by David Weber
Almost as worrisome as the weather, the road started getting worse from the moment they left Angcar; by the time they approached Angthyr's border with the Empire of the Spear, it was no more than dirt. The upper inch or so was frozen, but Bahzell felt it give under his weight in low spots, and the slight, stiff flexing promised unfrozen water below. If they got the warmer weather Tothas predicted, it was going to turn into a bottomless bog.
The thought filled him with gloom, yet it was but one of many things he had to feel gloomy over. He no longer wore himself out with worry in his dreams; now he got to do it while he was awake, because he knew what the dreams had been about. And as if gods with missions weren't enough, the dog brothers were after him, as well. Nor had Zarantha's worries—whatever the Phrobus they were!—lightened. He'd suggested, once, that when they crossed into the empire she might find shelter while she sent word ahead to her father. After all, she'd be on her own ground then, no longer among foreigners, even if she was still a long way from home, but she'd answered with a single, almost spastic headshake. A grim shadow in Tothas' eyes had echoed her refusal, and Bahzell and Brandark had decided to concentrate on more immediate problems—like the weather, visiting gods, and the imminence of dog brother attack—and let the rest of the future take care of itself.
They crossed the Blackwater River into the Border Weald just after dawn on the fourth day out of Angcar. There was no bridge, but flat ferry-rafts winched their way across it on heavy cables, and icy, slate-gray water gurgled under a dull, pewter sky.
Zarantha was huddled deep into her coat once more. She made the crossing in silence and busied herself helping unload the ferry when they reached the small village on the empire's bank, but Rekah simply walked off the raft. She tapped her toe and frowned at her mistress, pretty face eloquent with impatience, and Bahzell blinked in surprise when Tothas snapped a brusque order for Zarantha to "Get a move on, there!"
Her armsman watched her for a moment, then snorted and produced a document for the officer commanding the handful of soldiers who manned the border station at the ferry landing.
"That wench is as lazy as the day is long!" he sighed as the officer unfolded the parchment. "Unfortunately, she's also my niece. I'm grateful My Lady saw fit to hire her on for the trip, but I'm going to have a few words with my brother when I get her home, let me tell you! I'd've taken a stick to her long ago if she were my daughter!"
The border guard grinned and turned the document to catch the light. His lips moved as he spelled his way slowly through it, then looked up at Tothas.
"That'd be this Mahrisa your passport lists?"
"Aye, that's her. My second brother's oldest girl, drat her!"
"And she's maid to Lady Rekahna?"
"Just as it says, and I'm Lady Rekahna's armsman."
"And you're on your way home to Howacimb?"
"Frethigar, actually. It's a little place south of Howacimb."
"I see." The officer rubbed his upper lip with a gloved finger, then handed the parchment back. "This all seems in order, but—" he gestured to the two hradani "—who might these two be?"
"I picked them up in Kolvania." Tothas shrugged. "Gods know it's a bad time of year for one man alone with two women to watch after, but Lady Rekahna's father's not so plump in the pocket as I'd like these days." He shrugged again. "I had to make do with what I could find."
"Um." The officer rocked back to study the hradani, and Bahzell concentrated on looking fierce but blank. No one had warned him about this—a point he intended to discuss with Zarantha at some length—but it had occurred to him that it would be much better if he couldn't speak Spearman.
"The little one's a sharp dresser for a hradani—reminds me of a pimp I used to know—but the big 'un looks a little slow," the officer said at last.
"I didn't hire him for his brains." Tothas turned his head, hiding his face from the guards, to grin wickedly at Bahzell. "If I had, I'd've gotten a mighty poor bargain!"
"Are you sure you want to travel with them? They've no papers, so you'll have to vouch for them, since they're in your employ. If they cause any trouble, you'll be the one liable for damages—or worse."
"Oh, they'll be all right. They came downriver to Kolva Keep with some Axeman merchant; he hadn't had any trouble out of them, and they've behaved so far. Besides, neither of them speaks a word of Spearman. Even their Axeman is pretty terrible, and I doubt they'll risk anything that might cause me to cut 'em adrift where they can't even talk to people. They're stupid, but they're not that stupid."
Bahzell maintained his blank expression, but his ears twitched, and his eyes slid sideways to meet an equally fulminating glance from Brandark.
"Well, just remember—you're responsible for them, so keep 'em in order," the officer grunted. He gave the hradani another long, hard look, then waved his men back into the warmth of their guard post, and Bahzell looked down at Tothas while Brandark and Zarantha led the last two mules off the ferry.
"Stupid, is it, now?" Brandark murmured in Axeman.
"I had to say something," Tothas murmured back in the same language. "And at least it kept him from asking you any questions."
"Aye, it did that," Bahzell admitted as the Spearman swung up onto his horse, "and the two of us kept him from looking very close at 'Lady Rekahna's' maid, now didn't we just?"
"True," Tothas agreed. He watched Brandark help "Lady Rekahna" into her saddle while Zarantha scrambled up onto her own mule with far less than her usual grace, then glanced back down at Bahzell, and his grin had vanished. "And truth to tell, my friend, that was the most important thing of all."
The Horse Stealer simply nodded and led off down the road once more, but a corner of his mind wondered just where—and when—Tothas had gotten that "passport." It hadn't occurred to Bahzell that such documentation would be needed, but Zarantha had clearly known. More, she'd felt compelled to hide behind false papers, and he suspected procuring them had been expensive. The way the officer had labored to read them suggested he was barely literate, yet she couldn't have counted on that, and even a total illiterate might have recognized a poor forgery. So why—and how—had an "indigent" noblewoman secured a good forgery?
He strode along the frozen road, and the foothills of the North Blood Mountains rose slowly before him as he chewed that thought in silence.
They made another forty miles before the cold snap broke as Tothas had promised. And, just as Bahzell had feared, the road turned promptly into thick, clinging soup. The weather, though warmer, was still chill, and it was also damper, which aggravated Tothas' cough once more . . . and gave the Horse Stealer one more worry to cope with.
The road rose as they slogged on into the foothills of the Blood Mountains, but if the drainage improved, the steady climb compensated for that, and winding turns added long, weary miles to their journey. They'd passed an occasional village or prosperous-looking steading between the river and the hills; now they moved through lonely wilderness, and as Bahzell peered out into each frosty, fog-drenched morning, he understood exactly why that was. Only a madman would live in such a place if he could help it.
And then the rain started again. Cold and slow, falling with infinitely patient, soaking malice. They kept Tothas as warm and dry as they could, and the armsman no longer tried to pretend he didn't need it. He husbanded his strength whenever he could—and felt the rough side of Zarantha's tongue anytime he forgot to—yet his face took on that wan, pinched look once more, and his gloved hands shook on his reins. But at least there was no sign of assassins (who, Bahzell thought, probably had better sense than to be out in such weather), and seven days after crossing the Blackwater, they finally emerged on the far side of the hills.
The Horse Stealer stood at the head of their soaked, mud-spattered party and peered down the final slope. Evening was coming on fast, there was a hint of sleet in the rain, the beasts steamed in the icy wet, and he could feel the sagging weariness of his friends, but his ears twitched under his hood as l
ights glimmered ahead. It looked like a good-sized village or small town, and he touched Tothas on the knee, then pointed at the lights.
"Would you be knowing what that might be?" Even his deep, rumbling voice was hoarse with fatigue, and the Spearman blinked for a moment before his mind churned back to life.
"I think—" He pursed his lips, then nodded wearily. "That would be Dunsahnta," he said wearily. "We passed through it when we took My Lady north."
"What sort of place is it after being?"
"It's a village—good sized, but much like any other." Tothas frowned. "There's an inn, and Baron Dunsahnta has a keep of sorts to the northeast, I think." He shrugged. "He wasn't home when we came through."
"Did you stay at the inn?" Bahzell pressed. Tothas blinked again, and the Horse Stealer sighed. "Tothas, it's a right dummy I'd be—aye, nigh on as stupid as you were after telling that border guard—not to've guessed you and Lady Zarantha are hiding. So tell me—d'you think there's any down there as might remember her from your last trip through?"
Tothas flushed, but then he shook his head. "I doubt it. We didn't stop on the way north. We came through in the morning and kept right on going."
"Ah." Bahzell patted his knee again and slogged back to Zarantha. Her mule looked as weary as the hradani felt—it didn't even try a nip—and sleety water crusted Zarantha's coat. "You've the purse, such as it is," he rumbled. "Will it stretch enough to get Tothas under a roof?"
"Where are we?" Zarantha countered, and nodded when Bahzell repeated what Tothas had told him. "Yes, I remember the place. And he's right, we didn't stop." She bit her lip for a moment, then nodded again, more firmly. "Yes. We can cover two or even three days' lodging, I think."
"Good." Bahzell sighed, and led off into the gloom once more.
Chapter Twenty-one
Dunsahnta did, indeed, boast an inn, but The Brown Horse was a poor exchange for The Laughing God, and the pudgy, nervous little landlord looked acutely unhappy when he found a dripping wet Horse Stealer on his doorstep.
At least Tothas was able to speak for them this time, and the innkeeper seemed to take courage from the armsman's accent. He continued to eye Bahzell askance—especially when Brandark came in from the stables as well—but he finally admitted he had available rooms. Zarantha was back in her persona as "Lady Rekahna's" maid, and Tothas scolded her for her sloth as he paid the landlord, then chivvied her up the stairs while Bahzell and Brandark followed as impassively and menacingly as possible.
The rooms were bigger than The Laughing God's, but no fires had been laid, there were no hot baths, and meals cost two coppers apiece. Yet they were out of the rain, though it occurred to Bahzell, as he considered their rooms, that the landlord had hardly given them his best chambers. They were on the second floor, off a stubby, blind hallway, with the smaller room squeezed into an awkward space between the inn's upper storerooms and the attached stables.
Bahzell assigned that one to Zarantha and Rekah the instant he saw it. The only way to it led past the room he and Brandark shared with Tothas, and, for all its shortcomings, The Brown Horse offered stout doors. With their own door open and the hradani taking watch and watch about, no one could get to Zarantha or Rekah unchallenged.
Tothas nodded approval of Bahzell's arrangements, and this time he raised no argument over leaving the guard duty to the hradani. Indeed, he crawled into one of the beds the instant he finished supper, and Bahzell looked at Brandark and pointed to the other.
"I'll be waking you in four hours," he rumbled, "so you'd best not lie awake thinking of more verses for your curst song!"
Morning came noisily. None of The Brown Horse's servants had ever heard of tiptoes, and Bahzell groaned in protest as a waiter barged in with a can of hot water. The servant dropped it beside the wash basin with an appalling bang, then trooped out like an entire company of heavy infantry, and the Horse Stealer sat up with another groan.
"My, aren't we grumpy in the morning?" Brandark sat with his chair tipped back on two legs. "You really should cultivate a sunnier disposition," he went on in a severe tone. "I know! I finished two fresh verses to Bahzell Bloody-Hand last night! Why don't I sing them f—ummpphh!"
The thrown pillow hit hard enough to knock his chair over with a crash, and Tothas shoved up on an elbow and dragged hair out of his eyes.
"Must you two be so cheerful this early?" He cocked his head at Brandark, then glanced at Bahzell as the Bloody Sword dragged the pillow out of his face. "What's he doing on the floor?"
"Penance," Bahzell growled, and threw back his own blankets.
He stretched enormously, crossed to the washstand, and poured hot water into the basin, then frowned. There was no steam, and he shoved a finger into the basin and sighed. The "hot" water was barely lukewarm.
He grimaced, but it was all there was, and at least his people's lack of facial hair meant that, unlike Tothas, he wouldn't have to shave with it. He washed his face, rinsed and emptied the basin into the chamber pot, then checked the clothing he'd hung before the fire overnight. It was dry, and he climbed into it with only a trace of wistfulness for The Laughing God's baths.
Brandark followed him to the basin, and Bahzell peered out the window. The rain had pulled back to blowing spatters, but a raw, gusting wind shook leafless branches like swords. It looked thoroughly miserable out there, and he hoped Zarantha was right about how long they could stay here, poor service or no.
A maid walked past their open door with another can of so-called hot water as if his thoughts of Zarantha had summoned her. She knocked much more gently than Bahzell would have anticipated and stood waiting a moment, then knocked again, harder. And then again, harder still.
Bahzell's ears cocked as the maid knocked yet a fourth time. He knew how light a sleeper Zarantha was, and he stepped into the hall with a frown.
The maid looked back over her shoulder and squeaked as she saw him. She couldn't have been more than fourteen, and this was her first sight of him, and she pressed her back against the closed door, hugging the water can before her like some sort of shield, her eyes huge.
"Oh, be still, girl!" he rumbled in her language, and wiggled his ears at her. "I gave over eating little girls for breakfast years ago!"
She jerked and tried to press her back through the door for just an instant, then smiled timidly at the rough humor in his voice.
"That's better," he encouraged. "Now what's the to-do?"
"The lady won't answer the door, sir," the maid said in a tiny voice, obviously still more than a little uncertain about him.
"She won't, hey?" Bahzell waved her aside and knocked himself. No one answered, and his amusement at the maid's reaction vanished. He pounded again, loud enough to wake the dead, and Brandark came out into the hall behind him.
"What's going on?"
"If I was knowing that, I wouldn't be after pounding on this damned door!" Bahzell hammered so hard the door leapt against the bar, but still no one answered. "Fetch the landlord, Brandark. I'm not liking this one tiny bit!"
The Bloody Sword jerked a nod and thundered down the stairs while Tothas took his place in the hall. The Spearman took one look at Bahzell, then at the door, and his face went paper-white. He shoved the hradani aside and beat on the door with both fists.
"My Lady!" he shouted. "Lady Zarantha!" Silence answered, and he looked desperately up at Bahzell. "Break it down!"
"So I'm thinking myself, but best we get the landlord up here first."
"No! She might—she might be dying in there!"
"Calm now, Tothas," Bahzell said as gently as his own fear allowed, and drew Tothas back from the door with compassionately implacable strength, despite the armsman's struggles. "No one got past us last night, you've my word for that, but if aught's wrong with Zarantha, then it must be so with Rekah, as well, for they're neither of them answering. And if that's so, I'm thinking there's no point in haste."
Tothas gave one more futile wrench against his grip, eyes full of agony in
his wasted face, then slumped and patted the Horse Stealer's wrist.
"Aye," he whispered. "Aye, you're right. Would to Tomânak you weren't, but you are."
He sagged against the wall, hands scrubbing his face, and Bahzell turned as Brandark clattered back with the landlord. The pudgy little man looked both indignant and frightened in his ridiculous nightgown, and he was badly out of breath from the ruthless haste with which the Bloody Sword had dragged him from his bed.
"What's the meaning of this?!" he tried to snap, but it came out in a nervous quaver, and Bahzell frowned down at him.
"Little man," he said, "we've people behind yonder door, and they're not after answering." The landlord jerked as if he'd been struck. His eyes darted to the door, and he paled, then swallowed.
"M-Maybe they're just a-asleep," he stuttered.
"Then it's the soundest sleep I've ever heard of," Bahzell rumbled.
