Trading into Shadow (The Magic Beneath Paris Book 1)

by C. M. Simpson

  “I think you will agree that trade is the lifeblood of the Four Settlements.”

  Several of them nodded emphatically, and Gravine continued.

  “You also have to agree that the caravans from Dimanche and Ariella’s Grotto are overdue.” He held up a hand as one started to protest. “I know the Grotto’s shipments are unpredictable, but tell me when you last saw an interval between them as long as this?”

  Several of them opened their mouths and closed them again. It was like watching fish trying to breathe on dry land. If it hadn’t been for Roeglin’s weight resting against her shoulder and the smaller burden of Aisha and Scruffknuckle leaning on her legs, Marsh might have laughed. When it became clear that the merchants had no answer for him, the founder went on.

  “As long as there are no caravans, these folk…” His gesture took in the gathered guards. “These folk don’t have any way of earning a living. They cannot feed their families, and they cannot take on other employ because you demand they hold themselves in readiness. Well, I want them to be ready too. I want them fighting at my back when the raiders reach this cavern. I want them guarding my town, my friends, my family, and my home—and I am willing to pay them to do so.”

  He paused, letting his gaze sweep over the assembled cavern dwellers; letting them think about that before finishing his speech.

  “Are you?”

  For a moment Marsh was sure she could have heard a pin drop, then the hall erupted into agreement. One of the merchants rolled his eyes and slumped into his chair. Another threw up his hands in disgust. But there were others who were nodding, and one who began to softly applaud. Soon everyone in the hall had joined him.

  Marsh saw some of the tension leave the founder’s frame. He let the gathering applaud a little longer before calming them with a gentle motion of his hands.

  “I am sending an envoy to the shadow mage monastery,” he announced, and there were several in-drawn breaths. He acknowledged these with a frown and a nod. “I know some of you have been approached by a group of mages who were very persistent in trying to recruit your children. Those mages are not our mages. Those mages belong to the raiders. I want you to continue to tell them no, and I want you to report them immediately. I will send a contingent of the Ruins Hall Protectors out to capture them. We cannot have them roaming our caverns. We will not have them roaming our caverns.”

  His words were met with cheers, and again he had to wait for the noise to die down.

  “I will be meeting with the leaders of each of the groups in the cavern. Look for my emissary in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I also need any volunteers with a knowledge of engineering and masonry. Their expertise will be required in planning our defenses. And I need to speak to anyone who knows of tunnels leading into our lands. We need to secure them, so we know who enters and how many—and so the raiders cannot get through unseen. Are there any questions?”

  Marsh let the tide of noise wash over and around her, not really tracking who was asking what or what was being said. She already knew the next part she would play. What she had to decide was what she was going to do next.

  16

  Hunter in the Dark

  Marchant was still trying to work out what she was going to do about her magic when she got to the monastery. She knew what she was doing for Monsieur Gravine and she knew what she was doing for the children, but she didn’t know what she was doing for herself. Her world had changed, and she had to change with it. What she still couldn’t figure out was the part she wanted to play in it. She couldn’t even work out if there was a part she could play.

  She only had the skills of a seeker trying for an apprenticeship—a seeker wannabe. What good was that to anyone? The same went for her skills as a courier. Anyone could play that part, and she wanted more. How much more, she didn’t know, but she did know she couldn’t walk away.

  She hadn’t been able to walk away from the children or from Fabrice, and she hadn’t known she’d been walking away from a whole cavern’s worth of captives. If she had, she’d never have made it to Leon’s Deep, and Ruins Hall might very well have fallen. Marsh shook her head. Even though everyone else thought it better that she hadn’t intervened—and that included Fabrice—she had trouble accepting it.

  Marsh felt like she’d failed; like she’d just abandoned all those people to whatever fate the raiders had planned. What had they meant when they’d said “perhaps that will be enough?” What did their master want with all these people? Why would it take four settlements or more before their master was satisfied?

  “Enough for what?” she muttered. “Enough. For. What?”

  She was back on a mule again and leading another borrowed mule, Fabrice’s herd bleating in her ears. The woman hadn’t been making idle threats when she’d told Cleon she was moving her household and her herd. Granted, Marsh hadn’t expected Tamlin to step forward and offer Fabrice his family’s farm. The boy had told Marsh the night before and sworn her to secrecy.

  She’d been sitting in a corner of the eatery the next morning when Fabrice and the children had come in. Catching Marsh’s eye, Tamlin had slipped from his seat and intercepted the family as they’d walked toward the counter. Aisha had followed him, Scruffknuckle at her heels, and nodded solemnly when he’d made his offer.

  “I can’t take that!” Fabrice had been shocked.

  “Borrow it, then,” Tamlin said. “Consider it a kind of trade. You look after the place, and we lend you the pasture in return.”

  “But where would the children and I stay?”

  Tamlin had smiled and played his final card.

  “You look after Aisha and Scruff an’ me and the house as trade for staying there until Marsh rescues Patrik and we get your old farm back.” He’d stopped and given her a pleading look. “Please? Marsh is going to be busy. We’ll need a grownup around.”

  Marsh had caught that in time to look up and catch Fabrice’s questioning stare. She’d nodded and kept the rest of Tamlin’s plans a secret. What the boy hadn’t told Fabrice was that he expected that he and Aisha would be staying up in the monastery. He’d whispered it to Marsh when he’d asked for her support in his plan.

  “She needs somewhere to go,” he’d said. “She can’t stay with Cleon; they’ll only end up fighting. And Aysh and me won’t need the place unless you get our family back. You can do that if we’ve got another adult to look after us, right?”

  Marsh had felt a lump forming in her throat and bowed her head so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. When she’d raised her head again, the tears were gone, and she’d been able to stop them from showing in her voice.

  “Right.”

  “So you’ll let me do this, then?”

  “I will.”

  Those two words had been the hardest she’d had to say in a while, but they’d been necessary. Tamlin needed her to try to find his parents, and Fabrice needed somewhere safe for herself and the children. Whatever came of this could be dealt with when it arose.

  “Are you okay, Marsh?”

  Marsh remembered nodding and forcing herself to smile.

  “I’ll be fine, Tams. Get some sleep. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

  She hadn’t been joking, either. Once Tams had gotten Fabrice’s agreement, Marsh had needed to convince Gustav to stop at Under-Paris Cheeses so that they could collect the sheep on the way to the shadow mages’ cavern—and they hadn’t arrived a moment too soon. Cleon’s farmhands were already moving the herd toward the paddocks containing the farm’s existing stock.

  “Stop!” Fabrice commanded, and it might have gone very differently if Gustav hadn’t added four more men to the guards to cover the extra duties required for looking after three more people and a herd of moutons on the trail.

  When the guards had stepped between the herd and the gate, Cleon’s hands had understood the situation very well. Marsh and Lennie had escorted Fabrice and the children inside to collect their belongings. At first, Marcelle had pro
tested about the cost of lodging the herd and the family for the night they’d already stayed, but Fabrice was more than prepared.

  She slapped a quarter of the reward for returning the mules on the table and counted out the cost of Cleon’s resupply on top of it.

  “We square?” she asked, and Marsh hadn’t missed Lennie’s hand drifting to the hilt of her sword.

  Marcelle hadn’t missed it either.

  “Square!” she declared, and Marsh and Lennie were quick to close the deal.

  “Witnessed,” they stated, and Marcelle stared at them in shock.

  She obviously hadn’t expected the hired help to know the tradition.

  Well, too bad for her, Marsh thought. She’d agreed, and it was witnessed. They’d left her counting the payment at the kitchen table, escorting Fabrice and the children out to the caravan and helping them load their gear onto the mules.

  “You’re well out of there,” Lennie had said, and Fabrice had sniffed.

  “Thank you,” she’d said, not quite stifling a hiccup that nearly made it to a sob. She’d leaned over to Tams and patted his cheek. “And thank you too, boy. I’m grateful for what you’ve done.”

  He’d blushed bright red and tried to scowl.

  “Well… Well, can you cook pancakes tomorrow?” he’d asked, and Fabrice had laughed.

  “I will make you croissants if you like.”

  The boy’s face had brightened.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she’d said, and Gustav had sidled over to her mule.

  “Is that offer open to all of us?” he’d whispered loud enough for them all to hear, and Fabrice had laughed again.

  “Of course it is, you dear man.”

  “Dear man” was clearly something Gustav wasn’t called often because several of his fellow guards had coughing fits and Lennie gave a most unladylike snort.

  “Come on, dear man,” she’d snarked. “You’re on point with Marsh.”

  Her declaration had caught Marsh by surprise. “I’m on point?”

  Lennie had given her a toothy smile.

  “You are now, sweetie.”

  Honestly, Marsh had liked it better when Lennie was hitting her. She’d pulled a face and gone out front with Gustav. They’d counted the number of times the sand ran through the hourglass and stopped the caravan on the fourth turn.

  “We eating while we ride or stopping?” Gustav had asked, looking at Roeglin.

  “It’s another half-day to the monastery,” the mage had replied. “Choice is yours.”

  “The moutons are happy to keep going,” Fabrice had said, “and the children and I only need a short break.”

  By which she’d meant only one thing, and everyone needed to do that after a half-day in the saddle. Gustav had insisted on digging a quick latrine beyond the line of glows, and he and the guards had taken turns guarding the pit until everyone had finished. Fabrice, Roeglin, and Marsh had filled it in.

  “You made sure we didn’t get caught with our pants down,” Marsh explained. “Least we can do is save you some digging.”

  That had pretty much ended the discussion and now they were back on the road, eating meat-and-mushroom-filled pasties as they sat their mules. This time it was Lennie and her supporter taking the lead. His name was Henri, and he reminded Marsh more of the raiders in build than any of the folk of the Four Settlements. She wanted to ask him where he’d come from but didn’t quite know how to go about it.

  In the end, she’d been content to let herself drift, keeping a half-eye on Tamlin, who shared his mule with Aisha. The little girl seemed lost without her puppy, but Scruffknuckle had rekindled his acquaintance with Hugo and the pair was running with the moutons, nipping at their heels if they slowed too much.

  The steady pace of the mules and the slow and constant bleat of moutons had lulled Marsh into a state of half-sleep. She’d only just thought she’d figured out what she was going to do next when her mind started to drift. She’d also figured out what she needed to do for Monsieur Gravine. All she had to do was talk it over with Gustav.

  She also wanted to discuss shadow mage recruitment with him, because if the farm folk had been spooked by the false shadow mages, it would be a bad idea to send the monastery mages out to do the same thing. Someone was liable to get killed. It would be better to have the Protectors scout for hidden talent. Perhaps even train mages of their own, splitting the responsibility.

  It was worth a thought.

  “Mind if I cut in?” Roeglin’s voice interrupted her and Marsh sighed.

  “I can see what you’re thinking,” he added, and Marsh knew he meant that literally, not figuratively.

  That should have been a lot more disturbing that it was.

  “Yeah, and?”

  “Pitch it as a split between adult and child recruits to start with, then ask the mages for a liaison to do the training. A fighting force with immediate practical application might be the best place for adult learners anyway, especially since they have less time to acquire the skills. The monastery needs to diversify as well. Not all of our mages have the same gifts.”

  It gave her some idea of how he’d ended up in the town, something he confirmed when he nudged her.

  “They wanted me to hone the skills the wandering mages had brought and thought a town would be a better place, given the number of minds that were available.” He grimaced. “You have no idea of the minds I’ve touched.”

  From the look on his face, there were minds he didn’t want to touch again and wished he hadn’t gone near in the first place. Marsh didn’t pry. It wasn’t like she’d asked anything out loud. If the man chose to dip into her head, what he found there was his problem.

  “Nothing wrong with your head,” he muttered. “I like dipping into your head. It’s a nice space.”

  “You keep your grotty little mindwalker paws out of my head, or I’ll make you very sorry you visited.”

  “Oookay, then.” Roeglin didn’t seem too afraid.

  Marsh scowled but didn’t pursue it. If he kept it up, she figured she could always knock him out to get some peace and quiet.

  “Hey!”

  Marsh ignored him. She was tired and in the company of strangers, and she had two tired kids to protect, and then there was the way she could tweak the shadows and look into a hoshkat’s eyes and convince her to go away. She really had to decide what to do about that.

  To her surprise, Roeglin had nothing to say about it, which was funny, really; she would have thought he’d have had some opinion. When he remained silent, Marsh slid him a sideways look and saw he’d wrapped his hands around the pommel of his saddle and closed his eyes.

  Each to their own, she supposed, and let herself drift, just as she’d seen the guards do. As she’d taught herself to do on the numerous errands Kearick had sent her on without a guard. It let her keep a vague awareness of her surroundings as she descended into a state of near-sleep. She knew when the mouton bunched closer to the center of the path and when the guards straightened in their saddles, knew when they saw nothing but did not relax.

  She also knew when Lennie turned the hourglass at the second hour and the third and noticed when the mouton grew quieter, their bleating dying to almost nothing. Without saying a word, she straightened in her saddle and searched the groves of fungi and clusters of rock beyond the glows, but she saw nothing. That didn’t mean nothing was there.

  Instead of relying on her eyes, she followed Roeglin’s example and gripped the pommel of her saddle, keeping her reins taut but not tight enough to make the mule stop. Slowly she reached out to the shadows, asking them what lay concealed beyond the path. At first, they showed her nothing but the rocks and fungi.

  “I’m looking for something else,” Marsh whispered, startled to hear the words hit the open air. “Something that scares the moutons but remains hidden from the guards.”

  The pace of the caravan slowed, and a mule came alongside hers.

  “I’ve got your reins.”r />
  Marsh registered Tamlin’s voice and relaxed a little bit.

  “And I’ll watch the children,” Roeglin and Fabrice said in chorus.

  Marsh let herself descend farther into the dark, tweaking each thread and seeking what living things lay along its length. Whatever stalked the edges of the trail eluded her. Many times, the threads would tighten, but when Marsh drew the information to herself, all she found was a brief warmth, as though something large had passed and left only its presence behind.

  “Nothing,” she said when she opened her eyes and saw Gustav riding to her left, splitting his attention between her face and the terrain around them.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing I could catch,” Marsh amended. “There’s something there, something big, but it’s moving too fast for the shadows to register what it is.”

  “Then how do you know it’s so big?”

  “I can feel its warmth like a hollow in the dark.”

  “How big?”

  Marsh thought about it.

  “Bigger than a mouton but not as big as a mule.”

  “We need to speed up,” Gustav snapped, looking at Lennie and Henri. “I can think of only one thing that size that can move as silent as the shadows and leave close to no trace.”

  Now that she thought about it, so could Marsh. As if to confirm what they were all thinking, a series of grunting coughs echoed through the dark, and Marsh caught a glimpse of mottled fur. One of the guards raised a crossbow, but Tamlin was quick to stretch out a foot and nudge the man’s mule so it sidled underneath him.

  The movement drew Gustav’s attention.

  “Don’t shoot!” he snapped. “No one shoot. We’ve got nothing that will do more than make it angry, and a pissed-off hoshkat will have us down before we can bleed.”

  The guard froze, lowering his weapon as he steadied the mule.

  “What do you want us to do?”