by Hilari Bell
It wasn’t terribly fragile, but Makenna had carried the well-wrapped bundle through the bustling streets in her hands instead of the satchel. She’d reached the shop without incident, handed it over to the shopkeeper . . . and watched the lid slither out of the straw as the shopkeeper unpacked it. It would have fallen and broken if Etta hadn’t leaned precariously out of the satchel and snatched it up before it had a chance to hit the floor.
“Aye?” Makenna watched the woman warily, though she seemed more interested in whether the new pot matched the set than in hauling Etta off to the nearest priest. “But I thought city folks didn’t hold with goblins. It was in the city that the Decree of Bright Magic was first enforced.”
“Of course it was,” said the woman. “With the church sitting right on top of us. But that’s not to say the townsfolk favored it. Oh, there were some who didn’t care—which was very short-sighted of them, for my herb-healer did better by my sick headaches than the priests, and she charged less. Which was likely why they passed it in the first place, curse them. My friend Margy, who grows flowers for the street sellers, she started having all kinds of problems in her flower beds after the goblin family that lived there left. Moles! I had no idea how much damage one mole could do, and neither did she till her Greeners were forced to flee. Her profits are down almost twenty percent! And I think she misses seeing them about. Your friend just saved me having to pay for another lid—and if it didn’t match, we’d be back to square one again! Why should I object to her?”
“You don’t think that goblins and hedgewitches serve the Dark One?”
The woman laughed. “Boy, that’s a country superstition. We in the city . . . Well, by your accent you come from the country, so I shouldn’t talk. But have you ever seen the Dark One appear in his cloud of flame and shadow, to reap men’s souls with his great scythe? Or met anyone who cast dark magics in his name? Or known anyone who knew anyone who did?”
Makenna, who’d long since figured out that the Dark One was nothing but some priest’s tale, was a bit indignant on behalf of the countryside. “The priests all say it’s so, and it’s hard for folk not to believe ’em. Or don’t you believe in the Bright Gods and the saints, either?”
“Me? I believe there are good people.” The woman unlocked her cash box for Makenna’s fee. “Whatever inspires them to do good is all right by me. I also believe there are people who do bad things—even a few who just are bad—and some of them use magic to work their will. Maybe it is because some dark god corrupts their souls, but more likely they simply allowed their own selfishness, greed, or fear to get the better of them. So your goblin friend has nothing to fear from me. That’s three copper bits for the delivery?”
She threw in an extra copper for Etta, for saving the lid, and the goblin girl refused to count it as part of their wages when they divided their take at the end of the day.
After that conversation, Makenna became curious about the city dwellers’ attitude toward goblins, magic, and the church. She stopped eating lunch alone, purchasing a hot pastry or a sandwich from a stall and sitting near enough to some group that she could eavesdrop. For the most part they discussed their own business or gossiped about friends and family, just as the country folk did. But this was a city built around the church of the Seven Bright Gods, and gossip about the Hierarch, his court, and his council was as common as country folk gossiping about the local landholder.
“How can he be all that divine, if a traitor can use a drug to fuddle his wits?” a burly stonemason demanded. “Shouldn’t the Bright Gods have protected their Chosen? If he can be poisoned like a man, he can be wrong like a man.”
“You could argue that his guards discovering so swiftly that his illness wasn’t natural was a matter of divine intervention,” a carter pointed out. “Who’s to say the Bright Gods don’t work through us? That’s what my district priest said.”
“Assuming they did discover it early,” a clerk put in. “Anyone who supported that ridiculous relocation for seven years wasn’t all there to begin with, if you ask me!”
The murmur of agreement was subdued, but no one disagreed. The only reason the relocation had been accepted at all was because, as an apothecary drily put it, “An idea as crazy as that almost had to be divinely inspired.”
The relocation’s abandonment, coming on the heels of the news that a treacherous priest had poisoned the Hierarch with a drug that induced symptoms akin to a brain seizure for “several days,” had shaken whatever faith these cynical town dwellers had.
Makenna remembered Jeriah’s tales of barbarian warriors who were not only stronger than their adversaries but healed a deep gash in a handful of minutes. She hoped the young knight had exaggerated, because having gone back on the relocation once, there was no way the Hierarch could convince the city people that divine will was guiding him in that direction again.
And remembering Jeriah’s steady, haunted eyes as he talked about the barbarian threat, she didn’t think he’d been exaggerating.
But fighting off the barbarian army—Dahlia, saint of lost causes be thanked—wasn’t her job. Makenna was becoming ever more certain that her chosen task was the right one.
If she could only reach the Hierarch, Brallorscourt wouldn’t dare act against her. But to do that, she had to not only get past Brallorscourt’s men, which her disguise might have allowed—she had to get an appointment to see the Hierarch himself. And her disguise would make that impossible! Makenna had once thought she might use the evidence Master Hispontic had uncovered to make Brallorscourt himself let her in, but Brallorscourt had proved even less trustworthy than most humans. She needed some other human’s help. Someone who had access to the Hierarch, who could influence people in the palace who had the power to protect her from Brallorscourt, and who might listen to her. And she knew only one person who fit that description.
“Daroo,” she asked as they sat at dinner outside Noggat’s well-disguised home. “Can you get me into the palace to see Jeriah?”
Daroo put down his small bowl, his eyes thoughtful.
Simmi had to prepare a whole extra kettle of stew to feed Makenna along with her family and Cogswhallop’s. Natter, Daroo, and Nuffet were living in a lumber merchant’s loft a few doors down, but they ate with Noggat’s family. Cogswhallop himself—having negotiated a hot dinner and a breakfast into the price of Makenna’s lodging—had gone to supervise the hunt for Tobin.
Makenna had expected him back over a week ago, and Natter was beginning to worry.
“Aye,” Cogswhallop’s son told her now. “Wearing that face, you could stroll through the fourth gate in broad daylight. Messengers go to the record halls all the time, and they’ll never think to look for their escaped prisoner going back in. Into the woods, then into the tunnel. You’d have to wait there till everyone’s asleep before we could take you to Jeriah’s room. He’s on the third level, so you can go up the ladder and not risk getting caught on the stairs. But why?”
Why, Makenna noted, not What do I get for it? It seemed the civilizing process went both ways.
“I need to talk to him,” Makenna said. Daroo considered the human a friend. He might not approve of what she intended—but Jeriah had turned her over to the authorities once, and Makenna wasn’t going to let that happen again.
Breaking into the palace was much easier than getting out. It helped that the goblins had access to the Hierarch’s “secret” escape tunnel, but still! Her goblin camps had had better security.
Of course Makenna was only trying to reach a lowly squire, not the Hierarch himself. That was what she needed the squire for.
Back in the room with the pool, she washed off the dirt and her magical disguise. Simmi had trimmed up her ragged hair, muttering about “nightmare,” though Makenna didn’t know if that referred to the task or her appearance. But the squire would likely be startled enough, even if his unexpected visitor wasn’t disguised. She didn’t want to create more confusion than she had to.
The
long, iron-runged ladder ended in a small room with a narrow door. It was only an access to the shaft that held the bucket chain, but it gave her a place to hide while Daroo and his Bookerie friends made sure the corridors between her and Jeriah’s room were clear.
It felt strange and dangerous to walk through the sleeping palace wearing her own face. Makenna’s palms were sweating when Daroo hustled her through the door to Jeriah’s room and closed it silently behind her.
She’d heard so much about the richness of the Sunlord’s palace that this spartan room surprised her. It held two beds, for Jeriah supposedly shared it with a tax clerk, though he was almost always gone. Daroo had established that he was gone tonight before he’d led Makenna onto the palace grounds.
There was no window in this inner room; the only light source was the glow beneath the door from the corridor’s night lamps. Even Makenna’s dark-adapted eyes could barely make out the shape of the young knight sprawled across one of the beds. She needed to see his face.
She went out into the corridor, ignoring Daroo’s warning hiss, and kindled a candle stub she’d had the sense to bring with her. Back in Jeriah’s room, she lit the lamp on his nightstand. The light didn’t even make him stir. A sound sleeper, was he?
Makenna grinned, sat down on the bed beside him, and laid her knife against his throat. “Wake up, traitor. It’s time to pay for what you did.”
Even then, he took some time yawning his way to wakefulness—though he stiffened when he finally noticed the knife.
“Excuse me, would you mind repeating that?” he asked.
Makenna blinked. “I said it’s time for you to pay for turning me over to the noose.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Jeriah resignedly. “You don’t look hanged to me. And I should warn you, Daroo is about to hit you with the fire poker.”
He did it so well that Makenna had started to turn, and his hand had started to shoot for her wrist, before Daroo gasped, “I’m not!”
She spun back to Jeriah, pressing down on the blade, and his hand fell away.
“Though if I’d known you were going to be so unfriendly,” the young goblin went on, “I’d have warned him we were coming. He helped you escape! What are you doing, mistress?”
“He helped me escape, after he got me jailed in the first place,” Makenna said. “So I’m making sure he doesn’t call for the guards, not till I’ve had a chance to warn him that if he ever again turns me over to anyone, for any reason, your fa’ll never tell him what happened to Tobin.”
Jeriah jerked, and a red line appeared on the skin of his throat. “What’s happened to Tobin? Do you know where he is?”
Her order would weigh more with Cogswhallop than anything the goblin might owe Jeriah, and Jeriah clearly knew it. Makenna withdrew her knife and sheathed it.
“Cogswhallop hasn’t found him yet. Or if he has, he hasn’t come back to tell me about it.”
The young knight sat up in bed but made no move to seize her, clasping his hands around his knees instead. “It’s been too long, hasn’t it?”
Her own worst fears echoed in his voice.
“Aye, it’s too long. Something must have happened to him. And my goblins are your best bet to find out what it is, so you’d best do as I ask!”
“That depends on what you want.” The tone was still polite, but there was a stubborn set to his mouth. Young he might be, and worried about his brother, but he wouldn’t strike a bargain blindly.
Makenna sighed. “I need to talk to the Hierarch. Alone—or at least, without that vulture Brallorscourt hovering. I need him to attend to what I say and not arrest me at the end of it. If you can arrange that, Jeriah Rovan, you’ll get Cogswhallop’s report right after I do. And if you can’t arrange it, then you’d best start looking for your brother on your own, for you’ll never hear word of him from any goblin who owes loyalty to me.”
Chapter 8
Tobin
TOBIN CONTINUED TO WORK WITH the Duris’ horses, hoping to learn more about their battle plans. But as the days dragged past, he heard nothing but complaints about how much territory they were expected to cover, boasts about their wrestling prowess, and a few arguments over women. That first mention of their new tactics had been a fluke—he could eavesdrop on their casual conversations for years without hearing anything that mattered.
So when a Duri warrior from another camp rode in and demanded to meet with the battle commanders, Tobin waited till they’d settled in one of the large gathering tents, picked up a halter that needed some work, and sat down in the shade behind the tent to mend it.
The rumble of voices, clearly translated by his amulet, was only slightly muted by the leather wall.
“. . . prove excellent news for both our camps.” Tobin thought it was the stranger speaking, though he couldn’t be sure. “But it must be dealt with properly, in strict accordance with our law/tradition, or we risk—”
A blow to the side of his head sent Tobin sprawling. He stared dazedly up at one of the Duri who’d accompanied the stranger.
“What are you doing here?” the man . . . no, the guard . . . demanded.
No chanduri protested any treatment the Duri meted out, for fear they might be labeled troublesome.
“Nothing, master.” Tobin fumbled for the halter and held up the worn strap. “I was just—”
“Well, you don’t do it here, not when there’s a war council in session. Take yourself off.”
Aware of the danger, Tobin rolled with the kick and managed to collect his gear and scramble away before he earned another.
Were there always guards on this tent when the council met? If so, they would thwart any chance he had to learn about those “new battle tactics.”
He watched, unobtrusively, from the door of Vruud’s tent, where he’d taken his mending. The two guards kept only a casual eye on the camp, but they never left the tent, and they walked around it every few minutes. Tobin decided he had gotten off lightly. If they’d become suspicious, he could have been badly beaten, which might have brought a few of the camp’s own warriors out. And they might have become suspicious enough to look at him closely and see more than the storyteller’s Bear Clan servant.
Despite his realization that he’d lucked out, the left side of his face ached and throbbed. Vruud exclaimed in shock when he rode in from his trip to instruct the young storyteller he feared was training to take his place.
“What did you get yourself into?”
Tobin took Mouse’s reins, shrugging the bruise aside. “I was mending a halter, and some Duri who came in with a messenger took exception to where I was doing it. Nothing’s broken.”
It pulsed pain with every beat of his heart, and he didn’t know how he was going to eat with his jaw so sore, but nothing was broken.
“Trying to spy on the council?” Vruud’s voice had dropped, but he didn’t sound surprised. “I could have warned you not to do that, if you’d asked.”
Tobin lowered his voice too. “Vruud, do you know anything about some new battle tactic that’s supposed to be very effective against the Realm?”
Why hadn’t he ever thought to ask? He knew Vruud had no loyalty to the Duri.
“I don’t know much.” The storyteller’s single eye regarded Tobin shrewdly. “Take care of Mouse, then meet me in my tent. We can talk while I do something about that bruise.”
Tobin unsaddled, groomed, and watered the mule, then made his way to his master’s tent. Vruud put down a hollow reed he’d been carving into a flute—he played when his audience tired of stories—and dug into his chest for a pot of salve he handed to Tobin.
“Rub it in thoroughly, but don’t use too much. Since the Duri heal themselves by magic, there’s not a lot of salve made.”
“I’d rather hurt than be healed by magic made with someone else’s death.” Tobin had plunged a finger into the greasy stuff before it occurred to him. . . . “This isn’t made with death magic, is it?”
Vruud snorted. “He
rbs and goose grease. No magic for the chan, young Softer.”
Tobin put the finger he’d yanked away back into the pot and smeared a thin layer over his bruised skin. “Do you know anything about these new battle tactics?”
“I’ve heard them mentioned,” the storyteller admitted. “It worries me. Because if the Duri succeed in wiping out the Softer army . . .”
“. . . you’ll die soon after,” Tobin finished for him.
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” Vruud went on. “But I didn’t think trying to learn about them was worth risking our escape. I still don’t.”
Tobin took a deep breath. “Well, I do. And since you can’t stop me, you might as well help. If I can’t listen in on the war council, where else would they be talking about it? In the men’s tent?”
The single men of the camp gathered in one of the large tents every third or fourth night, mostly to drink, as far as Tobin could tell. Vruud often performed for them, but since the warriors who comprised his audience were the people Tobin most wanted to avoid, he hadn’t accompanied his master.
“I’ve considered that,” Vruud said. “When I tell stories or play, I can’t hear what people are saying. No one would think it odd if my servant joined the others who bring food and beer. It’s a little odd that you haven’t done so, but since I’m chanduri myself, no one cares enough to notice how I’m served.”
It would be dangerous, Tobin realized. It might jeopardize their whole plan. On the other hand . . .
“When can I start?”
The young warriors decided it was time to “listen to the glory of our history again” two nights later.
Tobin’s face was still bruised, but his bruises had given him an excuse to grow a bit of stubble. And when he saw how much the young warriors drank, his fears of discovery subsided. Of course, his chances of hearing a coherent account of their new battle tactics dropped along with their sobriety.
