‘Cleora Winsley, that would be,’ he said, catching what she said. ‘Karl Winsley’s wife, and Yardley Heywood’s daughter?’
‘Yes,’ Flora said, a little surprised. It’s nice to have a family people know, too, she thought.
‘I’ve done business with Karl Winsley,’ Tael said. ‘Buying hops.’ He looked at Lorrie. ‘And Bram is your friend?’
‘We’re neighbours,’ Lorrie said. ‘His . . . his horse came back to Land’s End, saddle empty and an arrow in it. I’m staying with Mistress Winsley. We came to see if he’s all right.’
‘I can’t tell you,’ Tael said.
His wife returned with mugs made of turned maple, and an iron rod with a wooden handle; the tip of the metal glowed white-red.
‘Thanks, pet,’ Tael said.
He took the mulling iron from her and plunged it into Flora’s cider. The drink bubbled and seethed, hissing as the metal quenched; the iron had gone dark when he removed it a moment later, but it was still hot enough to make him cautious as he returned it to the hearth. A pleasant smell of apples and spices rose; Flora sipped cautiously.
Tael took a long drink of his beer as he came back, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, taking the last of the foam from his moustache, thinking hard. Flora spooned up some of her soup—she was hungry, and it smelled good—and ripped apart one of the small loaves for dunking. It was hot enough to steam slightly, and good wheat bread, nearly white.
‘Well, as to young Bram, he stopped here for food about noon couple o’ days ago,’ Tael said abruptly, like a man who’d been ordering his thoughts. ‘Nice lad, polite, for all he’s from Relling way. Sorry.’
‘No offence,’ Lorrie said; a small smile quirked at the corner of her mouth.
‘And he came looking for a young lad named Rip, who he thought would have been in the company of two men, and maybe not happy about it.’
Flora and Lorrie nodded. The innkeeper hesitated and drank again, then nodded as if to himself after some internal dialogue.
‘Well, I’d seen no such boy,’ he said. ‘But I had seen two men who might have been the ones he were looking for, you see.’ Another hesitation, then: ‘Men-at-arms from the manor; men of the Baron’s. Skinny and Rox, they’re called; gallows-bait. I soldiered a bit myself when I was younger, and I met enough like them; ready-for-aughts, if aught were somethin’ that meant money for no work, but not the sorts a good captain would have in his troop, or ones that a wise comrade would trust with his purse or back, if you takes me meaning?’ They nodded. ‘I told your Bram that much, for he seemed a good enough sort, and they’re no friends of mine, for all they spend their pay here. Then he thanked me, polite-like, and rode up north toward the lord’s hall. The next we see is his horse running south; we tried to catch it and couldn’t. Didn’t think to lure it with grain until it was half-way down the road to Land’s End. Glad it got back to you; I’d have sent word had I caught the beast.’
Lorrie had no doubt he meant that, but she knew country ways and ‘sending word’ would be to mention to a passing wagon driver heading towards the city that he’d found a horse, just in case someone came looking.
‘And next evening, in come Rox and Skinny, laughing, and spending free—a roast goose between them, and everything of the best. Wine and beer and spirits, and I had to send Bessa to bed early.’
Flora looked at Lorrie, and their hearts sank. Lorrie leaned close and whispered, ‘Rip’s here . . . not far at all. Close.’
‘And if Rip is, and these two men are, maybe Bram is too.’ Unless he’s dead, Flora thought. And that would be a pity. He’s sweet, and pretty as a picture. And Lorrie’s a friend, I wouldn’t want her to lose her man before she’s even had him.
Tael observed the byplay, crunching an onion between strong yellow teeth. ‘Thing is . . .’ he said when they looked at him.
‘Yes?’ Lorrie said eagerly.
‘Lass, they both looked as if they’d been in a fight, not a bad one, but bruises and such. And that Skinny, he carries a bow in a case at his saddle. Short bow, horn-backed and double curved, Great Kesh style.’
With that he nodded to them and went about his work. Flora looked around as the two girls ate. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said, glancing up at the roof.
It wasn’t very high—seven feet at most, likely kept low to make the main room easier to heat. The rafters were roughly-adzed pine-trunks, and the planks pegged over them had generous cracks, probably to save expensive sawn lumber; bits of straw stuck through them.
The singing below their room had died away. Flora and Lorrie lay prone on the boards; Lorrie had her eye to a crack, and they’d carefully picked out a clear place between two of the planks. Loud voices came up from the table below them, harsh and slurred. Flora shivered a little.
Jimmy was right, she thought, remembering the quick hot glint in the eyes of the sergeant who’d flung her into the cart in the sweep of Mockers in Krondor. I’m well out of the trade.
‘It’s them,’ Lorrie whispered.
She was white-faced; Flora realized suddenly it was anger, not fear. Killing anger.
‘It’s the two who took Rip,’ she said, her voice like ice crackling on a winter puddle when you stepped onto it, crackling and letting things ooze through. ‘And burned my home and killed my parents.’ Flora patted her shoulder awkwardly; she’d lost hers early, and from what she remembered they were no prizes anyway.
Then she pressed her eye to the crack again. There were four of them sitting around the table and the picked remains of several chickens; she could recognize Skinny and Rox from Lorrie’s description. Bad ones, she thought, wrinkling her nose; she could smell the stale beer in their sweat, and the jerkins that had never been cleaned, with old blood on them and worse, and the neat’s-foot oil on weapons. Badder than most.
Skinny smiled too often, and Rox not at all. They did look as if they’d been in a fight lately; Skinny had a fading shiner, and Rox a set of puffy knuckles on his right hand. The other two were nondescript men, nothing out of the ordinary about them except an unusual number of scars, hard feral eyes that showed occasionally when they tilted back their flagons and greasy dark hair that swirled back from their foreheads.
One of them took something out of a belt-pouch and shook it in his closed hand—dice, probably. ‘Come on, you two,’ he said. ‘Let’s see some of that gold you were boasting about. I can feel it calling to me—wants to rest in my purse, it does.’
‘Sure it would if I were fool enough to use your dice, Forten.’
Forten’s fist closed on the knuckle bones he had produced; perhaps he would have made something of it, if Rox had not been hulking on the other side of the table. From where she lay, Flora could see Skinny’s right hand, where the fingers brushed the hilt of the knife tucked into his boot.
‘And we haven’t got all of it, yet, not the fee for the new one,’ Skinny said.
Forten grunted as he put away his dice, then poured more wine from a pitcher into his mug. ‘Bad enough those little ‘uns hiding and skulking in the walls. Fair near broke my head, where they’d rubbed grease on them stairs by the main gate. That new one, he could be real trouble if he got loose, big as a grown man. Bugger him anyway. The Baron and that wizard’ll sort him out soon enough.’
The mercenaries fell silent for an instant, looking uneasy; one or two made signs against evil with their hands, and they all drank.
Flora turned her head. Lorrie’s face was blazing with hope. They drew back to the other corner of the room, speaking quietly. ‘That’s them!’ Lorrie said. ‘The new one—big as a man—that must be Bram. And the little ones, they must be Rip, and some other children!’
Bram yes, Flora thought. And maybe it’s your little brother. More likely than not, yes.
She nodded, and Lorrie went on, her smile fading: ‘They must be in the manor, though. How could we get in? It’s like a fort, and guarded, and . . . you know what the innkeeper said about the castle.’
&nb
sp; Flora shivered. ‘That it feels wrong? Yes. But—’
‘But we’ve got to get them out,’ Lorrie said. ‘And soon. You heard. Something special planned for Bram!’
The girl from Krondor nodded, tempted to shiver again. Then she thought rapidly; things she’d heard from other girls, and from other Mockers. ‘Wait a minute,’ she breathed. ‘I think we can get in! And those hired swords will be the way we can.’ She felt in her skirt pocket; the little sack of ‘something special’ was still there. Jimmy knew what he was doing when he left me some of this! she thought. ‘Here’s how we’ll do it.’
Flora rearranged her bodice, unlacing it so she could turn under the cloth, giving her as plunging a neckline as any she had worn while walking the streets of Krondor. She removed the kerchief she had worn while riding in the cart, and shook her hair out, letting it fall loose over her shoulders. She tugged at her bodice one more time, ensuring it showed enough to make acceptable working clothes. The night had gone cool and overcast, with the smell of rain on the wind from the sea. That raised goose-bumps; it did nothing to dim her wide smile as the two troopers stumbled out of the door of the Holly Bush. A backdrop of red firelight silhouetted them for a moment, and then their weaving steps were in the muck.
‘Well, hel-lo,’ Flora crooned.
The mercenaries stopped and goggled; it was Forten and Sonnart. Their companions had headed home earlier, and not quite as drunk.
‘Who’re you?’ one of them asked.
‘Not the innkeeper’s daughter with the big teats,’ the other observed owlishly.
‘I’m the new girl in these parts, boys,’ she said cheerfully, rolled a hip and winked, mustering up every trick she had learned to overcome revulsion; she had lain with more repulsive men in her day, but that was before she had come to think of herself as having more to her life than surviving from day to day. Choking down an urge to gag, she asked, ‘You walking home, or do you want to come to the stables and ride, first?’
Negotiations went quickly; the men were practically lowing as they panted after her, bumping into each other and huffing as they staggered in her wake around the rear of the inn.
‘This’s far enough,’ one of them grunted, clutching at her.
‘It’s muddy and it’s going to rain,’ Flora cast back over her shoulder. ‘There’s a roof and nice straw and horse-blankets in the stables. Only a few more steps!’
For all they’d taken aboard, the mercenaries had a well-developed sense of self-preservation; they made her go first through the doors into the darkened stables, and their hands went to their hilts when they saw Lorrie standing there.
They relaxed again, grinning, as they saw it was another girl. ‘Ruthia!’ one blurted. ‘This is our lucky day!’
Lorrie held her hand forward, palm up. As Forten reached for her, she took in a sharp breath and blew across the hand into his face.
Flora was already dodging sideways, holding her breath. The stable was a dim cavern, with only a little light filtering in through the door and the slits under the eaves, but she’d placed the hickory axe-handle precisely where it needed to be, and her hand fell on it.
Forten was already down, falling limp and face-forward in the packed manure and straw of the stable floor. Sonnart behind him hadn’t got much of the dust in his face; he gave a strangled shout and managed to half-draw his sword, a glitter of bright metal in the darkness. Flora took a firm two-handed grip on the smooth length of dense springy hardwood.
Thock!
The yard-long axe-handle landed on his right kneecap with the sound of a maul hitting a block of wood. The mercenary gave a high shrill scream that died away to a gurgle as Flora collected herself and smacked her weapon down again, this time on the back of his head.
Light flared as Lorrie took a bucket off the lamp they’d brought out. Horses stamped uneasily in the stalls, and one. snorted as he caught the scent of blood. Both mercenaries were alive, but Sonnart wouldn’t be feeling well when he woke up.
Lorrie drew her belt knife, teeth showing in what was most definitely not a smile. Flora hurried over and caught her arm.
‘No!’ she said.
Lorrie turned on her. ‘Why not?’ she said fiercely. ‘They work for the man who had my brother kidnapped and my parents killed!’
‘But they’re not the ones who did it,’ Flora said. ‘I wouldn’t stop you if it was. But if we kill these two Tael will get into a lot of trouble—hanging trouble—swine they may be, but they’re a baron’s men-at-arms, Lorrie!’
‘And you heard what they said about Bram!’ Lorrie went on, but the wild look was dying out of her eyes, and she stopped trying to tug her arm free of Flora’s grip.
‘Ah,’ Flora said. ‘Well, I had a thought about that.’ She held up two dried pinecones from the tinder-box of the smithy. ‘You see how all the leaves on the pinecones run one way?’
‘Yes?’ Lorrie said, puzzled.
Half an hour later, two cloaked and hooded figures rode down the highway from the Holly Bush towards Baron Bernarr’s manor. One of them scratched disgustedly.
‘Didn’t they ever boil these to get the nits out?’ she said.
‘It could be worse,’ the other replied.
‘How?’
‘Let me tell you about Noxious Neville, some day,’ she replied.
The Baron groaned, and again clutched at his sheets. But now dream and memory were blurred, as were waking and sleeping. He drifted from knowing what night it was, lying in his bed, to thinking he was a younger man, facing terrible choices.
He stood looking in horror at his wife’s pale form, life draining from her as blood pooled in the bed, the midwife clutching the crying baby.
A voice at his elbow. ‘I can help.’
Without looking he knew it was Lyman. ‘What can you do?’
‘Cover the lady, and leave the room,’ commanded the visitor and it was done.
Then he was outside the room, the midwife already gone with the child to give it up to the wolves. But . . .
Bernarr’s eyes fluttered, and he realized it was night and he was alone, and the baby was now a youth, chained away in a secret room. He groaned and rolled over, clutching the pillow as he shut his eyes.
Lyman said, ‘An hour is but an instant, and a day but seconds within that room. She will abide while we seek a way to keep her from Death’s Hall.’
Healers came, chirurgeons and a priest of Dala, and another from a sect down in the desert of Great Kesh, but none could revive the lady of the house when Lyman lowered the time spell. Each time he failed, he vowed to redouble his efforts to find a way. And each time Bernarr accepted his vow, he felt more darkness seize his mind and heart.
Soon, Lyman had become a permanent member of the house, given his own rooms and places for his servants. Books were purchased and scrolls and tomes sent by collectors across the breadth of civilization. No matter what the price, Bernarr paid, but no solution was found.
Then the books of dark magic appeared, and blood was needed. First animal, but then . . .
Bernarr sat up, a scream torn from his chest, a man tormented beyond endurance. He forced his eyes open, willed himself awake and pushed himself to the glassed doors leading to his balcony. Throwing aside the sash, he opened the doors and stepped out into the cold night darkness. Only two more nights. He took a deep, cold breath of air. Then he whispered, ‘In two nights, it will be over.’
EIGHTEEN
Magic
The storm raged.
‘Meg!’ a voice bawled outside the cottage.
Thunder rumbled outside, and flashes of lightning filtered through the boards of the shutters. Rain hissed down on the thatch, but it was tight and showed no leaks as yet.
Jimmy looked up from putting a final edge on his dagger; Jarvis was already throwing his cloak around his shoulders.
‘Meg!’ the voice shouted again, and this time it cracked in an adolescent squeak.
Jarvis opened the door; a boy blundered in. Jimmy
put his age at about two years older than himself, with a revolting crop of pimples that he’d been spared himself so far, praise be to Banath, God of Thieves. The lad was dripping from the steady rain outside, and panting as if he’d run several miles—which the rich spatter of mud that coated him to waist-height also bore out.
‘Come in, boy,’ the cottager growled; Meg brought a cup of something hot and herbal from the small pot she kept on the side of the hearth.
‘Why, Davy, what are you doing out on a night like this?’
The boy paused at the sight of the two strangers; Jimmy gave him a smile and snicked the dagger home in its sheath at his belt; the firelight caught the fretwork on the guard of his rapier.
‘Travellers,’ the cottager said. ‘Now, Davy-boy, why’d you come calling for Meg? Someone ill, or come to their time?’
Aside to Jarvis and the young thief: ‘This un’s Davy, son to Tael at the Holly Bush. Not the first time Meg’s been called out on a filthy night.’
‘Two of the Baron’s armsmen,’ Davy said, sipping at the herbal drink and calming. ‘Beaten! Naked and beaten in the stable.’
‘Serves them right,’ his host growled. ‘Let ‘em fester, I say.’
‘Your mother could handle bruises, or setting a bone broken in a brawl,’ Meg said. As she spoke she went to the bed and hauled out another box, this one of boards covered in rawhide. ‘What else is wrong with them?’
Davy looked at the men, shuffled from one foot to the other, and then blurted, ‘They walked out of the door and claimed that a . . . a whore lured them to the stables, and her pimp beat them!’
The cottager scowled more deeply. ‘A likely story. There aren’t no loose women at the Holly Bush.’
‘That’s what they say,’ Davy claimed. His pimply face looked more hideous as he blushed. ‘And . . . well, their clothes and weapons and all were gone, and they had their hair and beards cut off, and they were all rolled and slobbered with dung, and . . . and—’
Jimmy the Hand Page 32
