if scaling a slight hill. The wheels crunched on gravel. Then they were stopping. The wagon seat creaked under Megella’s shifting weight as the woman pulled up on the reins.
“Whoa now,” she called. “Whoa, my ducks.” The wisewoman had not named her two horses, but she’d taken to calling the cobs her “ducks,” the same term of endearment she occasionally used for Theil and Carin.
“What a lovely place!” Meg exclaimed.
Carin heard her climb down. Then the woman was leaning in to lay her hand on Carin’s forehead.
By a great effort of will, she stopped herself flinching. Be still and silent, too numb to dash anyone to dust.
“Hmm,” Megella murmured. “The fever’s broken, but …”
The wisewoman moved off. Carin heard the gravel crunch under Meg’s departing footsteps. Then all was silence except for the sounds of the town—more muted now, and mingled with the high-pitched cries of birds.
Those are terns, Carin thought.
They called her back for a moment to the beach house on Earth from which she’d retrieved Verek. These seabirds of coastal Ladrehdin sounded quite like their counterparts on her native shores. She’d had a nickname for them there, in the language of her childhood: “wide-awakes,” for the laughing “ka weh-de-wek” calls they made.
With curiosity getting the better of her, Carin opened her eyes, sat up, and peered cautiously out the back of the wagon. Quick glances left and right showed no one nearby—no one to risk exposure to the spell of sand. So she stood up in the wagon bed, kicking aside her sweat-soaked blankets.
“Sweet mercy!” Carin exclaimed as she focused on the picture-perfect scene below her. A spit of land curved outward like a long dark arm that wrapped itself protectively around a body of water, forming a natural harbor. The water, sea-green and wind-ruffled, sparkled under a cloudless, late-afternoon sky.
Fishing boats bobbe
d in the harbor. They were every imaginable color—reds and greens and yellows, splashed with grapey purple and brilliant orange.
In crisp contrast to the boats’ vivid hulls, their sails gleamed white. Each unfurled sail had a design worked into its center. Carin made out a starfish, a crab, a swordfish, a manta ray, and one image that almost stopped her breath in her throat: a dolphin.
Reflexively she put her hand in her pocket and fingered her crystal talisman. It gave her no twinge. The amulet seemed to have quieted.
Boots crunched on the gravel behind Carin. She whirled—another unthinking reflex—and found Verek smiling at her.
“It is good to see you stirring, fìleen,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Scared,” she snapped. “Terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of myself! Do you really not understand? I could kill you without even thinking about it. Literally without thinking.” Carin took her hand from her pocket and rubbed her forehead. “You could crumble to dust right now, and I wouldn’t have the slightest idea why. I don’t know what made me do it to Flynn, and I don’t know how to keep myself from doing it again. To you.”
Verek shook his head. “The, um, incident with the goatherd caught you unawares. You are on guard now against a repetition.”
“Are you sure?” Carin demanded. “Are you willing to wager your life on it?”
“Yes … I am.”
Verek reached to swing Carin down from the wagon and set her lightly on her feet. As he released her, he pointed to a three-story, freshly whitewashed building that was set back from the graveled lot where they stood.
“I have taken rooms for us here. The maids are busily heating water for our baths, and the cooks are preparing our dinner. Go in and let them pamper you while I see to the horses.” Verek began untying the bobtails. “I will be indoors and soaking as quickly as I can manage it.”
“Thanks be to Drisha and all the mercies,” called Megella as the woman came hurrying toward the wagon, leading a covey of lace-capped servants, “for the prospect of a hot bath, and perhaps a dinner that offers something more than gamey meat and boiled mush.” Meg clambered into the wagon and tossed out bags for the servant-girls to catch. “I expect they also have a laundress here. I’ve plenty to keep her busy.”
Loaded down with garments—dirty clothes, and also some clean ones that Meg had apparently been saving for just such an auspicious occasion—the servants fluttered in Megella’s wake back to the Harbor Hill Inn.
Carin stood watching them go, as if frozen in place until a gentle push from Verek started her after them—with the feeling, again, that her movements were little more than reflex actions. She reached the front steps in time to be escorted, with Meg, to the top floor where their suite awaited.
The suite had two bedchambers, both looking out over the harbor. The rooms were decorated as gaily as the boats in the water. Multicolored pennants and nautical flags hung on the white walls, fluttering in the breezes from the open windows. The lightweight curtains and the bedcovers looked like they had been woven from pea-green seaweed. Carin started back, thinking at first that strangleweed had invaded the building, until she fingered the cloth and realized it was only a cleverly patterned linen.
“Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight?” Megella asked from the window where the woman stood peeling off shawls.
“Not lately,” Carin admitted. “Not for a while now.” The seascape tugged at something deep inside her, something long buried.
Their two bedchambers shared a bathroom that sported a large copper tub. Crisply aproned maids were pouring buckets of hot water into the tub. By means of a dumbwaiter, they dropped the empty buckets to the basement to be refilled.
Megella split her attention between the view and the tub-filling operation. When the maids had provided her with sufficient hot water, the wisewoman shooed them from the bathroom and shut the door in their faces, saying she was not to be disturbed.
Carin declined a maid’s offer to help her unpack. The bags and parcels that had been hauled up from the wagon were all Megella’s. Carin had no clothes with her except the ones she was wearing.
But in a few moments, another maid, a young, yellow-haired girl, fluttered in through the hall door carrying assorted colorful wraps and robes. The maid draped the garments across the bed, chirping, “Compliments of the house, my lady,” and flitted out again, leaving Carin to sort through the pile.
She selected an ankle-length gown in a shade of green that should set off her eyes to good advantage. If this proved to be the last night that Theil Verek would see her alive, then she wanted to make a pretty memory for him.
Megella did not linger. The woman had scrubbed down, toweled off, donned her clean clothes, and vacated the bathroom almost before Carin had finished picking through the lent gowns.
“The sheriff’s brother runs a quality establishment,” Meg remarked, seeing the garments piled on the bed. “I have never known an inn to treat its guests so well. Mostly a traveler may count herself fortunate to get a bed that does not crawl with vermin.”
Meg jerked her head toward the bathroom. “Go on and wash up, widgeon … and take your time. I’ve a mind to rove downstairs alone, to see who among our fellow travelers I may engage in conversation. There is no better place than an inn for collecting rumors and gossip. Perhaps I will even net a few scraps of truth.”
The woman paused, her head atilt, studying Carin. “Will you be all right? Do you want another sip of numbwort tea?”
The question sounded too offhand, and Meg’s tone was a bit too bright, for Carin to miss what lay under the surface: Will you kill again, Megella was asking, if I do not keep you drugged?
“No,” Carin muttered. Then she added a soft, “Thank you.”
Thank you for seeing that I am dangerous—even if Theil Verek has shut his eyes to the truth.
Megella gave Carin a circumspect, rather crooked smile, then disappeared out the door, leaving her alone.
But not for long. The maids—a flock of them seemed to have nested outside the suite—flew in to refresh the bath for Carin’s use.
One girl pushed up her sleeve, stuck her arm into the tub, and pulled its plug. Brown bathwater—what a quantity of dirt Meg had left behind!—drained away, and immediately the dumbwaiter creaked into action. Up came buckets of fresh, steaming-hot water. The maids scrubbed the tub until its copper gleamed, then refilled it from a seemingly endless procession of upbound buckets.
Their task complete, the maids curtsied, and chirping like sparrows, flew back to their hallway.
Carin locked them out, stripped off, climbed into the tub, and washed away the sweat that had dried on her skin. She was still reasonably clean otherwise, courtesy of the strangleweed nearly drowning her in the pond at the sloped green swale. But she’d sweated so profusely from the effects of the numbwort tea, Carin felt limp and sticky, especially her hair. She soaped clean, toweled off, then drew on the green gown.
The fabric seemed lighter than air. After weeks of wearing her same sturdy trousers and long-sleeved shirt, Carin felt at risk of floating away, dressed in such a thin and slinky garment.
Her crystal dolphin would be on full display if she tried to keep it on her while robed in this gossamer gown. Carin fished the crystal from the pocket of her shed trousers, from the pile of dirty clothes she’d left on the bathroom floor. Then she stepped back into the bedchamber and looked for a safe place to hide the dolphin.
Carin eyed the short, ruffled drapery that covered the top of the window. By standing on the bed, she managed to reach high enough to slip the crystal between the double thickness of cloth that formed the drapery’s turned-up hem. Satisfied that no maid would happen across the amulet there, Carin jumped down and stood at the window with her long hair drying in the salt-scented breeze.
The sun was going down now, and its last rays bathed the harbor in a golden light that deepened all the other hues. The colorful boats at the docks resembl
ed pieces of ripe fruit bobbing in the water. Other vessels, farther out in the large harbor, seemed to catch the sun in their canvas; the sails glowed as if from within.
At the greatest distance, among the vessels that patrolled the mouth of the harbor, a ship was actually on fire. Carin watched it ram the wall of strangleweed that was blocking the harbor entrance. The ship exploded on impact. Flames shot up; sparks rained down.
But almost at once, the blaze died. Though the distance was too great for Carin to see clearly, she doubted that the fireship had discouraged the strangleweed one jot.
Wrong kind of fire.
It was getting dark enough now that lights were showing on the docks below and in the windows of the houses down the hill from the inn. Other lights also flickered, far out to sea. They sparked from point to point.
Carin would have enjoyed watching the display if she had not known what made it. As the twilight deepened, the distant sparking revealed to her the contours of the strangleweed invasion:
The weed had gathered itself into a knot at the mouth of the harbor. Great ribbons of the stuff streamed out from that knot, far into the open sea. The nearshore waters, however, were weed-free, evidently still cleared by the smoking they’d gotten from the magian inferno Carin had unleashed in the scrublands.
“Good,” she muttered, studying the knot and its ribbons. “All of it way out to sea. Not much risk of me setting the boats in the harbor on fire.”
Briefly, Carin thought about attempting to conjure her magian flames from the window where she stood. But she dismissed the idea before it was fully formed.
“Don’t be stupid,” she murmured. “You must get close enough that no one will be hurt if something goes wrong. Drisha knows, you’ve lost control of that other thing you do,” she muttered, no longer daring even to call the “spell of sand” by the name she’d given it. “Maybe you’re also losing your grip on those fires you like to set.”
Carin startled slightly as a man’s voice cut through the dusk below her window, though it was a familiar voice.
The Wisewoman (Waterspell 3) Page 18
