Reandn looked out the door, picking out more and more of Shuyler's men—there early, and looking eager. "It'll work out," he said finally. "I'll do my best to keep them in line tonight, but if I'm going to be in a position to track them, I'll have to leave your stock in the early morning." He shook his head at Bergren's grimace. "Don't lose sleep over it. I think they'll be quiet. It's far less work to ambush me in daylight than it is to chase me down in darkness." He looked out over the corral. " Leave late tonight, if you can—and stir the horses up as you go. I'll need the cover if I'm going to make the woods."
"That much, I can do," Bergren said confidently.
And yes...the guards stayed quiet. Two of them entered Bergren's domain shortly after moonrise, but it took only one lobbed stone to send them scurrying away. No, they weren't going to play the hunt and chase game anymore.
He lay low during the night, and before dawn, he left the gentle cover of the young pines and secured a spot by the road, more exposed but ideal for the job that would follow. The heavy mist of dawn blanketed the area; he knew by now that it would burn off in midmorning, leaving the day bright and hot.
By then he wouldn't need its cover. The previous day's hard rain had left the road as muddy as Bergren's corral—it was just now hardening into ground that would make a firm track, while all of the previous day's tracks had disappeared into mire. Schuyler's guards would leave distinct tracks along the lumpy path.
As the merchants arrived, the guards left, until the man he'd long pegged as the ranking outlaw finally trailed the others out. Reandn waited until he was almost out of sight and eased through the woods, ghosting the outlaw's journey.
He hoped he'd chosen the right man—the one who would report to Schuyler. The one who would lead Reandn to their bolt-hole.
There'd be one, he told himself. There'd have to be, to coordinate a n operation this complex—the road robberies, the market guard duty that gave Shuyler's people the perfect excuse to be out in numbers. There'd be one.
If there wasn't, he was in more trouble than he cared to contemplate.
The sun had risen high enough to burn off the protective fog, leaving bright light and strong shadows—camouflage of a different sort, making for for confusing outlines in the scrubby roadside hardwoods. The sun also brought its heat, and as Reandn wiped the first sheen of sweat off his forehead, his quarry turned into the woods on the other side of the road.
Reandn crouched by the side of the road for a few quiet moments. Through the trees ahead, he could see bits of straight-planed lines that belonged in no woods, and decided it was the Edgerton Inn, the notoriously rowdy establishment that drew such scorn from Ania.
But surely, if it was the center of Shuyler's operation, word would have leaked long ago. He studied the edge of the road, finding no clear back path to the place—and that alone drew his suspicion. Such places all had a back way. A second glance at the remarkable absence of the usual forest undergrowth brought understanding—the whole area had been turned into a path, and kept deliberately clear. Hard to track anything in this. He eased into the woods, and spotted his quarry just before the man ducked into the large barn behind the inn. Reandn hunkered down on his heels and waited.
After a short time, another figure came out of the barn: the big man who'd found him at the Unicorn. He fingered a heavy pouch, his expression satisfied, unmindful of his surroundings...he passed within several feet of Reandn and went on to the road.
Time to have a look inside.
The early morning crowd consisted of red-eyed men hunched over lumpy oatmeal. Reandn stopped at the bar long enough to order some of the same, then found seated himself where he could turn his distinctively scraped face to the wall.
Massive wooden bar, massive kegs of ale, stout aging beams, door to the cellar—the bar held little surprise. But Reandn made a habit of avoiding assumptions, especially on this day.
An age-marked woman dropped his oatmeal and watery ale down before him. Reandn caught the woman's wrist as she withdrew, cutting short her protest. "Just a question," he said, releasing the wrist. She rubbed it balefully, but stayed. Reandn nodded at the doorway. "What's back there?"
She favored him with the same look she might have given any crazy man. "What do you think? We got to keep our ale somewheres, don't we?"
"Underground, usually."
"This place's sittin' on rock, couldn't dig no cellar. What's it to you?"
He shrugged. "I'm looking for a quiet room to meet some friends, that's all."
"Well, you won't find it here," she snorted. "No one's ever accused the Edgerton of being quiet."
"My bad luck," he said, and shoved a coin across the table to her. She looked suspiciously upon it until he added, "For your kindness," then snatched it up and hurried away.
Reandn forced down some of the unpalatable cereal, chasing it with the cool, weak ale. Cellar-cool.
He regarded the mug thoughtfully, until his eye caught sight of the senior market guard, the man he'd trailed to the inn's barn. The man who hadn't come in the front door. Reandn hunched over his breakfast and, when the outlaw moved to the other end of the room, he left the unfinished meal and slipped out the door.
Interesting place, the Edgerton—the kind of place where ale cooled itself and men showed up from nowhere. Reandn though the Locals would be just as intrigued.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 11
Reandn reached the Unicorn in a hot and sticky state in spite of a bath house stop along the way. Ania was not to be seen, although Melly gave him a shy little wave from the corner of the main room where she wrestled chairs around; Reandn asked her about the Local, got a shrug, and headed for the kitchen to hunt Ania—not to mention a few breakfast scraps.
"Ania?" he inquired of old Damone. The man tutored one of the junior cooks with fervent emphasis, his knife waving. Something about scorching a sauce, Reandn gathered. Damon briefly targeted the back door with the point of the knife; Reandn got the message.
He gathered up bread and berry preserves, exiting out the back with his booty into a small, partially bricked courtyard. A single massive pine grew from the back corner, creating shade in this quiet place.
Reandn sat on the stone steps, spreading generous preserves over the bread with his boot knife. He used too much, of course, and it ended up on his chin after the first bite. He caught it with the edge of his hand—and then there was nothing to do but lick it off. That, he decided, was the best way to eat jam.
It seemed he could still connect to the simple pleasures of life after all.
The thought both startled and surprised him. When someone so dearly loved died, was it all right to sit in a quiet courtyard and revel in the sensations of eating good food?
To his relief, Ania's voice interrupted his thoughts, coming from the cool alley around the corner. A murmur at first, it rose in clear irritation. "I'm not going to suggest he stay. Why should I? This isn't his home, and it doesn't suit him. He wants to leave, and I don't blame him!"
The voice that answered was more discreet, or perhaps more fearful. Ania's was the next Reandn heard clearly.
"You say it's important. I don't see how it could be. Honestly, Tanager, if it wasn't for Pa-Farren, I'd not answer a single one of your questions."
Reandn froze, unintended eavesdropping suddenly turned serious, and the food suddenly nothing but a cold lump in his stomach. Savagely, he thrust the knife in his boot and stood. Wolf-silent, he moved to the alley entrance.
Tanager faced the entrance and saw him immediately, his expression horrified; he took a mute step backward. Ania looked over her shoulder, paling. "I told you it would come to no good!"
How many others had Tanager talked to about him? Suddenly, coldly, Reandn realized the boy would have given very little thought to the consequences of his meddling, not as long as he was intent on helping his grandfather. When he spoke, his voice hit deep in its lower register. Dangerous. "You told the market guards they could find me here."
"Me?" Tanager squeaked.
"Did you think to wonder why they didn't know already? Did it occur to you that I might have my own reasons for remaining nameless to them? That I've been watching Bergren's stock against them?"
"Against them?" Tanager repeated faintly, so surprised he forgot to continue his retreat. "But...but they said they wanted see if you'd fit into their organization."
"You did tell them," Reandn said, as surprised as anyone at the calm in his voice. The meddling grandson of a wizard. That's how they'd found out, after all his days of evading identification or capture. "And now they're trying to kill me."
"Ardrith's Graces!" Ania said, as Tanager's eyes widened, his face stark white against his black hair. "Git, Tanager, while I deal with this." The boy hesitated, and she said sharply, "Go!"
Tanager ran, his limbs moving with unusual coordination and speed; he looked back over his shoulder once as he reached the street, and then bolted.
"He didn't mean any harm, Reandn, you know he didn't."
"But he's caused it," Reandn said, finding his hands clenched, the anger building. Tentatively, Ania touched his shoulder; he shook her off, explosive. "And you! There's not much I trust in this Lady-forsaken town, but you, I did! "
She flushed. "I didn't...I didn't think I was doing anything wrong."
"Spying for my enemy?" His voice was cold.
That stopped her short, and put puzzled lines on her fox-like features. "Enemy?" she said. "Pa-Farren is no man's enemy."
Pa-Farren? The man had everyone thinking he was nothing more than a grandfather. "The man is a wizard. I want no part of him."
Ania lowered her voice, moved closer again—though clearly not certain about doing it. "Wizard once, yes," she said. "But no more. Since he came here, Farren has been a man like you or Kelton—and that was years ago, right about the time I was born. But he still knows the Highborn ways—the minor counts on him for advice in dealing with King's Keep. Before you came, he used to eat here all the time, and he's never done a thing to hurt anyone. How can you speak so badly of him?"
"I said he was a wizard. I didn't say he was stupid. If he's done good for the town, Ania, it's for his own ends."
"That's just mean!" Ania cried, hands suddenly on her hips, no longer trapped in her shame at what he'd called betrayal. "What makes you such an expert on wizards, when things magic no longer exist in this world?"
"What makes you such an expert on magic, to think that it no longer exists? How do you think I got here, Ania, from the North, unprepared for your climate and ways? Did Tanager ever mention that? That I came from the hands of one wizard, into the hands of another? Farren may have managed to befriend an unwary town, but he'll get nothing from me."
Ania's cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with tears of frustration; she obviously couldn't make sense of his words, so perhaps Tanager had been discreet—astonishment!—with the circumstances of Reandn's arrival. "Ohh!" she exclaimed. "You're as thick as dock scum at low tide!" Her hands flew up to cover her face. She took a few deep breaths, carefully wiped her eyes, one after the other, and said, "Is there no convincing you, you have no enemy in Farren? What has he done to you, aside from being who he is?"
"He spies on me," Reandn growled, knowing that the man's greatest weapon, past his magic, was the image that he was not worth concern. Just like Ronsin. "And he uses my friends to do it."
"I only answered a few questions!" Ania said, the angry lift coming back to her chin. With visible effort, she lowered it. "He's only worried about you, Reandn. He's afraid you're headed for trouble. You've already got the minor upset over something."
"I am headed for trouble," Reandn said. He saw nothing in her face but honest emotion; she had no idea why he was so concerned. He took a deep breath. "Let's drop it. I know you didn't mean any harm. Just...no more. My business is my business."
"All right," she said quietly. "I...I'm sorry, Reandn. I never would have...purposely...I mean—"
"It's all right, Ania," Reandn said, suddenly weary of it all. She hesitated, and left without saying anything more.
He returned to the small courtyard alone. Alone, and filled with tumultuous conflict. He wanted revenge, he wanted the Keep safe from Ronsin, he wanted Skylar's men off his back—and most of all, he wanted Dela by his side. He wanted it all, he wanted it now, and there wasn't a Hells-damned thing he could do about any of it.
He grabbed the lid of the rain barrel, propping it in the lowest broken stubs of branches of the pine—a target. The repetitive and deeply satisfying sound of his well-balanced boot knife thwacking into the wood soothed him, and, despite the elbow ache that had never disappeared after his unconventional travel, his accuracy did not suffer. He was absorbed in the exercise, gladly allowing it to numb his thoughts, when a figure stepped out from the alley and stood, legs braced, watching him.
Reandn completed his throw and walked up to yank the knife free before acknowledging the Local. The man mutely held his hand out for the knife. His face showed no threat, no anger—in fact, there was little of anything revealed in the seamed features. After a brief hesitation, Reandn reversed the knife in his hand and passed it over hilt first.
The man hefted it and glanced at Reandn. "Nice," he said. "Not fancy. Well made." He handed it back the same polite way he'd received it.
Reandn tucked the knife away in a gesture smooth from repetition. "I want to talk to you about the roadway troubles you've been having."
The man grunted. "You think you can walk into a place and fix all its woes?"
"No," Reandn said, grinning at the man's forthright attitude. "But maybe I can help you fix this one."
The Local stared at him a moment longer, shifted the small wad of tobacco in his cheek, and spit. "Name's Cyrill."
"There are conditions," Reandn said. "I can show you the gang's bolt-hole, but I don't want to be in on the catch. And no one else knows I helped you."
Cyrill squinted and cocked his head. "Sounds like a man who don't want to be found," he said, as though a disinterested observation.
Reandn grinned again. "It does, doesn't it?"
Cyrill gave that a moment of thought. "Town's my patrol, not the roads. Suppose I could pass on any information you might have. Though," he added skeptically, "I'm not sure you know all that much. There's no gang—there's never more'n a few men mixed up in the robberies, and the attacks aren't localized. There's never been anything to suggest it's all one bunch of men."
"Their leader's a smart one," Reandn said. "And your Locals have a big disadvantage. You're not in cooperation with the market."
"The edge of town market?" Cyrill asked, and snorted. "That's their choice, son. They're scared to death that working with us'll put 'em in the town proper—think we want to boss them around." He shook his head. "We got enough things to watch over, with the stuff that goes on at the docks."
"I think the merchants have changed their minds," Reandn said, and briefly described Shuyler's racket at the market. Cyrill's expression grew less skeptical and more attentive as Reandn added, "This morning I followed one of their men to the barn behind the Edgerton—and then he showed up in the inn. Their server said they had no underground rooms, but their ale is too cool to be stored above ground. I think there's a basement, and that barn tunnels into it."
"In my dreams," the Local scoffed, but after a moment of silent thought, he mused, "A steady supply of ale, a cool place to meet, a quiet way to get there. Even a place to get a handy horse. If one of us did check at the Edgerton after a robbery, there'd be nothing to find, not if they had the entrance well hidden." After another moment he added, "The place does have a rough reputation."
Then he gave Reandn an annoyed look and said, "You've got me pretty near convinced for a man who hasn't said much about it."
"Facts can do that to you," Reandn said. "And there's one more thing—they've been on my trail as much as I've been on theirs, and today they found me. I'm not going to be able to dodge them f
orever."
Cyrill spat again, absently; his expression was appreciative of Reandn's understated plight. "You don't want to be known about these parts," he commented, "you might try getting in a mite less trouble."
"I could do without it," Reandn agreed. "When can you get back to me on this?"
Cyrill nodded, almost to himself. "This afternoon," he said. He shifted his weight, readying to leave, but stopped. "It'll be hard to keep you out of it."
"Do it," Reandn said, uncompromising.
The pause before Cyrill's nod was barely noticeable. "This afternoon," he repeated, and left.
~~~~~
Reandn spent an uncomfortable day in the portal of the Unicorn, jumping at shadows. He knew he was behaving like a Yearling—but he also knew that his involvement with Bergren might very well prevent him from ever reaching Ronsin.
In the late afternoon, Cyrill returned, nodding affirmatives at him before he ever came within speaking distance. The man's expression, however, wasn't as positive. Reandn greeted him with a slight upward nod of his chin, inwardly wary, and met him at the alley entrance.
"What you told me fit into what the wide patrols already knew," Cyrill said without preamble, drawing in close to the wall to avoid blocking traffic. "They're not going to waste any time acting on it, either. They're setting up a snare—a Highborn target too ripe to ignore, one that'll take a lot of men to handle. We've already let the word slip out—Savill's moving his daughter's dower tonight."
"Savill?" Reandn asked sharply. "The minor?"
Cyrill shrugged. "They called him in on it as soon as our Leader heard the news. He wouldn't ask anyone else to risk losing their valuables—y'see, we're going to let the gang have them. We'll have a little welcoming party at the Edgerton." Cyrill's sudden grin deepened the lines running down his browned face. "Ought to be quite a show."
Touched By Magic (The King's Wolf Saga) Page 14
