Low clouds loomed overhead, darkening the sky. Tam knuckled his back as he stood, preparing
to roll the last of Master Barstere’s casks of cider into the back of the
tavern. The clouds threatened rain, but
the breeze that should have accompanied the impending storm was notably
absent. Rather than cutting the heat, it
felt like the air was being compressed, thick and heavy nearly to the point of
choking off breath. Tam glanced to the
side, where Winnow sat in the (relative) comfort in the shade of the tavern’s
back awning. Master Barstere still
believed the rumour that Winnow was pregnant, and had gone to no little trouble
to try to ensure the comfort of Tam’s “wife.”
The fact that Winnow was neither pregnant nor his wife was something
that Tam was willing to keep quiet until after he’d finished his obligation to
the friendly, if loquacious, farmer.
A glance over his shoulder showed Tam that Barstere
was still speaking with the tavern owner, though the two men had been joined by
a third. A barker, the third man had
been exhorting the crowds to ‘Witness the Spectacle of the FIGHTING PITS!!!’
since Barstere had stopped his wagon. Tam was just glad the man had finally shut
up. Winnow, fanning herself slowly with
a pale hand, seemed to be splitting her attention between the men and the
crowds.
Grumbling to himself, Tam finished with the barrel,
heaving the blasted thing onto its end and walking it into place alongside the
others. This was the sort of work that
Carter would have been perfect for: the man could probably have hauled one of
the barrels under each arm, and never broken a sweat. Diggs would have just talked the thing to
death. Who else could have managed the
things? Guard-Captain Chubain could have
managed it, Tam supposed, though he could hardly imagine Magistrate Higgins’
chief thug demeaning himself with such a lowly task. Honestly, just because he was in charge of a
half a score of guys with swords…
Still grumbling, Tam exited the tavern, and saw that
Barstere was finally done gabbing with the other two men. That was conveniently timed… The barker was
back to his trade, and screaming for people to go to the riverfront, to
participate in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that happened, from what Tam
could gather, every other night. He was
surprised when Barstere reached into a pocket and drew out a few coins. “You’ve done well for me, lad,” the man
said. “I don’t reckon you two have a lot
to be getting along with, and whatever is really going on, I’d guess you and
that girl don’t want to be drawing any more attention to yourselves than
necessary. You certainly put up with her
driving you like a goodwife, but if there were any woman of age less pregnant,
or married, I haven’t met her.” Tam
realized his mouth was hanging open, and closed it. “Now you listen close,” the farmer continued,
“There aren’t but a few reasons a young man would be on the run, and even less
to choose from when he has a pretty young girl with him. If you were the sort to be dodging some kind
of obligation, you’d have lit out of here the moment I turned my back, with or
without her. No, the way I figure it,
you have some other kind of trouble, or she does, and you’re trying to do your
best by her. I don’t want to know what
it is, none of my business, understand?
But you keep on doing like you are, and you’ll manage. A little coin will go a long way, if you
manage it right, and maybe keep you from more trouble. Best I can do.”
Tam pocketed the coins with a cautious smile. “My thanks, Master Barstere. I… Thank
you.” He wasn’t quite sure what to make
of this speech, but he knew what to do with the coins. “I’ll be careful.”
The farmer nodded, and while he was checking the
harnesses, Tam took a moment to pat the ox he had guided for the last half a
week on the shoulder. Princess broke
wind in contented pleasure. “Take care,
girl,” he said softly. He scratched
between her ears. “If only the other
women in my life were as easy to deal with.”
Turning, he relocated Winnow, now standing and speaking to the
innkeeper. Just as Tam approached, he
heard her drawl “Thank you,” in that flat, emotionless way she got when she
hadn’t Soaked in a while. The innkeeper
went inside, and Barstere had already started plodding off, and just like that
the alley behind the tavern was empty but for the two of them. After three-and-a-half days constantly
surrounded by the little train of farmers making their way to the market at
Riverhead, Tam had almost forgotten what it was like to be alone with Winnow.
“So,” he said, unsure of what to do now.
“So.” When Winnow said it, her voice was flat and
unreadable. “The innkeeper says the
fighting pits are straight past the square, just upriver from the docks.”
Tam goggled.
“You can’t seriously be thinking I can win in the pits, can you? The last time someone punched me, I wound up
tortured and locked in a box!”
Winnow almost-smiled.
“And look how that turned out for you.”
While Tam was spluttering, she continued. “As it happens, I was thinking more of
myself. I need to find someone who’s
hurt, but can keep their mouth shut. I
didn’t dare cut in front of Barstere, and your pain was… enough to keep me
alive.”
Tam scowled.
“What, you plan on having me get my ass beat so you can feed? I suppose, but… Honestly, have I offended you
somehow?”
Winnow did smile this time, a faint curve of her
lips. “Not that I wouldn’t find it
amusing, Tam, but no… I was thinking more of finding someone who we can trust
to hold their piece.”
Tam nodded.
Winnow could, he presumed, tell between those who would raise a mob
against a Soak, and who would see a Paintaker just doing what came naturally to
them. “Do you want me to come along,
just in case? Or would it be better if I
wasn’t there?” He tried not to sound
bitter. Things were still so unsettled between them, they’d never had a chance
to really figure things out, and here she was going to go and… So.
Winnow was already shaking her head. “No, I’ll be fine. Maybe you can find us rooms, then find me
down by the docks. Rooms,” she repeated,
emphasizing the plural. She nodded once,
firmly, confident that Tam had understood her meaning, on all its levels. She turned to go, and Tam forced himself to
control the urge to catch her arm, her hand, for one last touch.
Control
yourself, boy, he thought to himself. This
isn’t your first time to market. Somewhere inside, a snarky voice answered, As a matter of fact, it is…
He squashed both voices and went to find how far a few
coppers and a silver penny would take him.
Carter sat straight-backed in his chair, the mug of
ale in front of him as-yet untouched.
Diggs frankly lounged, though how such a feat was to be accomplished on
the half-splintered benches was beyond him.
The innkeeper’s wife set a plate of food before him, steaming meat and
vegetables piled high over noodles.
Carter nodded thanks, and Diggs actually sat up enough to place his mug
beside his own plate, and begin eating with a bit more enthusiasm than strictly
necessary. “Thank you, Ma’am,” Carter
said. It always surprised people to hear
his voice, which could charitably be called a light tenor in most
circumstances, coming from such a large and bald body. Her eyes flicked, as almost everybody’s did,
to his sword, before coming back to his face.
He made sure to be smiling pleasantly, doing as much as he could to
lessen the intimidating presence he normally made. It helped that he was sitting down. “I can’t imagine you get a lot of travelers
through here, this far north.”
The innkeeper’s wife took a second to decide not to be
terrified of him, and her normal personality started to make itself present
again. “Just you call me Elsbet, young
man.” She even smiled a little. “Not
normally, no,” she admitted. “Mostly we
have the local farmsteaders in here of an evening, them as haven’t got a wife
of their own to keep them home, but they’re all off to the market, of
course. We had a couple strange folk
show up right before, though. This
adorable slip of a girl claiming she was a sorcerer, of all things, when
anybody could see she had never sacrificed a baby in her life, not with that
hair. And this young lad and his wife,
all pale and with child. Poor things,
she was starved half to death and pale as could be. It’ll be a rough couple seasons she’s facing,
that’s for sure.”
Carter caught the creak as Diggs’ knuckles tightened
to white on his fork, and kicked him under the table. Keeping his eyes on Elsbet, Carter tried not
to let his interest show too keenly. “A
Sorceress? No kidding! My friend here keeps trying to explain how
ugly his shirt is by saying it belonged to a Firewalker, but I think he just
can’t admit how hideous it is.” A
food-muffled angry mumble from Diggs might have been “Is too from Firewalker,”
but Carter kept right on, ignoring him.
“Pregnant girl, eh? Must be
pretty miserable in this heat. I can’t
imagine riding in this weather, or was she in a cart?”
Elsbet lowered herself to the bench across from
Carter, and leaned in conspiratorially, glancing around at the empty room. “They were walking, coming in.” She scowled
at some unknown memory. “That young
husband of hers, pretty enough looking, but skinny, he had that poor thing
walking. Sounded like they were going to
try to walk all the way to the south coast, and her with child. I couldn’t have walked from one side of this
common room to the other by the time I was in my seventh month, and here she was
wearing all that leather and looking like she hadn’t eaten in a month. That lad has some answering to do, if he ever
shows up here again, I can guarantee that!”
Carter locked eyes with Diggs, and knew they were
thinking the same thing. There was only
one reason he could think of for heading to the south coast, and if that was
what she was up to, there was a world of trouble heading this way. “Surely you didn’t make her walk on her way
out of town,” he suggested.
“Great and little gods, no!” The innkeeper’s wife seemed personally
offended at the suggestion. “I made sure
the Council set them on old Barstere’s wagon, so she could ride to the market,
at least.”
Diggs’ bench scraped loudly on the floor as he stood
up. Carter’s head swung around, and
before anybody could speak, Diggs muttered, “Gotta pee,” and darted out the
door.
Elsbet looked after him, shaking her head. “He’s certainly a strange one,” she
said. Carter rose, more slowly, and
thanked her for the meal. Surprised, she
looked down to see that his plate, too, was empty. Carter thumbed a couple coins into her palm,
and strode quickly out the door after Diggs.
Tam scowled as the third innkeeper in a row laughed
him right out of the common room. The
clouds were growing so dark that it looked like dusk, rather than mid-afternoon. His clothes were so sweaty it felt like he’d
poured glue down the insides before putting them on. His feet hurt from walking, and his temples
were throbbing. Rounding a corner, he
nearly ran over a woman with a shock of bright red curls, held back with a
dusty kerchief.
“Sorry,” he said automatically, putting out a hand to
help steady her. “Are you all right?”
Then he got a look at her face, streaked with dust and
sweat, and realized who it was.
“Thank you,” she said, then looked up and seemed to
recognize him. “I… I’m sorry, I’ll be
off-”
“Wait, hold on a second,” Tam said. He glanced around, then pulled her into the
small space between a couple buildings.
“Ok, Zarya, right? For real- are
you actually a sorceress?”
She scowled at him, then muttered something under her
breath. A glimmering, translucent
butterfly shimmered into existence between them. She glared at him, daring further challenge.
Tam grinned.
“Ok, lemme guess: you’ve had about as much luck getting folks here to
believe you’re a sorceress as you did in that little village, right? And you’re having about as much luck finding
a room right now as I am, because, unless I misjudge, you’ve about as much coin
to your name as I have to mine, right?” The woman continued to scowl at
him. Tam’s grin spread even wider,
nearly splitting his face in two. “Ok, I
can work with this. Is there anything
else you can do, more of those little butterflies, or birds, or something else
to float around you?”
Zarya rolled her eyes.
“Is there a point to all of this, or are you just looking for some kind
of private entertainment? I have
business to be seeing to, and you are in my way.”
“Yes! That’s
great! Keep that going! Half the reason that council didn’t believe
you was because you came asking, instead of demanding. If you’d come on as cranky as you are right
now, you’d have had room, board, and transport for free, just on the rights of
it.” Tam practically danced in
place. He looked around, trying to find…
There. Darting to the water barrel, he
dipped his handkerchief and began scrubbing his face. “OK, here’s how I see we can both get rooms,
and maybe meals, and duck this storm before it hits. You said you can do wards; can you work one
to keep the rain off of you, just you, for a little while?”
“Oh, I can do more than that,” she grimaced. “Scaling it down seems to be the
problem.” Tam glanced up, looking at the
clouds overhead. If anything, they
looked heavier, darker. His grin melted
into open-mouthed astonishment, and he rubbed his hands briefly together.
“Hoo, boy, are we getting beds to sleep in tonight…!”
Tam leaned in close, and began to lay out his plan.
The innkeeper himself escorted Guard-Captain Chubain
up the stair and down the hall to the suite of rooms the southland lord and his
men had been given. Wiping sweaty palms
on an apron stained with food from serving the men with his own hands, Bertram
was only too glad to let the hard-eyed man with the sword carry his letter from
the Magistrate. It wasn’t often that lords
from far off came through Moldell, and one could never be too careful around
men like that. Best to let the
Magistrate’s head soldier deal with them.
“This way, Guard-Captain,” Bertram whispered. The lord had said that he didn’t want to be
disturbed, and Bertram wasn’t planning on taking any chances. Silently indicating the door, he backed away
three steps before Chubain had even stepped up to the door.
Chubain knocked twice on the door, firm raps that
echoed down the hallway and made the innkeeper flinch. Within moments, it was opened by a hard-faced
man with an eyepatch and a scowl. “My
lord has indicated he does not wish to be disturbed,” Eyepatch growled, halfway
to shutting the door.
With a grimace, Chubain blocked the closing door with
his foot. “Magistrate Higgins extends
his invitation of hospitality to the visiting lord, and begs his brief
indulgence.” Chubain thrust the sealed
envelope forward with as much grace as Eyepatch had demonstrated in his
greeting.
“But of course, Dixon,” a voice drawled from deeper
within the rooms. “Let the good man in,
and bring me his invitation. One must
observe the forms, after all.” The voice
was light and cultured, with the unmistakable tones of the capital. Or so Chubain assumed, having never been anywhere
near the capital. But he sounded
naturally the way Higgins tried to sound whenever he wanted to be his most
impressive to visiting dignitaries or nobility.
Dixon stepped aside with a blocky ill grace, and
Chubain eyed him carefully before entering.
The man looked more like a shoulder-thumper than a butler, but who knew
the ways of southron lords? Maybe he’d
hired bodyguards, and pressed them into service as servants along the way.
Handing his paper to the lord, who sat enthroned in
the room’s only good chair, Chubain looked over the other two men with him sat
tending to chores- one, a man almost as big as Chubain himself, but with a
scraggly chin-beard as opposed to Chubain’s clean-shaven look, was blacking the
lord’s boots, while the other, long and lean with a hen-pecked look to him, was
running an iron over some of the lord’s clothing. The man with the iron might well have been a
servant, but the man with the boots looked every bit the fighter that Dixon
did.
The lord surprised Chubain by rising almost as soon as
he’d finished reading the letter, tucking it into the inner pocket of a fine
red coat with gold embroidery. “Dixon,
Bonn, Rushleigh, we are, excuse me, I am invited to dine with the Magistrate of
this fine town tonight, or on any night I may find convenient. I do believe that I find tonight to be
sufficiently favorable.” He chuckled at
some joke that Chubain didn’t get. “Yes,
I believe that tonight fortune shall smile upon us all.”
