The White Road n-5

by Lynn Flewelling

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Seregil admitted. “But it’s possible.”

  “What now?” asked Micum.

  “I guess we’d better go see if the book is gone or not.”

  “Even if it is, it doesn’t necessarily mean Ulan has it.”

  “No,” Seregil replied, “but it gives us a place to start.”

  “I can ask around the docks and see what he’s been up to,” said Micum.

  But Seregil shook his head. “No, we’d better not do anything to get you remembered just yet. We know where he is, and if he leaves we know where he’ll go.”

  The horse market was several streets on. The pickings were slim; the war was taking its toll here, too.

  The others hung back respectfully again while Micum bargained for four horses and some used saddles, telling the trader he’d sold his slaves’ saddles during a slack time.

  “Buying saddles for your slaves?” the man asked as he sat down at a small table to write out the bill of sale.

  “I have a long way to go and I expect them to work. They can’t do that sliding around on nothing but a blanket,” Micum explained.

  “Ah, well then. Where are you headed?”

  “I mean to make my way to Nanta, and then up the river from there to the outposts to sell my horses.”

  “What about the fighting?”

  Micum laid a finger to the side of his nose. “I’ve got my routes, friend. No one bothers me. And it’s still winter up there where I’m heading. Skala’s whore queen is probably still snug in her palace for now.” He spat on the ground. “This will be her last year, I say. Death to Skala!”

  “Death to Skala, friend!” The trader slapped Micum on the shoulder.

  “Say, can you tell me if there are any rich nobles around here, who might have special stock to sell? Some with a bit of ’faie blood in ’em? Not that your beasts are inferior.” He stroked the neck of the ordinary bay he’d just purchased. “Fine animals! But if I should meet up with some officers along the way in Mycena, it’s ’faie beasts they want. It’d help me along, if I could put a bit more gold in my pocket going north.”

  “Well …”

  “And I’ll put some gold in yours, too,” Micum assured him. “Steer me right and I’ll give you a gold sester for every horse I find.” With that he spit in his palm and held it out to the trader. The man did the same, and they clasped on it.

  Leaning at ease against the corral, the trader rattled off half a dozen names, none of them Yhakobin’s. “They might have a few horses left. But you’d better have a lot of gold in your pocket, if you mean to trade with them. The richer they are, the tighter the purse strings.”

  “Isn’t that the truth! Any widows among them? They’re likely to not deal so sharp.”

  “That would be the Lady Meran. You’ll want to keep your slaves on a short tether, though, if you go near her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because her husband was killed by escaped slaves a few months back. It was the scandal of the city.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, friend.” Micum dropped another coin in the man’s hand. “And where would I find this grieving lady?”

  “You want the east high road. You’ll find yourself on it if you go to the second slavers’ square and take a right turn at the barn with the sun and moon sign above the door. You can’t miss seeing it. From there you ride out to the second crossroad and turn right again. By and by you’ll strike a lane lined with tall trees. That’s the way to the estate.”

  “Thank you, friend. One last thing, though. Can you tell me the name of the dead husband?”

  “You could ask anyone in Riga that and get the answer. He was Charis Yhakobin, alchemist to the Overlord himself and the richest man in the duchy—even richer than the duke himself.”

  “Does the duke have horses to sell?” Micum asked.

  “No, but if you find any ’faie ones, he’s likely to be a good customer for you.”

  Micum clasped hands with him again. “You’ve been a great help, my friend. Give me your name and I’ll come to you first with northern stock, and make you a special price for whichever ones you want.”

  “Ashrail Urati. And yours?”

  “Lornis of Nanta. Look for me in the fall.”

  Ashrail glanced up at the sun. “You won’t get to that house before nightfall and she’d not likely to welcome you then. My house is just in the next street over. Be my guest tonight and take supper with me, why don’t you? I’ve a slave cupboard in my stable, so you needn’t worry about them.”

  “Very kind of you. I believe I will!”

  Ashrail left the market with them and took them to a large house in a respectable street. Micum was ushered in the front door, while Seregil and his fellow slaves ended up barred in a cramped, windowless room hardly bigger than the aforementioned cupboard, with one small flyspecked lantern for light. It reeked of stable muck, and there was no source of heat except for the lamp and their blankets and cloaks.

  “This reminds me of our last visit to Plenimar,” Alec said in Skalan, whispering in case of any prying ears outside. “Cold all the time. At least we can take these damn things off, though.” Alec pulled his veil off and tucked it inside his coat.

  “At least it’s not raining.”

  Sometime later they were given a hot supper of stew and bread and let out once to use a stinking privy, for which they had to put on their veils.

  “We might as well be horses!” Rieser muttered when they were barred in again.

  “I think the horses get better treatment,” said Alec, running a finger along the inside of his slave collar.

  Rieser pulled at his. “And this is what you escaped?”

  “What we escaped was worse,” Seregil told him.

  “And yet you come back here. You’re either very brave or just plain mad.”

  “Bit of both,” Seregil said with a grin that was hidden.

  “And all for the sake of the tayan’gil?”

  Alec nodded. “We don’t want more of them made, any more than you do. And whatever is in that book may help us understand him better.”

  “To what end?”

  “To make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

  “That won’t be a problem, among my people.”

  “You’re not taking him,” growled Alec.

  “You can’t stop us.”

  “Hush, both of you, before someone hears,” hissed Seregil. “Nobody is to mention any of that again until we’re well away from all this!”

  CHAPTER 26

  Scouting the Ground

  ONE OF THE horse trader’s servants roused them early the next morning and brought them into the kitchen for a hot breakfast. Alec rubbed the sleep from his eyes as they entered the warm, steamy room to find bread trenchers already set out for them on a side table. The kitchen girl even gave them a smile as she brought them a platter of crisp turnip cakes fried in bacon grease and a pitcher of fresh milk. Micum must have made a good impression on his host.

  Micum and the horse trader came in and ate with them, talking and laughing like old friends. When they were done, Micum kissed the serving girl to make her giggle, then the four of them set off toward the slave market.

  “I wish there was another direction to go,” Alec said when they were away from the house.

  “Actually, I’d like to see it this time,” Seregil replied.

  “So would I,” Rieser murmured, eyes hard above his veil.

  The markets were as Alec remembered, but he had more time to look around than he’d had before. Slave barns, money houses, taverns, and inns surrounded a series of squares. Each barn had a raised platform out in front, and already a few slaves were on display to small clusters of bidders. At this hour it was mostly children; the poor things were half naked, with heavy chains attached to their little collars.

  The sights and smells brought back bad memories and made Alec’s stomach hurt, but he didn’t recognize anything until they r
eached one of the larger squares, where he caught sight of the maimed slaves chained along a wall with filthy bandages where limbs had been.

  “By the Light!” Rieser gasped softly behind his veil. “What happened to them?”

  “Punishment.” Alec made himself look back at them again. “Run away and lose a foot. Be rude to your master and they cut out your tongue. Steal and—”

  “I understand,” Rieser replied. Even whispering, his outrage was obvious.

  “Quiet, you lot!” Micum ordered sharply, giving them a meaningful look over one shoulder.

  Alec obeyed, then turned to find Seregil looking up at a handsome young Aurënfaie man on one of the platforms. He was naked, hands shackled behind his back so that he couldn’t cover himself. Pale with cold, he stared out over the crowd, eyes devoid of hope.

  Seregil turned to Alec, telling him with narrowed eyes that this place should be burned to the ground with every slaver locked in their own barn.

  They came at last to the barn with a moon and sun sign done in gilt work hanging over the door, and the street they were seeking. Turning right, they left the market and continued up a busy thoroughfare, following it to the east gate.

  Alec had been made to kneel in Yhakobin’s carriage and hadn’t been able to see anything more than the tops of houses and trees out the open window. It wasn’t much help to them now; they left the city behind and rode through rolling farmland, following the horse trader’s directions.

  It was greener here than on the coast, and they rode past horse pastures and fields of winter wheat and turnips that had been left in the ground through the cold season. At last Alec spotted a sprawling villa on a wooded hilltop half a mile or so in the distance.

  “That’s the place,” he told the others.

  “Are you sure?” asked Seregil.

  “Yes. It’s the right shape and I recognize the tree line behind it, with the dead oak.”

  “You don’t know the place?” Rieser asked Seregil.

  “I was kept inside more than Alec, and it was dark when we escaped.”

  “And we’re going there now?”

  “Not yet.”

  They reached the tree-lined lane the trader had told them of, but continued past it. The road was less traveled here, and the farms spaced farther apart.

  They stopped at last in a copse of trees at the edge of a field.

  “Micum, you and Rieser can wait for us here. The farm should be within a mile of here.” He looked up at the sun; it was coming to midafternoon now. “I think we have time to find it, just in case we end up having to use the tunnel. Alec?”

  “I think it was—” He scanned the horizon. “Northish.”

  “Northish?” Rieser looked less than impressed.

  “Don’t worry. He has a fine sense of direction,” said Seregil, but as soon as Rieser looked away Seregil raised a brow at Alec. Northish?

  They continued up the road, blending their horses’ tracks with those of all the riders who’d been along this way since the last rain. As always, Alec’s sense of direction stood them well. Within the hour he spotted a little horse farm with an apple orchard and an onion field. “That’s it.”

  “Smoke is coming out of the chimney. Someone’s home,” noted Micum.

  “Last time we were here, there weren’t any dogs,” said Alec.

  “Well, just in case.” Seregil held out his left hand to Rieser, the fingers curled against his palm except for the first and last. “I know you have a bit of magic, at least. Do you know how to do the dog charm?”

  Rieser mimicked the hand gesture. “Soora thasáli, you mean? Of course. What do we do now?”

  Micum gazed off at the house. “I’d say we should have a look while we have the chance, just to see what’s what.”

  The farmstead was just as Seregil and Alec remembered—a small, well-kept place with a large corral, a barn, and a good-sized stable.

  Micum approached first, with the others well behind him, but this time a snarling dog appeared from the open barn door and ran at him. Micum had to rein in his piebald before she could buck.

  “Hello in the house,” he called out over the barking.

  A man in a leather apron came from the barn, wiping his hands on a grimy cloth. “Brute, come!” The dog retreated grudgingly, still growling as he went to sit by his master’s feet. “What do you want?”

  “Water for our horses, and to see if you have any you’d part with,” Micum replied. “Do you have any to sell?”

  The man brightened at that. “I do, sir, if you’ve got gold to pay for them.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, then. Have your slaves water your mounts while we look over the herd. Are they safe to leave on their own?”

  “Oh, yes. No worries there.” Micum turned to the others and curtly ordered them to see to the horses.

  Seregil and the others bowed and led the string over to a long trough beside the corral. They stayed there, hooded and silent, while Micum and the man headed up into the meadow beyond the house.

  “Yhakobin’s widow must be selling off her herd for capital,” murmured Seregil.

  “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this in broad daylight?” Rieser asked.

  “Micum is finding out how many people live here, so we know what to expect if we come back tonight. This place is part of Yhakobin’s estate.”

  “Where is the tunnel?”

  Seregil pointed to the stable. “It comes up in there.”

  Micum and farmer returned and went into the house together. Micum came out again after a time, smiling and smelling of beer and sausage. He’d brought them some of the latter in a napkin. A woman and a young girl with dark braids stood by the open doorway, smiling as they watched the men go back to the stable.

  “Oh hell, a child!” Seregil muttered under his breath.

  Micum? Alec signed.

  Seregil gave him a slight nod. The girl looked to be the same age as Micum’s youngest daughter, Illia.

  “If the time comes, I will kill them,” Rieser whispered.

  “Because they’re only Tír?” hissed Alec.

  “We’re not killing anyone unless it’s absolutely necessary, and leave out the girl and the woman,” Seregil told him. “We’re not murderers.”

  “And yet you kill?”

  “Only when necessary. This lot shouldn’t be any problem. I haven’t seen anyone else around.”

  “There was a drunken stable hand the night we escaped,” Alec reminded him.

  “Let’s hope he hasn’t improved his habits.”

  Micum struck a deal for three fine Aurënfaie horses and parted on the best of terms with the master of the house. Alec tied the new ones into the string they already had, and they set off the way they’d come.

  “Well?” asked Seregil when they were out of sight of the house.

  “It’s just the family you saw, a hired man, and a stable boy,” Micum told them. “There’s a front room as you go in, with a kitchen on the left and the bedchamber at the back. I assume the hired man sleeps in the front room or the barn.”

  “Good to know. Hopefully it won’t come to needing it, though,” Alec said.

  They reached the thick stand of trees and took their horse string to the heart of it, tethering them there. Then they waited for night to fall, watching the bow of a waxing moon sinking in the west. Seregil took a spare shirt from his pack and cut it into strips with Micum’s knife, then wrapped them around the iron hooks of the grapple, to deaden the sound of it when he used it on the wall.

  “I guess it’s time,” he said when it was full dark. He tied the neck of his cloak more tightly to cover his collar. “We should be back by sunrise if everything goes according to plan. If we’re not and you don’t find us between here and the farm, ride into the city and see if they’re burning our entrails and gouging out our eyes.”

  “You shouldn’t joke about such things,” warned Rieser.

  “He jokes about everything,” Alec explained
.

  “It’s better than worrying,” said Seregil. “Micum, if we’re not captured, go to an inn by the south gate and we’ll find you. Come on, Alec. We’ve got risks to face and books to steal.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Nightrunning

  SEREGIL and Alec were doubly careful as they rode back toward the villa, keeping well away from the road. It was a clear night, and the stars cast enough light for them to be seen. If they were caught now, with no master and no papers—not to mention the bag containing the grappling hook and the rope slung from Seregil’s saddlebow—then they would find themselves back in the slave market pretty damn quick.

  But Illior’s luck was with them; they reached the villa lane without encountering anyone. Avoiding that, too, they flanked the hill. It took some searching, but they found the mouth of the gully that ran behind the villa. It lay at the end of a farm road, and the mouth of it was choked with rubbish. From here they could see a bit of the villa and torches burning there.

  Picking their way over discarded crockery, broken tool handles, furniture, and a few rotting bed ticks, they led their horses as far in as they could, then left them tethered when it grew too narrow. As hoped, the gully brought them in back of the house directly behind the workshop. They stayed there, watching the stars wheel an hour’s time and talking in signs. Sounds came to them on the still night air—the banging of pots being washed in the kitchen, guards talking in the courtyard above their heads, the flittering of bats and yipping of foxes on the hunt.

  Seregil wondered who was tending the children now. Their nursemaid, Rhania, had killed herself while helping him escape, and he still felt the loss. He’d known her for such a short time, but she was a brave woman who’d deserved better than dying with a collar around her neck.

  A little after midnight, Seregil climbed the side of the gully and pitched the muffled grapple up with practiced ease. It caught on the first try with only a small scratching sound. He and Alec grasped the rope together and put their weight on it to be sure. It held.

  “Here we go, then,” Seregil whispered, then caught Alec by the back of the neck and gave him a kiss.