Hobb peered after him through the open front doors of Deese House. "Th-they be layin' em down on rugs by the f-forge," he noted. "And the f-fire be blazing'. Fetchin' 'em closer t-to the gods's m-magic, I expect."
"Or just g-getting' 'em warmer," Gort muttered. "Oh, here, s-sir priest. Could we have one of th-those blankets?"
Sulun ran past, shouting. "Yanados, only two goats! Just the bread and the beer!"
"G-goats?" Hobb asked, clutching the blanket that one of the junior priests hurriedly tossed him. "Bread and b-beer?"
Gort only shook his head and reached for the other half of the blanket.
Vari came running up to the fire with a handful of shrivelled rootlets in one hand. She elbowed her way to the kettle of simmering water and threw the roots into it. "Eloti!" she shouted across the fire. "Nabian root! Nabian root! It opens the veins."
"Good," Eloti called back. "How many cups do we have?"
Yanados dragged two squealing goats to a hitching rail by the south wall and tied them there. The goats promptly started chewing on their tie ropes. She slapped their muzzles and yelled for Sulun to bring the bread and beer to her, since she couldn't leave the goats.
Omis came back out into the courtyard, looked around briefly, and went for another seriously afflicted victim.
Sulun came half-running across the courtyard, a sack of bread loaves in one hand and a sloshing pitcher in the other. He ducked and dodged past groaning and raving bodies, ran to Yanados, set down his burden, and grabbed the nearest goat. "Hold it fast," he said. "How do I get its mouth open?"
Doshi, starting back for more blankets from the pile, halted suddenly with a perfectly horrified look spreading across his face. "Wotheng!" he gasped. "If they struck at our provisions, they might have struck his, too!" He changed course and ran to Sulun.
Near the forge, Zeren tackled and threw down the same raving man for the third time. "Must be a better way," he muttered. Then his eye fell on a coil of rope near the door. He hurried to it, cut a yard's length from the end, thought a bit, and cut more. Trailing odd ends of rope, he went back to his charges and began tying them up. "Shut up," he explained to those who protested. "I'm trying to drive the devils out of you."
Sulun, busy pouring beer dregs down the throat of a most unwilling goat, listened to Doshi's warning without looking up. "Gods," he moaned, "it's all too possible. Take that shaggy brute Wotheng sold us—he's the fastest we have, I think—and ride straightaway to the villa. Warn them about the bread and beer, tell them we don't yet know which it is. Bring help if you can. Ask Gynallea if she knows any remedies for this sort of thing. Oh, hurry! The sun's going down!"
Doshi ran for the stables.
* * *
It was two hours after dark, and all of Yotha House was quiet and unlit save for the eternal flame on the temple altar and the high priest's study. Folweel was awake, if not overly busy. The scroll on his lap held only part of his attention; his gaze kept straying to the south window, and the smile that flickered over his face was not pleasant.
The distant sound of the gate bell ringing made him sit up so quickly that the scroll slid off his lap. He picked it up hastily, shoved it on the littered table, stood up, and smoothed down his robes. "Back so soon?" he murmured, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door.
The knock came soon enough, but the figure which entered at Folweel's summons wasn't whom he'd expected.
"Pibb?" he snapped, with no preamble. "What in all the hells are you doing here?"
"Beggin' yer pardon, Father." Pibb bowed low, vainly trying to wipe his hands clean on his greasy leggings. "I was in the kitchen nook, gettin' a warm pint to sleep on, when her ladyship came poundin' in, yellin' for Cook. She wanted accountin' of all the bread and beer stores, and when they was brought in, and when used and all, and if anyone took sick from 'em."
"What? Lady Gynallea? Said what?" Folweel took two steps backward. "He couldn't have mistaken—And was anyone in Ashkell House sick?"
"None but old Nusher, and he's had the snuffles and wheezes for days, but her ladyship wanted all the bread and beer looked at anyway. 'Test 'em on the smallest pig,' says she. And then she wants some newmade sausage and a cup of hot cider for his lordship, and quick, says she, because he be ridin' out soon, and—"
"Wotheng, riding out tonight? Here?"
"That took me a bit of askin', Father, but—"
"Where?"
"Ey, ey, to Deese House, Father. They said 'twas either the bread or beer was poisoned there, and all the workmen sick, and they be tryin' to figure who'd done it, and they sent a messenger—one of the under-priests, I think it were, but I couldn't be sure—to warn Ashkell Villa lest it might have come there, too. His lordship was downright furious, he was: roarin' and bellowin' and haulin' his big boots on—"
"Oh, gods." Folweel slumped into the nearest chair. "How did they guess, and so soon?"
"I sneaked away when no one was lookin', guessin' ye'd want to know, and nobody saw me take leave, neither. I got a donkey from stables and came here straightaway, but 'tis my guess his lordship took his fastest horses—"
"Horses? More than one?"
"Oh, aye, Father. He took a handful of men with him, too. They went poundin' and clatterin' off down the west road, and none of 'em saw me go, so I came right here. 'Tis my guess they'll be better than halfway there by now. I wager they'll spend the night out of house. Should I go back, Father, lest I be missed?"
"Oh, yes. Back, Here, and be careful." Folweel absently pulled a silver coin from his belt pouch and handed it to the kitchen boy, who stuffed it happily in his neck bag. "Take a pot of coals to keep you warm on the ride back, and remember to thank Yotha for his kindness."
"Aye, aye, thank ye, Father." The youth scuffed backward to the door, bowing repeatedly, and showed himself out.
"They knew . . ." Folweel muttered to himself, not watching the closing door. "They've told Wotheng, and he's riding there. . . ."
Suddenly another thought occurred to him, and he jumped to his feet. "Gods!" he shouted, lunging for the bell pull. "Dizzag, get up here!"
Repeated clangings brought a dishevelled under-priest to the door. "You wish, Father?" the man panted, eyes wide in bewilderment.
"Dizzag, take a fast horse and ride toward Deese House by the quickest route. At all cost, avoid Wotheng's party on the westward road! Find Patrobe, he'll be somewhere out in the fields near the walls, north of the road. Tell him not to loose the fire, you hear? My orders! Something's happened, and the fire must not be loosed. Bring him back here, bring them all back at once. Now go, and hurry!"
Dizzag bowed quickly, and fled. The door slammed behind him.
Folweel went to the south window and peered into the darkness beyond. "Gods," he groaned, "it may already be too late. As good as a signed confession. Gods, how did they guess so fast?"
He stayed at the window, watching, hope growing slowly as the night remained unbroken and black, wondering how long it would take for Dizzag's message to reach Patrobe and his men. Across fields, through sheep pastures, in the dark—or would Dizzag have the sense to take a shuttered lantern? How long? One hour? Two? He peered toward the distant nubbin on the starwashed horizon that was the hill of Deese House, hoping frantically that Patrobe would, with his usual exquisite care, take his time, enough time. . . .
A pinprick of wavering blue and yellow light winked against the blackness.
Folweel slammed his hand on the windowsill and swore in three languages.
* * *
The half dozen riders had settled into a long, loping canter that ate up the miles without overtiring the horses. Wotheng cursed perfunctorily now and again, seeing it was expected of him, but his guardsmen saved their breath. They made good time, and the bouncing light of their lanterns on the road revealed landmarks that promised their goal was scant moments away.
Wotheng, riding in the center and free to look elsewhere than the road before him, noticed it first: a flare of blue-yellow lig
ht on a nearby hilltop. He shouted warning to the others, who reined in so quickly that they narrowly avoided running into each others' horses. They all turned to look, and froze where they sat.
A broad line of yellow-tipped blue fire snaked down the hill, across the shallow dip below, and up the next slope. At the crest it divided, two fire tracks running parallel, then swooping away from each other, then turning back until they met and merged again. The single line of flame turned back into the middle of its previous pattern and weaved back and forth in a complex dance, for all the world as if it were a reed pen writing a letter.
The guards gasped, swore, mumbled obscure charms and gestured others. Wotheng cursed, partly at them. He might indeed have expected Yotha's priests to try spreading panic among his men. Best stop that, right now.
"Damned wizards!" he bellowed, rising in his stirrups. "What do you think you're doing, burning up pastureland? Do you kill any of my tenants' sheep, and I'll have you hanged!"
His men gaped at him in awe and amazement.
Pleased by the reaction, Wotheng swore further and more colorfully.
"Sir," one of the more levelheaded interrupted him. "He—it's not moving, and the road's clear. Should we go on?"
"Hell's cesspools, yes! Since we've got such good light, let's make good time." He spurred his horse forward, obliging his men to get out of the way or ride with him. They kicked their horses forward, none willing to be last on the road.
The firelit hill fell behind them; the road snaked through a shallow valley and began to climb again. At this hill's top they could see the lights and hear the noise from Deese House. Wotheng pushed his tiring horse faster, up the rough-cobbled road and through the open gate in the wall.
He halted in the courtyard and stared, amazed.
A small horde of groaning men huddled under blankets and rugs around a roughset fire. Robed priests of Deese moved among them, giving them drink from assorted cups. Beyond the open temple doors, more men lay lightly bound and wrapped in rugs, moaning and raving, sweating in the heat from Deese's hard-blazing forge.
Tethered near the south wall were two goats, one of them backed away as far as its rope allowed, looking wide-eyed and frightened. Its companion appeared to have gone stark mad. The beast was bleating, leaping, stumbling, reeling, and dancing, eyes rolling wildly in its head, flecks of foam on its jaw.
Close by stood Sulun, grimly watching the mad goat dance.
"By Vona's iron balls," Wotheng gasped. "Are you trying to magic the poison off into the goat?"
Sulun laughed, startled, and realized it was the first good laugh he'd had since noon. "No, Lord Wotheng, that's the beast I made eat the bread. The other got the beer, and it's well and sound, as you can see."
"Ah, that's good to know." Wotheng swung out of the saddle and went to tie up his horse as far from the raving goat as the hitching rail allowed. "In such case, draw me some beer and tell me what's transpired."
Sulun led his eminent guest into the house, stepping carefully around the rolling bodies of the worst afflicted, through the first door on the left, and into the common dining room. Wotheng's guards crowded in behind him, and they all settled at the end of the table nearest the neglected fireplace. Sulun did the fetching and serving, and lit up the fire.
"We'll have to drink from the jug, I'm afraid," he said handing over an earthen bottle of better than average ale. "All the cups are in use outside. Did Doshi come back with you?"
"No, his horse was too tired for the return gallop—and so was he." Wotheng snagged the jug as it passed around the table end. "So the bread was poisoned, eh? I think we may guess who caused that. How was it done?"
"We're not sure. Zeren says the bread smells a bit odd, something he encountered once before, but he can't remember just what the poison was—except that it's something that can happen naturally in certain kinds of flour. That's why I wanted Doshi; his folk were farmers, and he might recognize it."
"Well, so might I. Bring me a bit of it."
Sulun went to fetch one of the offending loaves. Wotheng's men looked at him, at each other, and at the jug.
"Sir," one of them ventured, "can you be sure it's poison, as he says? Not magic? We know that was Yotha's fire, back on the hill."
"Trust a wizard to know his own business." Wotheng took a pull of beer, then generously handed it around again. "We'll know soon enough once I've my hands on that bread."
Sulun returned, holding the heel end of a loaf almost at arm's length. "If only we knew what it was, we might find a remedy for it," he said, handing the bread to Wotheng. "At present we can do little."
Wotheng broke the bread, studied it, sniffed at it. "Coarse rye bread . . . some smell of mould . . . Hmmm."
He leaned closer to the fire, studying the color of the inner surface, then took an experimental bite. His men gasped and jumped away. Sulun started forward, then saw that Wotheng wasn't chewing. The Lord of Ashkell frowned fiercely and spat the mouthful of bread into the fire.
"Pfaww," he grumbled, wiping his tongue on his sleeve. "That's no more nor less than black rye mould! Uchh, filthy stuff. Kills horses. Aye, your folk have fevers and mad visions, do they? And belly pains? Hands and feet gone cold and numb? That's the black rye mould for you. How did that get in my good mill's bread? I'll have Feggle's hide sliced if he's ground bad flour. . . ."
"The remedy!" Sulun cried. "What's the remedy?"
"Ey, the wife would know better than I. No, let me think. Jall, wasn't it two years gone that my good hunting horse came down with that? Do ye remember what the wife gave it?"
The near-left man pulled his lip, straining his memory. "I think 'twas raw beans, m'lord. Raw beans and . . . heh! Beer!"
"Those we have!" Sulun hopped to his feet and hurried out the door. They could hear him shouting to Eloti and Vari as he ran to the courtyard.
"Unmannerly of 'im," Jall huffed, "running off without a word of leave."
"Perhaps, but a good commander's instinct." Wotheng reached languidly for the almost empty jug. "You'll note, he didn't say a word about Yotha's fire. I wonder if he even saw it, being so busy caring for his men."
* * *
It was a small but grim delegation that rode out of the gates of Deese House next morning, for now they rode on the Lord of Ashkell's business, which was to determine the source of the mould-contaminated bread. From the gate itself they could all see the blackened mark burned into the next hilltop, and Wotheng swore blisteringly as he recognized it.
"All the gods assembled, that's the sigil of Vona!" he roared. "There, the lead letter of his name, within the shape of his sky hammer. How dare those Yotha dogs use it?"
He looked back fiercely to see if anyone was smiling. No one was, but his eye caught something else, something odd.
Up on the wall, sitting on top of that odd device which must be the gossip-famed Storm Tube, was a child of perhaps ten years old. The child (Boy? Girl? No telling, in those clothes) was glaring at the fire-etched mark on the hill and rhythmically patting the brass tube. Cursing Yotha, doubtless, Wotheng thought as he rode on down the slope. But I'd hate to have such an expression turned toward me.
Behind him in the rumbling mule wagon, Sulun and Eloti were quietly arguing over possible remedies. Eloti was insisting that her collection of scrolls didn't tell enough, both rye and ergot poisoning not being common in the southlands where most medical treatises had been written, and she needed to talk to Gynallea. Sulun complained that this whole expedition might be dangerous, and she was too valuable for them to risk.
"And you're not?" Eloti retorted. "Who do you think our leader is, Sulun? Where would we all be, how would we live, without you?"
Sulun gaped at her, lost for words, ideas, or thought.
In the wagon bed behind him, Zeren chuckled. "Welcome to your new post, Commander," he said, clapping Sulun on the shoulder. "Never expected this, eh?"
Sulun only shook his head.
"Besides," Eloti smiled, "we have Zeren and
Lord Wotheng and all his guards to protect us. Where would we be safer—or better needed?"
Sulun gave up the argument and turned his mind elsewhere. "The bread," he muttered. "Trace the whole track of the bread, every step. Who brought it to us? Where was it baked? Whence came the flour, and who carried it? Where it was ground, Wotheng's already told us. Where the grain was grown, he can discover also. Somewhere between the field and the workmen's stores the mould got into it, but the most likely places lie between the mill and the bakery."
"Both of which are owned by our good Lord Wotheng," Zeren added. "Don't think he's pleased with that thought."
"Indeed." Eloti considered. "Gods help those guilty when Wotheng—or his lady—lay hands on them."
What slaughters have we spawned, just being here? Sulun wondered, but did not say aloud.
* * *
"No, sirs! Never!" Feggle braced his back against the top millstone as if defending a falsely accused child, "I been top miller here these fifteen years now. Do ye think I don't know my own business? Do ye think I can't see nor smell bad grain? B'gods, m'lord, letting bad grain pass would damage my reputation and more; why, the evil would stick to my stones and poison every load to come through thereafter. Now do ye think I'd let my stones be dirtied so?" He patted the smooth, clean-cut boulder affectionately.
Wotheng and Sulun looked at each other, tacitly admitting the miller's point. Sulun thought a moment and tried another tack.
"Goodman, when was the last time you ground coarse rye flour?"
"Ey, let me think a bit. . . ." Feggle rubbed his heavy chin, then went to a shelf on the nearby wall and pulled down a cord strung with tally sticks. "So, so . . . This be the last month's tally, every rod a day. This notch be one bag of barley, and that mark on t'other side be Dawp's mark—see? Now further down . . . here's four notches for wheat, with Cackle's mark." He ran expert fingers over the differing notches.
"Amazing," Sulun remarked, studying the tally sticks. "If ever you'd like to come to the new school and learn to put such marks on parchment . . ."
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