The Name of the Wind (60 page)

In the early days with the troupe, I'd learned how to size up a town. It's a lot like reading your audience when you're playing in a tavern. The stakes are higher of course, play the wrong song in a tavern and people might hiss you, but misjudge an entire town and things can get uglier than that.

So I sized up Trebon. It was off the beaten path, halfway between a mining town and a farming town. They weren't likely to be instantly suspicious of strangers, but it was small enough that everyone knew by looking at you that you weren't one of the locals.

I was surprised to see people setting up straw-stuffed shamble-men outside their homes. That meant that despite the proximity to Imre and the University, Trebon was truly a backwater community. Every town has a harvest festival of some sort, but these days most folk settle for having a bonfire and getting drunk. The fact that they were following old folk traditions meant people in Trebon were more superstitious than I would usually expect.

Despite that, I liked seeing the shamble-men. I have a fondness for the traditional harvest festivals, superstitions and all. They're a type of theater, really.

The Tehlin church was the nicest building in town, three stories tall and made of quarried stone. Nothing odd about that, but bolted above the front doors, high above the ground, was one of the biggest iron wheels I'd ever seen. It was real iron too, not just painted wood. It was ten feet tall and must have weighed a solid ton. Ordinarily such a display would have made me nervous, but since Trebon was a mining town I guessed it showed civic pride more than fanatic piety.

Most of the other buildings in town were low to the ground, built of rough timber with cedar-shingle roofs. The inn was respectable though, two stories tall, with plaster walls and red clay tiles on the roof. There was bound to be someone in there who would know more about the wedding.

There was a bare handful of people inside, not surprising as harvest was in full swing and there were still five or six hours of good daylight left. I put on my best anxious expression as I made my way over to the bar where the innkeeper stood.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I hate to trouble you, but I'm looking for someone.”

The innkeeper was a dark-haired man with a perpetual scowl. “Who's that then?”

“My cousin was here for a wedding,” I said, “and I heard there was some trouble.”

At the word
wedding
the innkeeper's scowl turned stony. I could feel the two men farther down the bar not looking at me, pointedly not looking anywhere in my direction. It was true then. Something terrible had happened.

I saw the innkeeper reach out and press his fingers onto the bar. It took me a second to realize he was touching the iron head of a nail driven into the wood. “Bad business,” he said shortly. “Nothing I care to say about it.”

“Please,” I said, letting worry bleed into my tone. “I was visiting family in Temfalls when the rumor came down that something had happened. They're all busy pulling in the last of the wheat, so I promised I'd come up and see what the trouble was.”

The innkeeper looked me up and down. A gawker he could turn away, but he couldn't deny me the right to know what had happened to a family member. “There's the one upstairs who was there,” he said shortly. “Not from around here. Might be your cousin.”

A witness! I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he shook his head. “I don't know a thing about it,” he said firmly. “Don't care to, either.” He turned and made himself suddenly busy with the taps of his beer barrels. “Up at the far end of the hall, on the left.”

I headed across the room and up the stairs. I could feel everyone not looking at me now. Their silence and the innkeeper's tone made it clear that whoever was upstairs was not
one of the many
who had been there, it was
the one.
One survivor.

I went to the end of the hallway and knocked on the door. First softly, then again, louder. I opened the door slowly, so as not to startle whoever might be inside.

It was a narrow room with a narrow bed. A woman lay on it, fully clothed, one arm wrapped in a bandage. Her head was turned toward the window, so I could only see her profile.

Still I recognized her. Denna.

I must have made some noise, because she turned to look at me. Her eyes went wide and for once she was the one who was at a loss for words.

“I heard you were in some trouble,” I said nonchalantly. “So I thought I'd come and help.”

Her eyes went wide for a moment, then narrowed. “You're lying,” she said with a wry twist to her lips.

“I am,” I admitted. “But it's a pretty lie.” I took a step into the room and closed the door softly. “I would have come, if I'd known.”

“Anyone can make the trip after they get the news,” she said dismissively. “It takes a special sort of man to show up when he doesn't know there's trouble.” She sat up and turned to face me, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

Now that I looked more closely, I noticed that she had a bruise high on one temple in addition to the bandage on her arm. I took another step toward her, “Are you alright?” I asked.

“No,” she said bluntly. “But I could be a damn sight worse off.” She came to her feet slowly, as if she was unsure how steady she would be. She took a cautious step or two and seemed more or less satisfied. “Right. I can walk. Let's get out of here.”

D
ENNA TURNED LEFT INSTEAD of right as she came out of her room. At first I thought she was disoriented, but when she came to a back stairway I saw she was actually trying to leave without heading through the taproom. She found the alley door, but it was locked fast.

So we headed out the front. As soon as we entered the taproom I was pointedly aware of everyone's attention on us. Denna made a beeline for the front door, moving but with the slow determination of a storm cloud.

We were almost out when the man behind the bar called out. “Hoy! Hey now!”

Denna's eyes flickered to the side. Her mouth made a thin line and she continued her walk to the door as if she hadn't heard.

“I'll deal with him,” I said softly. “Wait for me. I'll be out in just a second.”

I walked over to where the barman stood scowling. “That your cousin then?” he asked. “Has the constable said she can go?”

“I thought you didn't want to know anything about it,” I said.

“I surely don't. But she's had use of the room, and meals, and I had the doctor out to patch her up.”

I gave him a hard look. “If there's a doctor in this town worth more than ha'penny, then I'm the King of Vint.”

“I'm out half a talent in all,” he insisted. “Bandages ain't free, and I had a woman by to sit with her, waiting for her to wake up.”

I doubted very much that he was out half that, but I certainly didn't want trouble with the constable. In truth, I didn't want any sort of delay. Given Denna's tendencies, I was worried that if I lost sight of her for more than a minute she would disappear like morning fog.

I took five jots from my purse and scattered them onto the bar. “Knackers profit from a plague,” I said scathingly, and left.

I felt a ridiculous amount of relief when I saw Denna waiting outside, leaning against the horse post. Her eyes were closed and she had her face tilted toward the sun. She sighed contentedly and turned toward the sound of my approaching footsteps.

“Was it that bad?” I asked.

“They were kind enough at first,” Denna admitted, gesturing with her bandaged arm. “But this old woman kept checking in on me.” She frowned and brushed her long black hair back, giving me a clear view of the purpling bruise that spread from her temple all the way back to her hairline. “You know the type, some tight-laced spinster with a mouth like a cat's ass.”

I burst out laughing, and Denna's sudden smile was like the sun peering from behind a cloud. Then her face grew dark again as she continued. “She kept giving me this look. Like I should've had the decency to die with all the other folk. Like all this was my fault.”

Denna shook her head. “But she was better than the old men. The constable put his hand on my leg!” She shuddered. “Even the mayor came, clucking over me like he cared, but he was only there to badger me with questions. ‘What were you doing there? What happened? What did you see…?'”

The scorn in Denna's voice made me bite back my own questions so quickly that I almost caught my tongue between my teeth. It's my nature to ask questions, not to mention that the whole purpose of this mad dash into the foothills was to investigate what had happened.

Still, the tone of Denna's voice made it clear she was in no mood to give answers right now. I shrugged my travelsack higher up onto my shoulder and something occurred to me. “Wait. Your things. You left them all back in your room.”

Denna hesitated for a heartbeat. “I don't think anything of mine was there,” she said as if the thought hadn't even occurred to her before.

“Are you sure you don't want to go back and check?”

She shook her head firmly. “I leave where I'm not welcome,” she said matter-of-factly. “Everything else I can make up along the way.”

Denna started to walk down the street and I fell in beside her. She turned onto a narrow side street heading west. We passed an old woman hanging a shamble-man made of oat sheaves. It wore a crude straw hat and a pair of sackcloth pants. “Where are we headed?” I asked.

“I need to see if my things are out at the Mauthen farm,” she said. “After that I'm open to suggestions. Where were you planning to go before you found me?”

“Honestly, I was heading out to the Mauthen farm myself.”

Denna gave me a sideways look. “Fair enough. It's only about a mile out to the farm. We can be there and still have plenty of light.”

The land around Trebon was rough, mostly thick forest broken by stretches of rocky ground. Then the road would round a corner and there would be a small, perfect field of golden wheat tucked among the trees, or nestled into a valley surrounded by dark stone bluffs. Farmers and hands dotted the fields, covered in chaff and moving with the slow weariness that comes from knowing half the day's harvest was still to come.

We'd only been walking a minute when I heard a familiar thump of hooves behind us. I turned to see a small open-topped cart bumping slowly up the road. Denna and I stepped off into the scrub, as the road was barely wide enough for the cart. A bone weary farmer eyed us suspiciously from where he sat, hunched over the reins.

“We're heading to the Mauthen farm,” Denna called out as he came closer. “Would you mind if we caught a ride?”

The man eyed us grimly, then nodded toward the back of the cart. “I'm heading past old Borrorill. Ye'll have to make your own way from there.”

Denna and I clambered on and sat facing backward on the clapboard with our feet dangling over the edge. It wasn't much faster than walking, but we were both glad to be off our feet.

We rode in silence. Denna obviously wasn't interested in discussing things in front of the farmer, and I was glad to have a moment to think things over. I had planned on telling whatever lies were necessary to get the information I wanted from the witness. Denna complicated things. I didn't want to lie to her, but at the same time I couldn't risk telling her too much. The last thing I wanted to do was convince her I was crazy with wild stories of the Chandrian….

So we rode in silence. It was nice just being near her. You wouldn't think a girl in bandages with a blackened eye could be beautiful, but Denna was. Lovely as the moon: not flawless, perhaps, but perfect.

The farmer spoke up, breaking my reverie. “Here's Borrorill.”

I looked around for the rill, but couldn't see it. Which was a shame, as I wouldn't mind a cool drink or a bit of a wash. Hours of hard riding had left me sweaty and smelling of horse.

We thanked the farmer and hopped off the back of the cart. Denna led the way along the dirt track that wound back and forth up the side of the hill, between the trees and the occasional outcrop of worn, dark stone. Denna seemed steadier than when we'd left the tavern, but kept her eyes on the ground, choosing her steps with deliberate care as if she didn't quite trust her balance.

A sudden thought came to me. “I got your note,” I said, pulling the folded piece of paper out of a pocket in my cloak. “When did you leave it for me?”

“Nearly two span ago.”

I grimaced, “I only got it last night.”

She nodded to herself. “I worried about that when you never showed up. I thought it might have fallen out, or gotten wet so you couldn't read it.”

“I just haven't used the window lately,” I said.

Denna shrugged nonchalantly. “Silly of me to assume you would, really.”

I tried to think of something to add, something that would explain what she might have seen when Fela had given me my cloak in the Eolian. I couldn't think of anything. “I'm sorry I missed our lunch.”

Denna looked up, amused. “Deoch said you were caught in a fire or something. Told me you looked positively wretched.”

“I felt wretched,” I said. “More from missing you than from the fire….”

She rolled her eyes. “I'm sure you were
terribly
distraught. You did me a favor in a way. While I was sitting there…alone…pining away…”

“I said I was sorry.”

“…an older gentleman introduced himself to me. We talked, got to know each other….” She shrugged and looked sideways at me, almost bashfully. “I've been meeting with him ever since. If things continue smoothly, I think he'll be my patron before the year is out.”

“Really?” I said, relief splashing over me like cold water. “That's wonderful, and long overdue. Who is he?”

She shook her head, her dark hair falling down around her face. “I can't say. He's obsessed with his privacy. He wouldn't tell me his real name for more than a span. Even now I don't know if the name he's given me is real.”

“If you're not sure who he really is,” I said slowly. “How do you know he's a gentleman?”

It was a foolish question. We both knew the answer, but she said it anyway. “Money. Clothes. Bearing.” She shrugged. “Even if he's only a wealthy merchant, he'll still make a good patron.”

“But not a great one. Merchant families don't have the same stability…”

“…and their names don't carry the same weight,” she finished with another, knowing shrug. “Half a loaf is better than none, and I'm tired of having no loaf at all.” She sighed. “I've been working hard to reel him in. But he's so dodgy…. We never meet in the same place twice, and never in public. Sometimes he'll set up a meeting and never even show up for it. Not that that's anything new in my life….”

Denna staggered as a rock shifted under her foot. I grabbed for her, and she caught hold of my arm and shoulder before she fell. For a moment we were pressed against each other, and I was very aware of her body against mine as she took a moment to balance herself.

I steadied her, and we moved apart. But after she regained her footing, she kept her hand resting lightly on my arm. I moved slowly, as if a wild bird had landed there and I was desperately trying to avoid startling it into flight.

I considered putting my arm around her, partly for support and partly for other more obvious reasons. I quickly discarded the idea. I still remembered the look on her face when she mentioned the constable touching her leg. What would I do if she had a similar response to me?

Men flocked around Denna, and I knew from our conversations how tiresome she found them. I couldn't bear the thought of making the same mistakes they made, simply because I didn't know any better. It was better not to risk offending her, better to be safe. As I've said before, there is a great difference between being fearless and being brave.

We followed the path as it doubled back on itself, continuing up the hill. All was silent except for the wind moving in the tall grass.

“So he's secretive?” I prompted gently, worried that the silence would soon become uncomfortable.

“
Secretive
doesn't cover it by half,” Denna said, rolling her eyes. “Once a woman offered me money for information about him. I played dumb, and later when I told him about it he said it had been a test to see how much I could be trusted. Another time some men threatened me. I'm guessing that was another test.”

The fellow sounded rather sinister to me, like a fugitive from the law or someone hiding from his family. I was about to say so when I saw Denna looking at me anxiously. She was worried, worried that I would think less of her for pandering to the whimsy of some paranoid lordling.

I thought about my talk with Deoch, about the fact that, hard as my lot was, hers was undoubtedly harder. What would I put up with if I could win a powerful noble's patronage? What would I go though to find someone who would give me money for lute strings, see that I was dressed and fed, and protect me from vicious little bastards like Ambrose?

I bit back my previous comments and gave her a knowing grin. “He'd better be rich enough to be worth your trouble,” I said. “Bags of money. Pots of it.”

Her mouth quirked up at the corner, and I felt her body relax, glad that I wasn't judging her. “Well that would be telling, now, wouldn't it?” Her eyes danced, saying:
yes.

“He's the reason I'm here,” she continued. “He told me to show up at this wedding. It's a lot more rural than I expected, but…” She shrugged again, a silent comment about the inexplicable desires of the nobility. “I expected my patron-to-be to be there—” She stopped, laughing. “Did that even make any sense?”

“Just make up a name for him,” I suggested.

“You pick one,” she said. “Don't they teach you about names at the University?”

“Annabelle,” I suggested.

“I will not,” she said, laughing, “refer to my potential patron as Annabelle.”

“The Duke of Richmoney.”

“Now you're just being flippant. Try again.”

“Just tell me when I hit one you like…Federick the Flippant. Frank. Feran. Forue. Fordale….”

She shook her head at me as we climbed the crest of the hill. As we finally reached the top, the wind gusted past us. Denna gripped my arm for balance and I held up a hand to shield my eyes from dust and leaves. I coughed in surprise as the wind forced a leaf straight into my mouth, causing me to choke and splutter.

Denna thought this was particularly funny. “Fine,” I said, as I fished the leaf out of my mouth. It was yellow, shaped like a spearhead. “The wind has decided for us. Master Ash.”

“Are you sure it isn't Master Elm?” she asked, eyeing the leaf. “It's a common mistake.”

“Tastes like an ash,” I said. “Besides, elm is feminine.”

She nodded seriously, though her eyes were dancing. “Ash it is then.”

As we made it out of the trees and over the top of the hill the wind gusted again, pelting us with more debris before it died down. Denna took a step away from me, muttering and rubbing at her eyes. The part of my arm where her hand had rested suddenly felt very cold.