“I’ll go,” the drunk guard was saying.
“Great,” interrupted Paka sarcastically. “An old drunk guy’s going to search the town by himself, while the two of us get flogged by the general.”
“I’ll go, too,” said the other guard.
“But what...” began Paka.
“I have friends who will help me,” the man continued in a rush. “And a horse. You said you were new to town. You won’t know where to look.”
“I don’t...” Paka tried again.
“Take the keys,” urged the paunchy guard. “You’re on duty. Put on some armor and look as smart as you can. If you’re lucky, the prefect’s men will get here before the general, and they’ll take the heat.”
Two sets of footsteps hurried off down the hall.
When Toril felt Shivi’s light touch on his shoulder, he pushed himself into a crouch and sat up. Paka was already swinging the door wide again.
“We cut it too close!” Paka hissed, tossing Toril his staff. “We’ll have to leave almost on their heels to avoid Gorumim. I think it was him I saw, climbin’ off the ferry, at the same time you yelled. Why did you take so long? I thought I was going to bite my fingernails down to nothing.”
“He was waiting on me,” Shivi said, still sounding shaky. She touched her husband’s cheek as she walked past him, through the doorway. “After Malena left I held out as long as I could, and it drained me more than I expected.”
Toril shook his head to fend off the dizziness as he stumbled to his feet. His diaphragm and shoulder ached, but he felt mostly intact.
“Sorry about how I used the staff,” Paka offered.
“You had to be convincing,” Toril said with a shrug. He realized he was still clutching the wool of the cloak Malena had abandoned; he could feel coins between his fingers.
They reached the antechamber that served as a guard room for the dungeon. The intensity of sunset was fading now, but a wash of yellow still streamed through the broad window. Beyond the low wall that fronted the compound, foot traffic from the town bustled past in both directions.
A stone’s throw downhill, Toril glimpsed a twin row of vertical spears and the silhouette of a man on horseback. They were heading straight for the guard block.
Toril’s heart, which had already been beating fast, jerked into an all-out gallop. He felt his mouth go dry.
Paka had come up behind him and read the situation in the same way. “Put these on,” the old man said tersely. He grabbed a crested helmet and a scarlet cape from a shelf in the corner of the room. “We need a little theater that lets us leave for some reason besides escape. We shouldn’t look like we’re together... You’re going to be the prefect’s lieutenant, chasing an old weaver back to the market.” He removed the sash that had stamped him as a recent draftee and picked up a pair of empty baskets lying in the corner.
Toril opened his mouth to protest, but Paka held up his hand. “Shivi and I took advantage of the chaos today to propose a sale to the army at an exorbitant price, and you’re indignant.” Tucking the baskets under one arm, he threw open the door and stepped out, stumbling a little as if he’d been kicked.
Shivi followed, looking back over her shoulder at Toril as if listening to him lecture.
Toril squared his shoulders and stepped into the sunset. Did Gorumim see him? Would the Royal Guard break into a run to chase him down? He pointed the staff at Paka, who was already nearing the gate at a half trot.
“Don’t think you’ll be able to hide!” he bellowed, trying to sound incensed and self-important. “I’m following you back to the marketplace, and I’ll scare off any other customers before you can cheat them.”
Shivi slipped through the gate and scampered after her husband, who was weaving around slower-moving pedestrians.
Out of the corner of his eye, Toril saw the spears, now within earshot. He turned back to the door he’d just left. “When the prefect gets here, have him send me a detail,” he called, as if speaking to someone who’d remained behind. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but it was the only thing that came into his head. He waved in the general direction that the couple was headed. “I’ll be waiting.”
Then he made a show of trotting after his quarry, choosing the pace of an annoyed soldier rather than a panicked escapee. As he ran, he called out, “Just because we need your wares, and time is short, doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get away with those prices. It’s extortion!”
The streets were somewhat crowded, but the staff, helmet, and cape convinced most folk that he was a soldier; urchins ducked out of his way, and a youth with buckets of water on his shoulders rotated to let him pass. Even so, he had to zigzag around a slow-moving cart and a matron with a brace of chickens clucking upside down from a stick over her shoulder.
At the first crossroads, he ducked right, then jogged left again, following a glimpse of Shivi’s legs disappearing behind a pair of tethered horses. He nearly collided with Paka, who was bent double beside his wife, breathing heavily.
“Getting’ too old for this... sort of thing...” Paka panted.
“Both of us,” Shivi agreed.
Toril yanked off his helmet and submerged it in the half-full water barrel at the head of the trough where the horses were tethered, glad to be hidden from the curious eyes of passersby. He eyed the shop front a few paces away, where the owner of the horses was either working or visiting.
“We’ll never outrun the guards on foot,” he said. “They’ll be discovering we’re gone any moment.” He worked a couple gold coins loose from the slit in the hem of Malena’s cape, then began loosening the reins from the post.
“To buy a hiding place?” Shivi asked dubiously.
“I’ll leave it for the owner of the horses.”
“Ah.” Shivi’s face took on a calculating expression. She held out her hand. “Give it to me.” When Toril hesitated, she repeated the gesture imperiously.
Toril dropped the coins in her palm, wondering what she had in mind. She tugged the cape from Toril’s shoulder, bit along one edge, and tore it in half. “Veil,” she said, holding up the result. She wound it around her hair and cheeks, leaving only eyes exposed. When the gray disappeared and she straightened her shoulders, two decades seemed to drop away. “I’ll go in and find the owner and pay him myself.”
Toril opened his mouth to protest, but Shivi interrupted him.
“I’m not doing it out of the goodness of my heart,” she said tartly. “I can plant a cock-and-bull story that confuses whoever comes searching. Tell them I saw some horse thieves and they dropped some coin as they rode away. The owner will claim the gold; if I argue, it’ll just add to the uproar and make sure the story gets repeated.”
“You sure about this?” Paka asked.
Shivi tugged with affection on her husband’s beard. “Sleight of hand. Get them to focus on what’s irrelevant, while the real prize vanishes. You taught me that.”
Paka hesitated, but a clamor from the direction of the guard station galvanized him again. He tossed his turban in the water barrel, grabbed the saddlehorn, and swiveled to Toril. “Help me up,” he wheezed.
Toril lifted. The old man slid into the saddle with a grunt.
“Tell them... that you saw three strangers steal the horses and take off, headed upriver past where the fishing boats put in.” he said to his wife. “That’s away from the ferry, and from the bluff, and there are less folk when it gets dark. It’ll be hard to verify.”
She nodded.
“Take the other horse, too,” Toril said. “I’ll walk.”
When the older couple looked at each other, Toril grabbed the second set of reins and shoved it into Paka’s hands. “You need a better set of legs, but I don’t,” he said, as he worked the saddle loose from the second horse. “Once they decide we’re on horseback, they’ll assume we’ll stay there for speed. They’ll be looking for three people riding like the wind, not an old man ambling along with an extra horse in tow.”
&nbs
p; Paka again looked like he wanted to argue, but the sound from the direction the guard station crescendoed. He dug his heels into the horse and nosed it and its unsaddled companion away from the water trough.
Toril tossed the saddle over his shoulder and turned toward a narrow alley between two shops across the way. “I’ll carry this for a while,” he said to Shivi. “The owner won’t say one of his horses is bareback, which helps Paka. And as long as I’ve got something interesting on my shoulder, folk will pay less attention to my face.”
40
rendezvous ~ Malena
Malena bent, breathless, branches digging at her ribs. The horse on the trail below her hiding place paused, its rider scanning the faded twilight.
A bat flicked around his shoulder and zoomed away.
In the distance, shadows resolved into the form of a man, trudging up the hill from the edges of town, pulling a handcart laden with sacks of potatoes or something equally lumpy. A staff cut a diagonal across the top of the pile. He leaned, toes digging into the dirt, shoulders straining. When he saw the horseman near Malena, he eased the tongue of the cart down, put a hand at his back, straightened with a groan, and raised an arm in greeting.
“On patrol?” he called to the horseman.
It was the voice of Corim, who’d fed them and provided money. Malena felt her heart leap.
The horseman nodded curtly. “Some prisoners got away.”
Corim ducked his head in acknowledgement. “Heard about that.” He wiped a bulky forearm across his brow and yawned. “You just get back into town with the prefect?”
The man nodded. “Barely rode in when they sent me back. A couple men met us, all panicked that the general would have their hides. I guess they were left in charge when the rest of us rode out, and they got a bit careless.”
“Find anything?”
“Naw. It’s quiet.”
Corim nodded agreeably.
“What are you doing out here, with night falling?” the guard asked.
“I live up the road another half a league,” Corim said. “You know, at that cluster of houses just before the path starts climbing hard. Took my potatoes into town hoping to sell to an army wanting provisions. Thought I’d make a tidy profit, with everyone so frantic.” He spat in the dirt and shrugged. “When I got there I found the quartermaster away, so the whole trip was for nothing.” He rolled his neck and lifted his shoulders to alleviate some stiffness, then sighed. “You wouldn’t be packing out, yourself, would you? Maybe want a bit of extra grub in your sack?”
The guard shook his head. The two men studied the horizon in silence. Malena exhaled tensely.
“Heard a bunch of shouting from the upriver end of town while I was loading up,” Corim observed.
The rider tugged at his horse’s reins. “That’d be the rest of the patrol,” he said. “Probably raising a ruckus as they searched.”
Corim looked thoughtful. “Maybe. I think I heard some galloping, too.” He leaned against the cart and scratched his belly. A stone’s throw farther down the road, an indistinct shadow crested a rise, and Corim turned to watch. Malena raised a hand to shield her eyes. What had first appeared to be undulating, inverted legs began to resolve itself into a pair of plodding horse’s necks, then rolling withers. One horse had a bundle of clothing—no, a wispy-haired old man—clinging to its back. The breeze carried a faint nicker.
The guard kneed his palomino down the hill, eyes appearing to pass over the approaching traveler without interest. “Galloping, you say?”
Corim shrugged. “Sounded that way, maybe.” He adjusted the angle of the staff, bent back to the tongue of the cart, and heaved with a grunt. “Why’d they send you this direction, anyway? The prefect came down this road with hundreds of recruits not half an hour ago. This’d be the last direction I’d run if I wanted to avoid the law.”
“That’s what I said,” the rider grumbled. His horse ambled up beside Corim and executed a slow-motion side-step. “Where, exactly, did you hear this commotion?”
Corim pursed his lips. “Must have been the docks out beyond the market. There’s always some fisherman down there working on his nets, shouting about something, so I mostly ignored it at first. But then I heard a crash and two or three voices all at once, and some mighty fast hooves on the cobblestone. Right about the time the prefect arrived, now that I think about it.” He squinted back toward town, then thrust out his chin in a pointing gesture. “See that torch or lantern way up yonder? Maybe that’s them.”
The rider swore softly, dug heels into his mount’s ribs, and cantered downhill.
Corim waited for a few moments, forearms straining at the inertia of the cart; then, as the rider passed the approaching traveler and vanished beyond a stand of scrub oak, he once again lowered his burden with a sigh.
Malena crawled out of her hiding place, branches snagging on the fabric along the thighs of her shalwar, and stumbled as she straightened, brushing needles from her palms.
Corim wheeled, face registering alarm, then relief as he recognized her, then alarm again. With one hand he gestured her back into hiding; with the other, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the approaching old man and his pair of horses.
“Wait!” he hissed. “Not safe yet!”
Malena smiled. “That’s Paka. He’s with us.”
Once again, Corim’s face flooded with relief.
Feeling thoroughly aligned with that mood, Malena half-walked, half-slid down the gravelly slope, sending talus skittering, and grabbing an occasional branch to aid her balance. By the time she reached level ground, she was grinning broadly.
She couldn’t help it. After exiting the guard house, she’d slipped into the first open door she found—a farrier’s stable—long enough to discard the shimsal’s cloak. She’d waited there, heart pounding, behind a mound of hay, until she felt the baldness recede from her skull, and the bones of her cheeks soften. Then she’d eased out into the passing crowd and worked her way toward the outskirts of town, face downcast, desperate to avoid attention. Any moment she’d expected someone to raise a cry of alarm, but she’d somehow made it to the bluff road unchallenged.
Then she’d looked up, seen the prefect and his men riding down from the very hills where she was headed, and almost vomited in fear.
She could hardly meet them; they’d be sure to ask questions about a solitary woman heading into the wilderness on foot, without weapons or gear, with night falling.
Yet they’d seen her already. She could not run...
When the first row of men were within earshot, she raised her arm, praying that they wouldn’t notice her quivering, and hailed them with as much cheer as she could muster.
“Have you seen any mihahim?” she called.
They continued forward at a methodical trot, hooves clopping.
She repeated her question as they reined in beside her.
“Mihahim. Nari’s Breath.”
The men looked puzzled. One of the horses whinnied. She could see another score of riders rounding the curve behind the first party. She licked her lips.
“The apothecary told me I’d find some of the herb along the road up here,” she said, hoping her voice sounded steady. “With so many headed to battle, his supply’s run out, and he sent me to fetch more before nightfall. I’m almost out of time.”
The men had shrugged and denied seeing anything, and she’d waved them impatiently away. Then, before the next wave of riders, she’d pretended to spy something at the edges of a thicket, and hurried off the road.
It had worked. She’d walked into the woods with no raised eyebrows, no questions, and she’d hiked the rest of the way to the bluff without incident.
But her stomach was twisting with every step, and she had heard a raggedness in her breathing. Once she’d felt the itch of a teardrop on her chin.
She’d thought that after she picked a secure hiding spot, she’d feel better, but instead the terror had intensified; soon after she’d heard distant s
houts and seen a searcher leave town, headed in her direction. She’d spent the last hour hugging her knees, dreading his approach, reliving the horror of her ordeal in the stable. The imperative to hide—to remain invisible at all costs, while dangerous men hunted her—had choked her breath, and conjured paralyzing memories and emotions.
Now, the comfort of not one, but two friendly faces, plus a surging hope that she’d truly escaped, brought fresh tears. She blinked them away and ran over to Paka to help him from the horse.
“I could just about kiss you,” she said, a slight quaver in her voice.
“Please do,” Paka replied with a twinkle, slumping out of the stirrup. A twang from rattled strings told her that somehow, he’d picked up his sitar again. He grunted as his feet hit the ground, then turned and gave Malena a hug. She caught a whiff of leather and nutmeg from his beard as he patted her back. His collarbone was visible, his fingertips light. Without his turban, he seemed frailer, somehow less solid, than she expected.
“Hear that?” said Corim. “You’ve got competition, potato man,” He reached out a hammy hand and shoved one of the sacks off his load. Underneath, burlap knobs and lumps surged. More potatoes tumbled out, and Toril sat up, hair disheveled, covered with dust. He coughed, spat, blinked, and wormed his way forward, tipping the cart forward in the process. As he stood, he smiled. And he spread his arms.
Time seemed to slow for Malena. She saw the confident grin on Corim’s face, the tension in Paka’s knowing eyes.
A public embrace was the last thing she wanted. She’d stood close to her husband, ridden with his chest at her back, even counted his breaths while he slept.
She saw the white glint of Toril’s teeth, framed by grime.
She stifled—what? a wail of grief? a whimper of frustration? a sob?—and stepped woodenly forward. Her face was burning. She felt biceps slide around her shoulders, felt a hand behind her neck, felt breath, then lips on her forehead. A thigh and hip touched her own.
She’d closed her eyes, she realized.
Cordimancy Page 28
