From Across the Clouded Range (14 page)

Before Dasen could think on it
further, the small door at the front of the coach clacked open next
to his head. “The drivers wanted me to tell you that Potter’s Place
is in sight,” Rynn said. “I don’t know what that means, but we are
approaching a collection of building that could, under certain
definitions, be considered a village. Mind you, it would have to be
a very broad definition of both buildings and village. . .
.”

“
Thank you, Rynn,” Ipid
interrupted. “Please ask the driver to stop. We’ll have lunch
here.”

A few minutes later, they stopped at a
building that was slightly larger than the nearly fifty other dull
grey plank structures that made up the town of Potter’s Place. It
was situated in what was little more than a large expanded
clearing. Dense forest stretched to every side with the exception
of a thirty foot wall of rock on one side where a half of a hill
had inexplicably fallen in ages past. A few people walked the
streets of the town, mostly women and children – the men were at
work, cutting and clearing logs to be sent down the White River to
one of Ipid’s mills.

As usual, the women wore long, plain
dresses of homespun wool. They had simple bonnets to cover their
heads and restrain the mounds of hair piled on their heads. They
were friendly, smiling pleasantly at the visitors, but did not stop
or offer conversation. Many of the children, however, were not so
shy. They formed a clump a few paces from the carriage and buzzed
with excitement, ruddy faces marked with wonder. The majority were
barefoot, dirty feet bouncing excitedly on the dusty road. Their
clothes were made of dull wool, roughly woven and maintained with
generous patches. Their hair was primarily dark and long, girls’
tied in great braids; boys hanging over their shoulders. They
looked as poor as any peasants or beggars Dasen had seen, but their
smiles and twittering conversation seemed ignorant to their
depravation

With Ipid’s permission, Elton
approached them with a bag of sweets. At first the children backed
away from the mountainous man. Most of them had never seen a Morg
and knew only the tales of their legendary prowess and occasional
brutality as Imperial enforces turned mercenaries. It took Elton
reaching into the bag and showing them the sweets to turn the
children around. They eventually approached him cautiously and
placed their hands into his bag as if expecting it to be full of
spiders then seemed surprised by the paper-wrapped hard candies
they found.

Dasen watched this dance as he had at
almost every stop they had made on this journey. Mills, cities,
villages, it was always the same. He wondered how much candy they
had given away over the course of the trip. Where did Elton keep it
all? When every child’s mouth bulged with sweets, Elton smiled at
them, patted a few heads and even let some of the braver children
pull his impossibly think beard. The big man had five children of
his own in Thoren, though he saw little of them.

“
Are you coming, Dasen?”
Ipid asked from the door of the two-story structure. Dasen examined
it as he walked toward the door. The building was made of grey,
weathered boards like all the others. Unlike the buildings in the
city that were now built with straight, uniform boards from Ipid’s
mills, these planks were uneven, of different widths, and roughly
planed. It appeared that someone had whitewashed them, but it did
not seem to have had much effect. The building had two small
windows on each story, a long uncovered porch, and no sign. Patches
of moss clung to the crude shingle roof and only a small stream of
smoke rose from the narrow chimney, the only stone aspect of the
building.

Inside, there was a single large room.
It was dark and stuffy, smelling of smoke, cooking meat, sour beer,
and old sweat. To one side was a counter surrounded by various
sacks of grains, salt, nails, and other essentials. A scale and
simple till marked it as the village store. On the other side, a
row of chickens spun over a low fire. It was apparent that they had
only recently been added to the spit, probably in anticipation of
this group’s arrival. Two rectangular tables led away from the
fire, where a boy was just finishing setting out plates, cups, and
utensils. One of the tables had three setting, the other a dozen –
though they would not be separated by much, Ipid would not dine
with those guards and servants who continued on the trip with
them.

Ipid led the way to the first table
and sat at the bench on the side with a single setting. He motioned
for Dasen and Rynn to join him. A moment later, a nervous looking
man approached and spoke to Ipid in a low voice. Ipid appeared
annoyed but did not express it to the innkeeper. “It will be a
while,” he said when the man had gone. “They didn’t expect us so
soon and just put the chickens on the spit. They don’t even have
bread baked yet, so we might as well get comfortable. I will ask
Elton to find one of the bottles of wine we brought. I doubt they
have anything here that would be worth washing a glass.

So they sat for what seemed a long
time. Between them, they finished the wine before their lunch ever
arrived. Dasen could not think of anything to say, and Ipid was no
more loquacious, so Rynn filled the gaps. By the time they had
eaten and were ready to go, nearly two hours had passed. They rose
from the table and found the door just as the first crash of
thunder sounded. The rain started a second later, huge drops that
increased slowly in number until they fell in sheets. The early
afternoon sky turned black, punctuated only by the streaks of
lightning chasing each other across the sky. Thunder shook the
shanty building so that Dasen thought it might collapse.

Ipid cursed and yelled, but there was
nothing they could do. The horses could not pull the coach in a
storm like this, and, in any case, the road would be nothing but
potholes and mud. Elton and the guards quickly unhitched the
enormous draft horses that pulled the coach and found them places
in the village’s only small stable. The guards tethered their own
mounts in the shelter of the trees and posted a few unlucky men to
feed and care for them amidst the storm.

As the storm raged, there was nothing
to do but admit that they would have to spend another night away
from their destination. The town of Potter’s Place did not have a
proper inn, and there were no rooms to rent. Ipid arranged for his
guards to stay in various homes while he, Dasen, and Rynn slept in
the beds of the store owner and his children – they retreated to
the floor of their shop but were comforted by Ipid’s
payment.

The poor luck seemed to dampen
everyone’s spirits, and no one spoke much as they watched the
storm. They tried a game of cards, but no one seemed capable of
concentrating on it. Even Rynn was relatively silent. Finally, they
gave up and retreated early to the dirty straw mattresses where
they spent a last fitful night before their journey’s final
leg.

Chapter 6

Teth heard footsteps approaching the
cottage from her tiny window, which had been thrown open to allow
some air to circulate in the sweltering room. She glanced out and
saw a boy break out of the trees and run toward the house. It was
the youngest Mullins boy, no more than ten. He paused when he saw
the house and watched it cautiously. He panted for a moment then
yelled, “Lord Ronigan’s coach just arrived. He asked me ta tell ya,
the young lord’ll be comin’ ta see ya soon.” The boy stared at the
house for a moment, unsure. Ever since, Milne’s condition had
worsened, they were afraid to come near, as if the disease that had
been eating her for months was suddenly contagious.

“
Thank you, Kerry,” Teth
called. “Your message has been delivered. Run on home.” The boy
jumped at the disembodied voice then turned and ran back up the
trail. Teth, for her part, tried to force her suddenly pounding
heart back down from her throat. She took a deep breath and clasped
her hands to keep them from shaking.
This
is it
, she told herself. She watched the
edge of the clearing where the path broke from the trees, expecting
to see Dasen stride from it at any moment.

“
Are you alright,
Tethina?” Milne asked around a series of coughs.

“
I’m fine. Just working on
this dress,” Teth answered. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“
Do you want me to put the
kettle on for tea?”

“
No, I’ll get it. I just
want to finish this line of stitches.” When there were no other
sounds from below, Teth turned to the pile of lace and silk draped
across her lap and sighed. Ipid must have paid a fortune for the
dress: pounds of cream-colored silk, yards of delicate handmade
lace, a hundred or more freshwater pearls, weeks of embroidery,
perfect stitching. And she had slit it down the back just to get
her shoulders in. Now she was trying to finish pleats down the
sides to make it snug across her chest and middle. Pins stuck from
the material to show the line the stitches needed to follow, but
they strayed clumsily; the material bunched and gapped around each.
She had no right to be sewing this dress, but no one else had been
willing to help. She had lost most of a day going from house to
house nearly begging for assistance, but the pending arrival of the
local landlord had sent every woman into a frenzy sewing their own
dresses, and not a one could spare Teth anything more than scorn.
“Should have learned to do it yourself instead of running wild. . .
. Never wanted to be a lady before, why should you look like one
now? . . . You’ve no right to join a lord. Maybe he’ll see that and
pick a real woman. . . . Only after you teach my worthless son to
hunt.” Even more doors simply went unanswered or were slammed
immediately in her face.

At first, Teth had been angry. She had
plotted revenge and even started rigging traps around a few houses
before she realized the futility of it all. In a few days, she
would be gone, never to see this cursed village again. She would
leave them with their derision, let them think what they wanted.
They weren’t worth her anger any longer.

But that hadn’t helped her with the
alterations, a new everyday dress, or any of a thousand other
things she needed. The village store had sold every scrap of
available material in a matter of hours once Ipid’s arrival was
known. None of her other dresses fit any better than that first,
and Milne, being a full hand shorter, had nothing to
offer.

Not that she would have had time to
make a new dress. Teth would be lucky if she got the joining dress
ready in time. Milne had helped her plan and pin the alterations,
but it was up to Teth to do the sewing – her aunt was simply too
weak. They had split the dress down the back to fit her shoulders
then drawn it in to be trim across the chest and middle. The bodice
had required its own tucks at the front as Ipid seemed to
consistently overestimate her endowment there. The existing arms
were so tight her hands went to sleep in minutes, so she cut them
off and sewed new ones out of a silk shawl that Ipid had given
Milne. The colors and texture did not quite match, but it was
passable. They decided to let the waist be. It hung awkwardly where
it was supposed to rest on her hips, but if they had drawn it up,
the bottom, which was meant to drag the ground, wouldn’t have
covered her shoes. To end it all, the slippers that had come with
the dress had been several sizes too small, so the dress would have
to drag to conceal her blood-stained doe-hide shoes.

“
The Order be damned,”
Teth cursed and shoved her thumb into her mouth. She pulled it out
and watched a drop of blood form. She could almost count the red,
swollen dots where she had stuck herself over the course of the
past two days.
That’s enough for
now
, she decided.

Silently cursing, she set the dress on
her bed and ran down the stairs. She found Milne in her usual
position asleep in her chair, each breath a rasp. Teth could not
keep herself from wondering which would be the last. Careful not to
disturb her aunt, she slid the kettle back over the coals of the
fire and added a freshly split log to keep them going. While the
water heated, she tidied the room: put away dishes, swept the plank
floor, dusted the few scraps of furniture. The main room, like the
house, was small, only a dozen paces in each direction. A square
table with four simple chairs defined one side. On the other was
the fireplace with a round woven rug and two stout chairs facing
it. Against the far wall were a cabinet with dishes and several
hooks that held various pots and pans. At the back of the room was
the small storage room that led to the garden. Milne’s tiny room
was behind the steeps stairs, and the shop where she met those
seeking her skills as an herbalist was the enclosed porch at the
front.

When the room was presentable and the
first wisps of steam were rising from the kettle, Teth got down the
fine porcelain tea service, another gift from Ipid, and a sealed
pot of tea leaves. She measured a scoop of tea into the pot,
thought and added another half. Then, checking to be sure her aunt
still slept, she snuck to the porch and rifled the drawers of her
herb chest until she found the one that held the forkleaf petals.
She took two then added another. She closed the drawer silently and
returned to the main room.

“
Are you drugging him or
poisoning him?” Milne asked before she was through the
door.