The second rider followed the bukko on a dappled grey stallion, sitting his saddle seemingly without effort, like the pea riding the pod. He was young, not more than twenty summers, and lean of body and face. A Kaven aristocrat, but without the pious rigidity and narrow-eyed greed common to that tribe of moneylenders. He was darkly handsome. Flowing chestnut hair, soft charcoal-grey eyes, prominent nose and sensitive lips. He wore soft leather jerkin, tights, boots and cloak, each item carrying its natural umber, sienna or ochre hue. A crossbow was slung across his back, and his belt carried pouches, two daggers and a quiver of steel bolts. The glint of their metal was slightly less deadly than the expression on his face. His name was Jakar, and his only living relative, his twin sister, had been the first to be murdered.
The two riders flew past the stand of apple trees marking the halfway point to Weaver, turned off the road taking a shortcut and dashed right and left between the trees with twigs and leaves slashing chests and cheeks. Retaking the road, they galloped on. Within the hour they reached Weaver.
The sun sat high in the morning sky, shining down on the hill that formed the village. Older women herded small groups of sheep in the clearing fronting the wooden palisade wall. Beyond it, thick steam billowed from huge wooden dye vats lined up on the rising tiers. There the Cytherian villagers moved about at their various tasks of weaving and dying. Above the vats, the steam gathered into a single spreading cloud, muting the deep earth-reds, rusts and siennas of the freshly dyed cloth hung out to dry on the heights. The stench of urine and lime was rich in the air.
Brown John and Jakar slowed as they crossed the clearing, not wanting to alarm their suspects if they were still in the village, and moved to the Forest Gate. There they dismounted, and approached an old man sitting on the ground with his back against the palisade wall. He was whittling on a piece of wood. Marl, the gatekeeper.
He looked up with a smile of recognition at the king and nodded, saying, “Welcome, bukko. What brings you to Weaver on this fine day?”
“Nothing good, Marl,” Brown John said flatly, and squatted facing him. “I’m investigating these vile murders and heard that some suspicious-looking foreign mercenaries were headed this way. You see them?”
“Haven’t been no soldiers here, not today, leastways. I been sittin’ right here the whole time, and bein’ as this is the only gate we leave open nowadays, I’d seen ’em sure.”
Brown John frowned, glanced at Jakar, and the young nobleman said, “Perhaps they didn’t look like mercenaries?”
Marl looked up, giving Jakar the same smile he gave the bukko. “Didn’t see no strangers at all, lad, except for one, and he couldn’t a been no soldier. Little bit of a man, and kind of emaciated.”
“Is he here now?” asked the bukko.
“Nope. Left a little while ago. Wanted to see that pretty gal you made into a dancin’ girl. Was real set on it, he was. So, since she doesn’t live here anymore, I sent him on his way.”
“Robin Lakehair?” Jakar asked. His tone was low and cultured, and he spoke without haste. But there was a tense concern in it. During the war with the Kitzakks, Brown John had seen the young nobleman among those men who had appointed themselves as Robin’s bodyguards, and ever since Jakar had started helping him in the investigations, the bukko had observed him staring at Robin whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Marl, sensing the young man’s interest in Robin, chuckled knowingly and said, “That’s the one, and I’d feel the same way about her, if I was as young as you. Prettiest little thing I ever saw, and always was, ever since she was a mite.”
“What was his interest in Robin?” Brown John asked briskly.
“Adores her, that’s what his interest is. Worships the ground she walks on. And he’s never laid eyes on her, or so he said. Came here all the way from Small Tree, just to thank her for her part in getting the Dark One to defend the forest, and save his tribe from the Kitzakk cages.”
“A Kranik?”
“Don’t think so. Every Kranik I ever saw was near naked, and this little fellah was fully clothed. Even wore a hood. He was dark-skinned like a Kranik, though. But slick and shiny, like he was wet or something. And he wasn’t loud like them savages. Hardly opened his mouth when he spoke, wouldn’t open his lips. I figured he had bad teeth. You could barely hear him.”
The bukko and Jakar shared a thoughtful glance, and Brown John asked, “Where did you send him to find her? Rag Camp?”
“Nope! Sent him to Clear Pond, where I saw her perform day before yesterday. Why? Isn’t she there now?”
“She’s there,” Brown John said, as Jakar leapt back into his saddle. Turning to him, the bukko said, “Hold on a minute, son. It’s only a half hour ride. We’ll get there well before he does.” He turned back to Marl. “What else did this stranger say?”
“Well, he did ask an awful lot of questions about Robin. I figured he was like some of the folks here in the village who think she’s possessed with some kind of unnatural magic or something. You know the ones I mean, those that made life so unpleasant for her here she had to leave.”
“I know,” said the bukko, encouraging him to continue.
“Anyway, he wanted to be absolutely sure he could identify her. I told him he wouldn’t have any trouble, that she’d be in the opening number of today’s performance, and would be the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. That seemed to satisfy him.”
Brown John nodded. “You’re sure he was alone?”
“Was when he left here.”
“Thank you, Marl,” the bukko said, rising.
“You want to thank me, bukko, you just see that pretty little gal keeps on doin’ what she’s doing. She dances like the singing wind, she does.”
They said goodbye, and Brown John mounted his mare, walked it over beside Jakar’s stallion.
Jakar said, “Bad teeth?”
“Or forked tongue,” Brown replied.
They headed off at a gallop, taking the forest road heading north toward Clear Pond.
As they rode, the older man glanced thoughtfully at Jakar. The young man’s eyes were desperate now, but under control. Haunted. Carrying a cargo of bitterness and pain far greater than that which wrinkles the faces of the old and wise.
Brown John shouted over the din of horses’ hooves. “You’re right to be worried. Robin has enemies the likes of which you are too young to imagine… and they may have finally come for her.”
“That doesn’t explain my sister.”
The bukko agreed, and they rode on, the colors of Weaver growing faint behind them. Then Jakar pointed up ahead at a clump of crushed bushes at the side of the road. They reined up beside them and examined the ground. There were muddy tracks of a heavy wagon and a group of riders coming out of the forest and heading up the road.
“They’re fresh,” said Jakar. “The mud’s still wet.”
The bukko, suddenly white of face and gasping, nodded. “Apparently this strange little man isn’t alone.”
“I count at least twenty. That’s a lot of men for one girl.”
“Not if she’s important to them.” Brown John spurred forward shouting, “Follow me! I know a shortcut!”
They plunged up the side of the mountains, crashing through shrubs and ducking the limbs of pines and oaks. Reaching a grassy meadow nestled among the tall trees, they galloped across and rejoined the road, heading for a distant tree-covered ridge rising in front of a sheer wall of jagged rock.
There were scattered travelers on the road, local tribesmen heading for the performance at Clear Pond. But no sign of the suspects.
Ten
A BIT OF FLUFF
Reaching the vicinity of Clear Pond, the two riders left the road again and galloped up through thick pines to the crest of a mountain spur. It was thick with trees and strewn with boulders and thin streams of water draining off the mountain. They could hear sounds coming from the base of the spur, the steady movement of the river and the garbled voice
s of those gathering for the performance.
They had not seen a wagon or riders on their ride, and now, as they searched through the shadowed trees, they found no fresh wagon tracks or ground cover crushed by horses’ hooves.
Moving covertly, they walked their horses down between massive boulders and trees into a natural enclosure formed by towering rocks. Leaving their horses there, they continued covertly down a gully. The sounds of the river and the chatter of the gathering crowd grew louder, then the jangle of tambourine, the vibrating notes of harps and the wail of flutes being tuned.
Jakar and the bukko shared a worried glance. The performance was about to begin.
Reaching exposed ground, they dropped on all fours and scrambled forward to a cluster of large boulders set in a bed of brown needles. They climbed the largest boulder and inched forward, looking over it.
Twenty feet beyond the rock, the Grillard wagons were parked among a thin spread of pines and oaks. Just beyond them the spur thrust bluntly out into the river forcing it to make a sharp turn, and forming the pond. The entertainers were moving animatedly among the trees on the crest of the spur, taking their positions. They moved with their normal excitement, indicating there had been no trouble and that they expected none.
Brown John and Jakar relaxed slightly, relieved, and the young nobleman could not repress a grin.
The wagons were all painted and decorated with florid pinks, yellows, purples and greens, and the Grillards themselves were adorned in an even more vivid fashion, in lemon-yellow feathers, rouged breasts, formidable codpieces and all manner of baubles, bangles and bells. The cumulative impression was that of an unreal world where color and laughter were the staples, instead of steady work and regular meals.
Brown John whispered, “We’re in time.”
Jakar nodded and started to edge back off the rock. “I’ll go warn her.”
“No! You stay here and keep out of sight. I want her safely hidden until I know who and what we’re up against. And I know how to handle her. You don’t.”
The sounds of beating drums and tambourines rang through the trees in a musical fanfare, and the unseen audience on the opposite side of the river cheered excitedly, howling and whistling.
“It’s starting,” blurted Brown John, and slid back down the rock, scraping his hands and chest.
Jakar’s grin was gone now. “Hurry, old man,” he whispered. “Hurry!”
The bukko, holding his tunic above his knobby knees, ran and leapt through trees and rocks like a jackrabbit in heat, vanished behind shrubbery, then reappeared at the back of a large yellow house wagon. Gasping and puffing, he rose stiffly and walked carefully toward the wagon’s door. He reached it without being seen, opened it and hurriedly climbed in, closing it behind him.
Jakar waited, taut and frowning with concern, then looked about sharply as drums boomed somewhere.
Above the tree canopy, showers of arrows soared into the sky directly above Clear Pond. Streamers trailed behind them forming a rainbow of greens that arched against the sky-blue void, then started down. Before they vanished beyond the trees, their arrowheads were whistling as air passed through them. The crowd cheered. The drums boomed. Tambourines, flutes and harps began a rousing song, and everyone, Grillards and audience, began to sing the bawdy lyrics of “The Women of Boo Bah Ben.”
Jakar chuckled with youthful mockery and watched as five nubile girls burst out of an orange wagon and scattered through the trees toward a position upriver. They carried small wooden rafts with rope handles and wore just about enough scalelike jewels to clothe their natural jewels, not counting their backsides, which were marvelously naked. Their hair had been dyed a luxurious red-gold, in exact imitation of Robin Lakehair’s.
Jakar rose slightly, making sure Robin was not among them, and the girls disappeared over the rim of rock. Lying down again, he looked back at the yellow wagon and held still.
Brown John, using the noise and commotion to cover his movements, had exited the wagon and was now racing through the trees toward Jakar. In his arms, wrapped in a blanket, was a small struggling body with tiny feet which kicked furiously.
Jakar climbed off the rock, and the old man raced past him without speaking, heading for the horses. Jakar peered between the rocks to see if he was being followed, saw no one and moved after him.
Just short of the horses, Brown John veered north toward the base of the sheer wall of jagged rock which showed slightly between the tall pines.
When they emerged from the forest, they were beside a fast-moving creek, one of the many which fed the river, and the sounds of the singing were vague, distant.
Brown John, gasping for breath, set the wrapped body down on a rock, then sat down beside it, peeling the blanket away from the head.
Robin Lakehair was gagged. Her short red-gold hair was in disarray, and the rouge on her cheeks and lips, as well as the thick lines of kohl outlining her big hazel eyes, was smeared. The eyes themselves were windows to a shocked body and mind, and angry. Nevertheless, as far as Jakar was concerned, her beauty radiated like sunlight striking through drops of morning dew, and the corners of his finely wrought lips turned up in a smile.
Brown John, between gasps, said, “I’m sorry about this, Robin. Terribly sorry. But I must leave the gag, just in case something might cause you to scream and reveal where you are. I’d explain why, but there’s no time. I have to warn the others, and you have to hide.” He looked up at Jakar. “I think you know Jakar… he’ll stay with you.”
Robin looked up with frightened eyes at Jakar and suddenly stopped thrashing, just stared.
Jakar bowed, with aristocratic reserve, and said, “It is a pleasure to serve you, my lady.” Then, behind a slightly mocking smile that failed to hide his concern for her, he added, “But I must say, you surely manage to stir up a fuss.”
Robin turned her eyes on the bukko and complained unintelligibly behind her gag, her eyes pleading.
“Just trust me,” the old man said as he stood, “and go with Jakar. Your life may depend on it.” Jakar, forcing a light tone, said, “She’s a pretty bit of fluff, isn’t she?”
Brown John scowled at him. “That will be enough of that. You’re going to have to keep your head about you now, lad, and if looking at her is going to make you behave like a popinjay, then don’t look at her.” Jakar blushed, and the bukko added, “Now listen to me. I am honor bound to protect Robin… and duty bound as well. My friend, Gath of Baal, depends on her, and the entire forest depends on him. Do you understand?”
Jakar nodded, once, deadly serious now.
“Good. Take her upstream to the falls.” He pointed them out, explaining how to find a hidden chasm behind the falls, then added, “She’ll be safe there. Now get moving. I’ll find out what’s going on and meet you there later.”
Jakar watched the wiry old man dash down the boulder-strewn stream, thinking to himself that the bukko was taking a lot for granted, even for a king. But he liked him, and for reasons he could not explain, trusted him. He hesitated uncertainly, then put his soft charcoal eyes on Robin’s consuming beauty and gathered her gently in his strong arms. She struggled slightly, then gave up, and a shiver swept through him as her softness came against his lean hard body. He felt color flooding into his sun-dark cheeks and tried to look away, but could not. For a moment their eyes met, then a smile warmed his thoughtful eyes as he spoke.
“Something tells me, fluff, that you are going to be a whole lot of trouble.”
Eleven
REDHEADS
Brown John emerged from the bushes overhanging the creek and stepped onto the river bed.
It was thirty yards across, an undulating white bed of gravel and boulders carried down from the mountain by centuries of spring floods. Narrow slow-moving channels of water meandered through it, and twenty yards away, on the far side beyond nearly impassable boulders, the main channel flowed swiftly, churning its liquid-green body into white foam as it crashed against large rocks l
ining its sides and rising from it.
Gathering his torn, stained tunic above his knees, he scrambled across the gravel and splashed through a shallow channel, heading downriver toward faint sounds of drums.
He fell twice, the second dropping him into a deep channel. Its current swept him forward, bounced him off a large boulder and deposited him in the tangled branches of a dead pine tree which had fallen into the river. The sharp branches played with his face and back for a while, then he climbed onto the trunk and scrambled across it to the river bank.
Puffing, soaking wet and wearing a scowl that cut so deep into his wrinkled cheeks it could have supplied enough tragedy for an entire act of one of his own melodramas, he ran along a bald dirt footpath siding the river and saw his dancing girls in the distance.
They were far out on the river bed, tiny colorful figures against the white rocks. Their trim bodies were now wrapped in diaphanous yellow-green cloth, and they wore green-gold dragonfly wings on their naked backs. They stood beside the main channel where it narrowed into a funnel of white-water rapids for about twenty feet, then spewed out over a wide flat rock forming a natural slide which flowed around a bend in the river. Unseen beyond the bend was Clear Pond, and the waiting audience and musicians. But he could not hear them now. The crash and spill and roar of the rapids was deafening.
The girls looked anxiously toward the wagons on the spur, as if expecting Robin to join them any minute, and held their small rafts steady in the water, waiting to jump into them when they were cued. The sunlight glistened on their bouncing curls of red-gold hair, and at that distance they all looked remarkably like Robin Lakehair.
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