The Dreamtrails (7 page)

I shrugged and dropped my own voice, intrigued by her almost furtive manner. “Before last wintertime, Master Noviny sent word that he had work that needed doing on his homestead, but we could not leave the job my brother was engaged upon. Now we go to Saithwold to see if there is still work and also as a courtesy. It is no matter either way, as there is another hire waiting for my brother in Sutrium.”

The woman made a noncommittal gesture, her eyes flickering past me as she poured my mug of warmed cider. I sipped at it, wondering aloud where my brother had got to and resisting the temptation to probe the woman in case she was a sensitive. I knew that Zarak was filling the water barrels from a well behind the inn, but I did not summon him. Glancing casually about the room, I saw that the man and the woman who had seemed to be listening to us were now conversing
in low voices, but the two hard-looking men by the wall were still watching me.

“If you have them, I would like fresh bread, honey, and butter,” I said. “My brother will want something a bit more substantial. Eggs maybe?”

“I can offer cured bacon as well as eggs,” the woman said. “Though it will cost yer. It’s the last of an old store, and meat will not be so easy to get if this animal charter is made law.”

“Do you think that is like to happen?” I asked, having shaken my head to the bacon.

“I cannot see folk gladly doing without their meat,” she answered, giving me no hint of her own opinion.

“The hunting of beasts who prey on humans is allowed within the charter, is it not?” I asked, watching her closely. “The way I heard it, a man might have bacon if he is prepared to face down the boar for it.”

“Do ye ken this fingerspeech?” a voice behind me asked curtly. I turned to see the man with the mud-crusted boots, whom I had decided was a farmer. Beside him, the young woman sat with eyes demurely cast down.

“I know a little of it,” I admitted warily. “A jack showed it to me and my brother.”

“Is it true speech?” the man asked truculently. “Is it nowt some play of speaking? A trick?”

“To what end?” I asked. “My brother and I were skeptical, too, but the ability to communicate even a little with beasts has proven very useful. It is handy to be able to ask the horse or dog accompanying a man if he is trustworthy.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw the two men at the other table exchange a purposeful glance as they rose, donning coats and throwing some coins down before they strode out.

“Mark my words, it is a trick,” the farmer muttered
stubbornly, and turned his back on me.

“You best not speak of fingertalk an’ the Beast Charter if you’re going to Saithwold,” said the woman behind the counter, still in a low voice. Her manner was less guarded now, which seemed to confirm that she had been wary of the two men who had left.

“Is Master Noviny opposed to the Beast Charter, then?” I asked, knowing it was not so.

“Sirrah Noviny isn’t chieftain of Saithwold,” the woman said crisply as she went to pick up the men’s coins.

I sat back, trying to connect what she had implied with what Zarak’s father, the beastspeaker Khuria, had written to his son about Saithwold. Before the rebellion, Khuria had gone down to Saithwold to help establish a chain of farseekers between Darthnor and Sutrium, enabling communication among the Misfits. It had quickly become clear that although Noviny was a Councilman, he was also an honest man much admired by those in his region. After the uprising, Khuria had told the old man the truth about himself, and Noviny had invited him to remain in his household. Khuria had been glad to stay, for he found Obernewtyn’s bitter winters harder and harder to endure. Judging from Khuria’s letters to Zarak after the end of the rebellion, a genuine friendship had grown between the two men. The letters had made it clear that Noviny was almost certain to be reelected chieftain of the region as soon as the people of Saithwold were allowed to make their own choice. Vos, the rebel who currently served as chieftain, knew this and resented it bitterly, but attempts to force local farmers to agree to vote for him had only increased his unpopularity.

Once the pass had been closed with snow, there had been no more letters until thaw. But as soon as the pass had opened
and messages arrived, Zarak had shown me the pile of letters from his father, asking grimly if I would read them and tell him what I thought.

They had been arranged from oldest to most recent. The first, sent at the start of wintertime, had reported Vos’s growing anger at the Beast Charter and Noviny’s willingness to embrace it. There had been several confrontations between Noviny and the new chieftain in which Vos had ranted and Noviny had remained calm and dignified, saying that he was a private farmer and was concerned only with his own affairs. The letter was written with Khuria’s characteristic bluntness, but there was a marked change in the tone of the letters that followed. The scribing became strangely formal, and instead of offering incisive evaluations of Saithwold’s situation, Khuria offered all manner of irrelevant and even trivial details of daily life. There was no more mention of Vos, nor of beastspeaking and agreements with beasts. The last letter, sent only a sevenday or so before the thaw, seemed maudlin and spoke of infirmity and the wings of time. This missive was so altogether unlike Khuria that either he had not written it, or he was striving to make it seem false.

“He wishes to communicate but he cannot write freely,” I had suggested to Zarak.

“That is just what I thought,” he had responded worriedly. “On his deathbed, my father would nivver whine like this.”

The serving woman set down a platter of fresh-baked bread, interrupting my reverie. As she arranged crocks of honey, jam, and butter, she said softly, “If there is trouble in Saithwold, ye can be sure Chieftain Vos is behind it.” She spoke his title with a sneer. “He is determined the people of Saithwold will elect him chieftain again whether they like it or no.”

“He can’t make anyone vote for him,” I told her. “Each person’s name will be marked off as they make their choice for chieftain. That choice will be scribed in secret, then folded, and put into a box that will remain locked until it reaches Sutrium.”

“I ken that as well as the next person who can read a notice, but who do ye think will guard the box of votes and bear them to Sutrium?” the woman snapped. “The armsmen of each chieftain, that’s who.”

Zarak entered, hailing me jovially and commanding the woman behind the counter to bring him a brace of eggs, a mountain of fried bread, and a slab of sharp yellow cheese. The same again was to be wrapped up for our companion who lay ill in the wagon.

A faint unease passed over the woman’s face at the mention of illness, but I knew this was only an unconscious remembering of the plague that had swept the Land some years previous, killing many and scarring more. The woman offered Zarak a cider, which he accepted, and as she set about preparing the rest of his order, I told him aloud that there might be strife in Saithwold over the coming elections and suggested we reconsider going there. At the same time, I farsent a command to Zarak to disagree in an arrogant brotherly way.

“It is naught to do with us,” Zarak said airily, carefully emulating lowland speech to match our accents. “We are not to vote for the chieftain of Saithwold.” He stretched languorously and said that he would rather eat outside and soak up a bit of sunlight. Ordering me to bring him the eggs when they came, he ambled out, humming to himself. I had to repress a smile at how well he played his part.

The woman shook her head at me, provoked just as I had
hoped. “He is a comely lad, your brother, but a dear fool,” she said tartly. “Ye’ll be lucky if he gets no more than a sound beating when ye try getting past the blockade.”

“Blockade?” I thought I must have misheard her.

“There is a blockade set up on the road to Saithwold. It is supposed to keep out brigands, but if you ask me, it is the brigands mannin’ it,” she said, breaking eggs forcefully into a pan. “They provoke trouble with anyone who wants to go to Saithwold and use that as an excuse to stop them entering the town.”

“They stop people going to Saithwold?” I asked with mild skepticism.

“Exactly that,” she said sharply. “And the blockade doesn’t only keep people out. It keeps in them as wants to leave. You try scribin’ a letter to Sirrah Noviny to tell him yer coming to take up his offer, and ye’ll get back a polite missive from him saying he has no work for yer brother.” The woman glanced about, then leaned closer. “I’ve a sister who went to live in Saithwold wi’ her bondmate years back. We have visited back and forth over the years, but at the beginnin’ of this wintertime just past, I sent her an invitation an’ got back a missive full of small news. My sister nivver even mentioned my suggestion that she come an’ visit. I wrote again an’ asked her more bluntly. Again she wrote a lot of queer prattle about recipes an’ descriptions of th’ weather and all manner of news about people I didn’t know, but still no answer. I have scribed two more letters since, and it were th’ same both times when she scribed back. There is something amiss; I know it well, but I can’t go there to see her because of yon blockade.” The woman’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “There is so much trouble about. Robbers creeping along the road at night in gangs, burnin’ an’ destroyin’ homes, an’ kitchen gardens,
an’ planted fields of good people.… Many’s the time I wish fer the Council back. I hated their corruption, but at least I could see my sister.”

Her voice had risen and I glanced around, but the other patrons appeared indifferent to our conversation. The woman visibly mastered herself. “My advice to ye and that handsome ninnyhammer of a brother waitin’ for his eggs is to ferget about Saithwold. If ye’ve a promise of work in Sutrium, go there and take it up.” Her eyes searched my face; then she said quickly, “But if ye do go to Saithwold, mayhap ye’d consent to … to take a missive from me to my sister? She’s a rare fine cook and ye’ll nowt be sorry.…” She stopped in confusion, her eyes again filling with tears, which she dashed away angrily.

I said softly, “Scribe your missive and tell me her name. My brother may look a fool, but he is resourceful. If your sister will scribe a message to you, I will bring it out and give it to a jack I know who comes this way regularly. You have been kind to give a stranger so much information, and I am sorry for your trouble.”

The woman nodded and vanished for a time. When she returned, it was with red eyes, a laden plate for Zarak, a package of food wrapped in cloth, and a small folded paper that she surreptitiously pressed into my palm. “I’d like not ter charge ye for your meal, but my master is over at that table,” she said apologetically.

I paid her, carried the plate out to Zarak, and sat with him while he ate, telling him what had transpired as he wolfed down the food.

“My father made no mention of any blockade, but perhaps he kenned the letter would nowt be allowed to leave Saithwold if he did. Can Vos really expect to force the people of
Saithwold to vote for him? He can nowt keep the town closed away forever, and as soon as anyone can leave, they will complain to the Council of Chieftains in Sutrium.”

“Perhaps he hopes that whoever is voted head of the Council of Chieftains will refuse to hear any complaints against him,” I said.

“There is something else odd,” Zarak went on. “Dardelan mun have heard about the blockade from people turned away. Why hasnae he sent up a force of armsmen to investigate?”

He was right, and I could think of no reason for Dardelan’s failure to deal with the blockade unless his grip on power was a good deal more fragile than we had been led to believe. Zarak continued. “As for the election, as soon as we tell Dardelan what Vos intends, he mun send some of his armsmen to make sure the votes are nowt tampered with.” Zarak warmed to his idea and began to elaborate on how Dardelan might disguise his true intentions under a festive façade.

Suddenly eager to reach Rangorn, I bade Zarak prepare the wagon to leave. I took the plate inside, and some impulse made me ask the woman if the rebel chieftain Malik ever came by.

This time fear flashed in her eyes, but anger, too. She glanced around before saying, “His men have camps set up all along this coast to keep watch for any Herder ships that try to land, but they spend most of their time at inns buying ale and gaming with the local layabouts. Those two who left earlier drink with them regularly, and there is always trouble when they come.” She hesitated and then said, “Anyone foolish enough to speak against Chieftain Malik or in favor of his enemies or rivals in their hearing is like to find their house
burned down around their ears. By robbers and brigands, of course,” she sneered. Then she added uneasily, “I hope I haven’t made a mistake and you aren’t one of Malik’s spies.”

“You can be sure that Malik is the last person I would serve,” I said.

A
S WE SET
off again, I told Darius what we had learned, suggesting he might not want to come into Saithwold with us. But to my surprise, he insisted.

“There may be danger,” Zarak pointed out hesitantly.