The Seer - eARC (13 page)

The man struggled. Anger flickered across his features. Tayre’s grip on his throat tightened, and the expression went back to confusion.

Clearly he didn’t have much experience losing.

He tried to sit up, but Tayre held him pinned easily. Still, the effort implied a general lack of attention, so Tayre grabbed the top of the man’s head by his curly dark hair, raised it slightly, and let it drop to the stone. The man gave a pained yelp.

“And it would be smart of you to show me some respect. You see how that might be wise?”

The man blinked a bit, then struggled again to try to get free, so Tayre repeated the motion with the man’s head, raising and dropping it to the stone. The man’s jaw went slack, eyes unfocused.

“Make more sense now?” Tayre asked.

The man attempted a nod, though Tayre was confident that he had no idea what he was agreeing to. Tayre nodded back.

“My name is Tayre,” he said, careful to enunciate, loudly and clearly. He grabbed the man’s hair again, but this time instead of resistance he was given a whimper of agonized anticipation. He lifted the head as high off the ground as it would go, holding the man’s gaze with his own.

“No, no,” the man whispered, eyes wide. “Please.”

“Much better. What’s my name?”

A croaking sound.

“Say it again.”

“Tayre,” the man whispered.

“Louder.”

“Tayre.”

“You won’t forget, will you? I wouldn’t like that.”

“No, no, no.”

“Good.” With that, Tayre released the man’s head a third time. It fell with a crack. The man exhaled once and was silent.

Nothing like the finesse and subtlety he preferred, this, but Innel’s uncertainty meant that he needed to build a reputation quickly.

Tayre stood, brushed off his trousers, and gave the watching crowd a modest shrug and a friendly wave.

Their eyes were open very wide as they watched him. He’d made an impact, all right. They’d talk about him.

As he walked away, the tall man rolled over onto his side, moaning, seeming content to lie in the street awhile.

It began to rain.

In the sky a three-quarter moon broke the dark of night. Tayre greeted the stablewoman and handed her the reins of his horse. He knew her; she was the owner’s adult daughter whom he had entrusted with his horse many times across many years, but she treated him like a stranger. It was not just his stance, expression, and clothes that caused her to fail to recognize him. Had he come with the same horse as last time, she would have looked at him twice. She cared about horses. People, less so.

After entering the eatery, he stood inside the door as if absorbed in thought, adjusting cuffs, collar, shirt folds. He would seem a wealthy trader, clothes new and light in color, with only a few splatters of mud.

By the time he looked up from this distracted fussing, all the eyes in this crowded room were on him.

The owner approached, a woman with gray streaks in the braid down her back. She wiped her hands on her apron.

“Season’s blessing to you, ser,” she said. “You can sit, let me see, right there.” She pointed.

“Corner table, Kadla,” he said, too softly for anyone else to hear.

She looked back, mouth opening to tell him what she thought of his correction. But she hesitated, gave him another look. This was one of the many things he liked about Kadla.

“You,” she said, her tone as much amused as annoyed. “There.” She indicated the table he’d asked for, as if it had been her decision.

He went where she pointed and sat. When she came back a few minutes later, he passed her two palmed falcons, which saw no light before they went into her pocket.

“Call me Enlon. Trading from Perripur.”

Kadla smile a little. “I watch for you all year, then you stride in and I’m surprised. All over again. Fancy clothes this time, too. Didn’t you have a beard before?”

“You look younger every year, Kadla. What rare herbs do you use?”

She snorted. “Mountain air, good water. That’s what keeps me young.”

He chuckled.

“Don’t you laugh,” she added. “I’m as strong as my best mare.”

“And she’s a looker, I admit. But you’re far prettier. Smarter, too. Anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll find them and explain their mistake to them. Then I’ll come for you.”

“You and your fancy tongue.” She leaned down close to his face. “Still charming the young ones, are you? I’ve seen you work. They fall like cut grain, don’t they? Rumor is you’re worth washing the bedclothes for, but I don’t think you’re enough for me.”

“What would be enough?”

Even though they had some version of this conversation every year, he could see her slight blush.

“You’re a boy to me.”

“Then teach me to be a man.”

She stood back, made a tsking sound. “Go find yourself an anknapa. You won’t get better food or drink this way. Your silver’s good enough.”

“Kadla,” he said, mock-wounded, “you underestimate me. Come to my room tonight and I’ll show you how much.”

Her smile faded a bit. He could see her wondering how serious he was.

“A lot of food,” she said. “And water. If I remember right.”

“You do.”

“And a room.”

“Yes.”

“Same room as last time,” she said.

“Good. You’ll have no trouble finding me tonight.”

“Give it up.”

He raised his eyebrows, met her eyes, held the look. “You sure?”

She inhaled as if to speak, thought better of whatever witty thing she had in mind, and said, with an expression uncharacteristically open, “You keep asking, one of these times I’ll say yes. Then you’ll have to deliver. Careful, boy.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Hmm.”

“If anyone asks about me, under any name, I want to know about it.”

“Call me shocked to the bone.”

He chuckled at this teasing. He wondered if she would still feel this comfortable talking to him after the stories he was building for Innel made it back to her.

“I have messages I need delivered.” He would ask his contacts if they had seen any unusual travelers.

“Can’t imagine what you’ll do,” she said, making a show of confusion. “Oh, perhaps you’ll give them to me and I’ll have them sent for you.”

“Perhaps I’ll even pay you well to do it.”

“That would be wise.”

“Are your children well?”

“You want a story, wait for the harper. I have work.”

As she walked back to the kitchens, he could see that she knew he was watching.

When she returned a few minutes later with thick stew topped with a stack of hardbread dripping in fat, she was a little less smooth in her movements. She was thinking about it.

“Ah,” she said in frustration as the fat dripped off the bread onto the table. She pulled out a rag and gave the table a cursory wipe.

“The best meals are messy,” he said with a smile.

She smirked, put the rag back in her apron. No, he judged: she would not come to his room tonight. She wanted to, and he could have convinced her, but he wanted to see what she would be like when she came to him without influence. One of these years she would. He was in no rush.

At the side of the room, tables and chairs were cleared. A woman descended the steps from the rooms above, a large cloth case in her arms. As she scanned the room, Tayre recognized the expression. A horse master evaluating a new mare. A shepherd assessing a flock.

Or himself looking across a crowded room, deciding where to sit.

She perched on a table and unwrapped the harp. She set up a quick, playful tune. The room fell silent. She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes that fell back immediately. Giving the audience a wolfish grin, she strummed a single, loud, attention-getting chord.

“Blessings of the season,” she said into the sudden silence. “I’m Dalea. I’ll give you my stories, and you leave me what you’ve got to spare. We could both go home happy.” Her fingers did a quick dance across the strings, producing a sound like laughter.

There was a scattering of chuckles.

“Isn’t this warm weather sweet?” Sounds of assent. “Don’t get too used to it. How long is your summer up here? A tenday?” Chuckles.

Tayre studied her words, stance, and the small movements of her face. They were alike, the two of them, both making their way through the world by choosing what others saw.

Across the room Kadla leaned against the door to the kitchen, the bowl of stew in her hands forgotten.

Another stream of notes flowed from the harp and Dalea began to sing, smiling at the audience as if they were friends, as if they all shared a secret. It was an effective trick, her sincerity and vulnerability, irresistible to these people, who would be guarded with family and neighbors they knew too well. To a warm and attractive stranger, they would gladly give their hearts. Their coins would follow easily enough.

When she finished the last song, the crowd hit their thighs and made the trilling sounds that Tayre knew originally came from the tribes before the Arunkin took over. Quarter-nals and some half-nals landed at her feet and on her side table. A crowd surged to talk to her, the men ducking their heads like awkward boys.

Tayre ate another bowl of stew and waited until the room had emptied.

She was wrapping her harp, tying it into a pack.

“Beautiful,” he said, giving her the uncertain smile he knew she would most expect.

“Thank you.”

“I played a bit,” he said, looking at the wrapped instrument, letting a conflicted expression flicker across his face for her to see. “Never any good at it. I studied with Melet al Kelerre.”

“Melet?” she asked, surprised. Impressed.

“A little,” he said, modestly. It was, entirely coincidentally, true, though he’d actually been better at it than he was implying. “My father was trying to figure out what to do with me. See what I might be good for.”

“And?”

“And it wasn’t music.”

“Ah.” Her curiosity was piqued. “What was it, then?”

“Oh, selling things. Jars and jewels, spices and extracts. A few books. Whatever’s easy to carry on horseback. I do all right. And you?”

She gave a forced smile. “Tonight I’ll eat. Sometimes I’m not so lucky.”

Tayre dug into his pocket and put a falcon on the table.

“You’re very kind, ser,” she said in a tone clearly reserved for those who overpaid.

“Good fortune to you, Harper.”

“And you.”

He turned to go, then back to face her, as though something had only now occurred to him. “I don’t suppose—did you come from downriver?”

“I did. Why?”

“Have you seen a young woman and a girl? A yearling baby, perhaps walking now?”

Dalea frowned thoughtfully.

“Cousins,” he said, putting pain into his tone and eyes. “They had a falling out with my father. Took things that weren’t theirs. Ran. They were scared.”

“Hard times,” the harper said sympathetically.

“Yes, but there’s forgiveness for them if they want it. I have to find them to tell them so, but I don’t know where to look. The woman is slender, the girl has sort of—” He held out a hand as if sketching in the air, “a roundish face. A cloak with blue trim.” He smiled fondly. “She was always so clever with needle and thread. Sky blue. A distinctive touch. Hard to miss.”

“Oh,” she said slowly. “I think so. Downriver. A small village. I remember now. The girl is trying to seem a boy, but she’s . . .” She shook her head to convey the extent of the failure of that attempt. The grin faded. “She seemed fragile, somehow. Afraid.”

“That’s her. Do you remember where?”

“A tenday downriver. On foot, that is,” she added with a nod at his riding boots.

“May fortune bring you a horse,” he said.

She laughed the rich, deep tone of a singer. “How would I afford to feed it?”

“A least a new pair of shoes, then.”

“That is at least possible. I hope you find your people.”

“Oh, I will.”

* * *

In a corner of a nearly empty village greathouse that doubled as an eatery, Tayre fished the last bite of cold stew out of his bowl with a hunk of bread. The greathouse’s windows were open to the evening’s warm summer night. Moths flickered around the room’s lamps.

The woman who had brought him the goods smoothed her dress as she brushed by his table. She stopped, turned, glanced around to see who might be watching, and sat down across from him, her elbows on the table and her chin on her fists.

“Want some dirt ale with that?” she asked.

“No.”

“It’s better than it sounds. We keep it in the cellar so it’s cool. You’ll like it.”

“No again. What are you really offering?”

“I heard you asking around, about a girl and a woman and a baby. You’re not the only one asking, you know.”

“I do know that. And?”

“I’m wondering what I would get if I knew something about it.”

“Depends on what you know.” He tapped his bowl. “More of this.”

She stood. “I’d want you to pay me first.”

“I’m sure you would.”

She pressed her lips together and left, returning with another bowl of the cold mix of meats, which she put in front of him. She sat again. “How do I know that you’ll pay me if I tell you?”

“Because I said I would.”

“Well, words don’t mean much, now, do they—”

He leaned forward suddenly, took her hands gently in his. At his intense look, she fell silent.

“Mine do,” he said mildly.

Her eyes widened slightly. She pulled her hands out of his light hold.

“Come now, pretty one; tell me what you know.” He mixed a seductive smile with a commanding tone, a mix that usually worked on this sort.

“Some new folks. Arrived in spring. Don’t see them much. A woman and baby and a boy. Farm outside the village.” She leaned forward again, lowered her voice. “Except it isn’t a boy.”

Tayre tore off a piece of bread. “Go on.”

“I can tell what people are about, you know. Not like some who only see what you show them. I’m not so easy to fool.”

Tayre made an encouraging sound and gestured for her to continue.

“So there he is,” she said, “and I think, that’s not a boy. Must be a reason he’s pretending then and wouldn’t that be interesting to know.” She nodded decisively, looked to see if he was listening, then nodded again.