The Dreamtrails (14 page)

After firstmeal, Wenda brought an armful of dresses, shirts, and jackets to my room, and eventually I emerged wearing a narrow gray skirt, a yellow shirt, and pale green jacket, my long hair braided and pinned into a bun at my neck. Before we departed, I visited Darius, who was eating from a tray and looking a good deal less frail than upon our arrival. I waved away his apologies for his collapse and briefly related what Noviny had told us. He agreed we must get word of the invasion to Sutrium at all costs, though to my disappointment, he had no more idea than I how this might be done.

Despite my impatience, it was midafternoon before Wenda and I were traveling along the main road to the township in a little, open two-seater cart pulled by Gahltha. He had refused to let me go to the town alone. Touched by his devotion, Wenda had suggested that he pull the cart.

It was a gray day with low dark clouds, and feeling a spit of moisture, I glanced at the sky apprehensively, aware that rain would render me unable to coerce anyone without physical contact. Wenda was a peaceful companion, for she spoke little, but instead of making plans, I began to worry about Malik. Noviny had assured me that the rebel chieftain seldom entered the town, but in my experience, those things you
most passionately wish not to occur have a way of happening.

As we approached the town, I could see stores lining either side of what was effectively one long, empty street. In other times, the wares from those stores had spilled onto these same verandas on long trestle tables, and other sellers had sold food and drink to a cheerful throng of people from tables in front of the verandas. Now, both street and veranda were so empty that the town looked deserted. But there were people about. I noticed one man standing against a wall and another leaning over a balcony, armsmen wearing Vos’s colors. We passed yet another one fletching arrows and whetting the edge of his short sword. Another lounged on a step smoking, a cudgel laid across his knees. All of them watched us pass without smiling, and my skin rose into gooseflesh, for each time I tried to probe one, I encountered the buzzing resistance that told me they wore demon bands.

Although I could see smoke dribbling from more than one chimney, there was no sign of life in the houses built between the stores, save the occasional movement behind a curtain. At last we reached the cluster of stores and businesses at a crossroads that was the heart of the town. Wenda eased back on the reins, and Gahltha drew up obediently to the hitching post. She climbed down gracefully from the carriage and gathered up her shawl and basket. I followed, feeling awkward in the skirt’s unfamiliar narrowness. I wished that I was wearing my own comfortable clothes, but it was just as well to present a picture of feminine helplessness for the watching armsmen to report back to their masters. Certainly, no description they would give could evoke in anyone’s mind the name of Elspeth Gordie.

We had just entered the store when it began to rain. My
heart sank, but then I realized it did not make any difference, for I could not probe any of the armsmen. The store was the good solid sort at the center of any small town. Shelves all about the walls were piled with various goods, but there were also many empty shelves. No doubt it was difficult to amass stock when everything coming in and out of the region had to be brought by people approved by Vos. Several tables in the shop’s center were heaped with bolts of cloth, ribbons, and ropes; bottles of buttons and other fittings; cards of needles; and several shining sets of scissors. Presumably, this pretty display had been set up to divert attention from the half-empty shelves.

“Good day, Mistress Arilla,” Wenda said to the woman behind the counter.

“Good day, Wenda,” the woman responded crisply. “I am afraid our supplies have not come in from Sutrium yet.”

“I only want flour and salt, Arilla, though my friend here wishes to see your patent medicines.” Her tone was reserved, and I had the sense that both of them were playing a part. Then I realized that the woman’s restraint arose from my presence.

“What is your ailment, lady?” she asked.

“I am not ill,” I said, adopting a fussy and overly cultured lowland accent. “It is my friend who has need of medicines. He is crippled and his joints have become badly inflamed on our journey. It is very tiresome, for we had meant to go on almost at once to Sutrium.” I sighed. “It is quite likely we will have to remain in Saithwold for a sevenday or more, unless you have some elixir that can help.”

The woman flicked a glance at Wenda, no doubt wondering why she did not offer her own herbal lore. This spurred me to add, “Wenda has offered various herbs, but I am not a
great believer in herbal lore, if you will forgive me for saying so, my dear,” I prattled. Wenda’s face showed no emotion, so the woman indicated a case of brown bottles. Labels about the neck of each bottle had the benefits of its contents scribed on them, and I went over and pretended to read them.

“What will you have, Mistress Wenda?” asked the shop woman again in a cool, flat voice.

“Just a small measure of salt and some flour, if you please, Mistress Arilla,” Wenda said.

“We have only rough-ground flour, I am afraid. Will that do?”

“It will have to do,” Wenda sighed. She addressed me then. “Have you found anything that might ease your friend’s sickness?”

“I am not sure if these medicines will do,” I said in a querulous voice.

“What he needs most is rest,” Wenda said, pretending impatience. “I can mix a tisane that will do him more good than those patent medicines.”

I gave her a bothered look and joined her at the counter. The storewoman put the flour down by the smaller parcel of salt, and Wenda paid her out of a thin purse. We crossed to the door and opened it to find that it was now pouring. I pulled up my coat collar and walked out onto the veranda, only to have an armsman step into my path. He was a big powerful-looking man with thinning brown hair gone to pepper and salt and shrewd blue eyes in a face that I might have liked, had he not worn Vos’s colors.

“Ye mun be one of them the Black Dog escorted to the barricade yesterday,” he said. “Are ye aware that ye neglected to mention whose property ye were visiting?”

“Why should I have mentioned it?” I snapped before remembering
I was supposed to be frivolous and silly.

The man frowned, but I thought there was amusement in his eyes. “Th’ men at the barricade were supposed to ask ye. But nivver mind that now. I see by yer companion where ye’re stayin’.” He gave a mocking bow, rain spilling from the brim of his hat. “I am Kevrik, armsman to Chieftain Vos who governs this settlement, charged with learning the names of the newcomers to Saithwold.”

“I am Ella,” I lied haughtily. “And now if you will be so good as to stand aside, we wish to leave.”

The armsman stepped aside, and Wenda came out onto the veranda beside me, closing the door behind her. She gave the armsman a brief cool look before going to the carriage and thrusting her basket into the sheltered space beneath the seat. Then she climbed up and swiftly unraveled a sheet of waxed cotton over her head to serve as a makeshift cover. She beckoned to me, but the man caught my arm. “I assume they also neglected to mention at the barricade that it is the custom for all who enter Saithwold province to pay their respects to its chieftain?” He spoke loudly to be heard over the rain.

“If the manners of those louts at the blockade are anything to judge by, I can understand why your chieftain must order himself up guests,” I said tartly. Before he could respond, I added, “But custom you said. Did you mean that a visit to your chieftain is a courtesy or a law?”

“Dinna ye think a courtesy ought to be observed as strictly as if it were a law?” Kevrik asked mildly.

“Courtesies are best preserved in free air, I think,” I snapped. “However, you may tell your chieftain that I will wait upon him tomorrow or the next day. There can be no rush, since we are delayed by my friend’s illness.”

I tried to pull my arm free of his grip, but he kept a firm
hold of me, saying, “Ye mun wait upon Chieftain Vos now, my lady.”

“I cannot force Wenda to journey with me in this rain, and I need to take some medicine back to my friend,” I protested.

The highlander nodded. “Then it is simple. Wenda will return to Noviny’s homestead with the medicine for yer companion, an’ I will take you to pay your respects to the chieftain.”

I scowled, looking down to hide my elation at the thought of being taken exactly where I wanted to go. Ironically, Wenda insisted that if I must face Vos, she would accompany me. The rain having abated, I coerced her into agreeing to leave without me, and then I had Gahltha to contend with for he refused to obey Wenda when she tried to leave. I laid my hand on his warm wet neck under the pretext of calming him, hoping I could buy myself enough time to convince Gahltha not to make a scene.

“I warned you this would happen,” I sent him.

“You said you would be taken to see this chieftain. You did not say you would go alone,” he sent.

“I must go with this man willingly, or he will force me,” I sent.

“I will not allow him to harm you,” Gahltha sent wrathfully, shifting angrily so that the small cart creaked and tilted.

“Be still, my dear,” I bade him. “It is not only him. There are many other armsmen in these streets, with knives and arrows and clubs. If you fight, you and the girl will be hurt, and still they will take me. Let me go with him now, and I promise that I will soon return.”

I could feel his anger fade into resignation. He said dryly, “Maruman/yelloweyes will be furious, for he made me promise not to leave you.”

“I fear that is true,” I sent, suddenly conscious that the armsman had returned and was watching me. I pretended to adjust the bridle. “Now, let me go and I will come as soon as I can.”

Kevrik hurried me along the muddy street to a covered wagon and gestured for me to climb up to the seat. Then he climbed up beside me. “I’ve nivver seen that horse before. It’s yours, en’t it?”

I hesitated, and, irritatingly, he took this as an admission. “I thought so. Yer one of them beastspeakers, aren’t ye? Like the old Misfit that serves Noviny.” His eyes widened. “That’s who th’ boy who came with ye is kin to! An’ I suppose he is a beastspeaker, too.”

My heart sank at the realization that Noviny had been wrong in thinking that Khuria’s Talent might be a secret. The only consolation was that Kevrik had only just connected me to Khuria, so neither Vos nor Malik would know yet that Zarak and I were Misfits. That meant I had a little time to maneuver. Being identified as a beastspeaker would make Vos less likely to realize who I really was.

“Two of use are beastspeakers. Our crippled friend is not a Misfit,” I said at last. “And none of us owns the horse. He is my friend, and I had to beastspeak him because he was refusing to leave me with you.”

“He dinna want to leave ye,” Kevrik marveled, shaking his head in wonder. He took up the reins purposefully. I squinted at his horse’s neck and, to my astonishment, saw the glimmer of a demon band. Kevrik made the sort of chucking noise used by men who have no other means of reaching the mind of a horse, and the copper horse set off at a sedate canter.

“T
HIS HORSE IS
wearing a demon band,” I said, suddenly glad there was no need to pretend I was not a beastspeaker. We had left the town behind, and a wall of thick forest ran along either side of us, broken by the occasional gate leading to a road that must wind its way to a farmstead.

Kevrik shot me a look. “I suppose ye tried to communicate with her.”

I struggled against outrage and lost. “It is barbaric that you put a demon band on a beast without asking if it agrees to accept the danger.”

“Danger? What are ye blatherin’ about, lass?” the armsman asked.

I stared at him, wondering if he and all the other armsmen wearing demon bands did not know that tainted matter gave the devices their power and that it would eventually penetrate the metal tubing and poison the wearer’s bones and blood. Then it occurred to me that Garth had only warned us about the dangers of the demon bands in guildmerge just before wintertime; how would those here have learned of it?

I drew in a sharp breath, suddenly realizing that the heavy crates Noviny had seen the Herders deliver to Malik had probably been filled with demon bands.

“Tell me what ye meant by sayin’ demon bands are dangerous,” Kevrik prompted.

“They cause wasting sickness,” I said, careful not to reveal that I knew he and the other armsmen wore demon bands, for how should a beastspeaker know that?

“That’s a lie,” Kevrik said sharply, his hand going unwittingly to his collar. “You see for yourself that the mare is not sick.”

I shrugged. “Demon bands are no more than metal tubes encasing matter taken from the Blacklands. The taint will not hurt immediately, just as it does not kill a man immediately to walk on tainted Blacklands. The sickness comes later when the bones crumble and the flesh wastes from them. The demon bands take longer, because the taint is much weaker and has to seep through the metal casing.”

I glanced away into the dense wood at the roadside, and said, “But surely your chieftain has told you of the danger?” I pretended not to notice the armsman’s blank face and added, “Unless … Can it be that Chieftain Vos does not know the demon bands contain tainted matter?”