`You'll see no trouble from us, friend,' Halt told him. `Where do we find this inn of yours?'
The sentry pointed down the single main street of the village.
`The Green Harper, it's called. Just fifty metres that way.'
He stepped out of the road to let them pass and they rode on into Craikennis village.
The Green Harper stood at the midpoint of the main street. The village itself was a substantial establishment, with fifty or sixty houses grouped around the central street and a network of lanes and lesser streets that ran off it. They were all single-storey, of mud brick and thatched roof construction. They looked smaller than the houses Halt and Horace were used to — lower. Horace guessed that if he were to enter one, he would have to stoop to avoid the door lintel. The inn was the largest building in the village, as would be expected. It was also the only two-storey building, with narrow dormer windows in the upper storey suggesting that there might be three or four bedrooms provided for guests.
The Green Harper's identifying sign swung, creaking noisily in the wind that gusted down the main street of the village. It was a weathered board showing the faded remnants of a dwarf-like figure dressed all in green, plucking the strings of a small harp. As Horace studied the sign, he noted that the face was twisted in a rather unpleasant leer.
`Not a friendly type, is he?' he said.
Halt looked at the sign. 'He's a laechonnachie,' he replied and, sensing Horace's inquiring look, he added, `A Little Person.'
`I can see that,' Horace said but Halt shook his head.
`The Little People are the subject of a great deal of superstition in this country. They're enchanted figures, faerie folk if you like. Good people to avoid. They have a nasty sense of humour and they tend to be spiteful.'
There was a burst of noise from the inn as a score of voices rose in song, joining in the chorus to one of Will's numbers. He had ridden into Craikennis an hour ahead of Horace and Halt. Apparently, from the noise and the burst of applause they now heard, he had been roundly welcomed by the locals.
`Sounds as if he's bringing down the house,' Horace observed.
Halt glanced up at the building, noticing the way none of the walls were true and the upper storey seemed to lean and teeter over the narrow main street of the village.
`That wouldn't take a lot of doing,' he muttered. 'Come on. Let's get inside while it's still standing.'
He led the way to the tethering rail outside the inn. There was one other animal tethered there, a disinterested pony harnessed to a small cart. Aside from the driver, there were seats for two passengers, set either side of the cart and facing outwards.
`Quaint,' Horace said, as he tethered Kicker to the rail. Halt, of course, merely dropped Abelard's rein over the rail. There was no need to tether a Ranger horse.
Horace glanced around. 'Where's Tug, do you think?'
Halt jerked a thumb at a side alley leading to the rear of the inn. 'I imagine,he'll be nice and warm in a stall in the stables,' he said. `If Will's taken a room, he wouldn't leave Tug out in the street.'
`True enough,' Horace said. 'Let's get on with it, Halt, I'm famished.'
`Are you ever not famished?' Halt asked, but Horace was already heading for the inn. He led the way to the door but before he could push it open, Halt stopped him with ahand on his arm. Horace looked at him enquiringly and the Ranger explained.
`Wait until Will's started again and we'll slip in while everyone's attention is on him. Remember, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. I'll do the talking.'
Horace nodded agreement. He'd noticed during the day that Halt's accent, which usually showed only the slightest trace of a Hibernian brogue, had been thickening and broadening whenever he spoke. Halt was obviously working to recapture the accent of his youth.
`No need to let everyone know we're foreigners,' he had said when Horace had commented on the fact.
They paused now, hearing Will's voice raised in song, and the rippling accompaniment of his mandola. Then the noise redoubled as the entire room joined in on the chorus. Halt nodded to Horace.
`Let's go,' he said.
They slipped into the room, hesitating briefly as the wave of heat from the open fire and thirty or forty bodies hit them. Will stood in a well-lit space by the fireplace, leading the company in song — not that they needed much encouragement, Halt thought wryly. Hibernians loved music and singing and Will had a good repertoire of jigs and reels. As the two Araluans paused in the doorway, two of the spectators in front of Will, a man and a woman, leapt to their feet and began dancing and heel-and-toeing in time to his driving rhythm. The rest of the room roared encouragement, clapping in time to urge the dancers on. Halt and Horace exchanged a glance, then Halt nodded his head towards a table at the rear of the room. They moved to it. Will, of course, ignored their entry. Only one or two of
the people in the room seemed to notice them. The rest were totally engrossed in the music and the dancing.
But the innkeeper noticed the two new arrivals — it was his business to notice such things, after all. Before too long, a serving girl made her way through the customers to their table. Halt ordered coffee, and lamb stew for them both, and she nodded, sliding away with the skill of long practice through the packed customers.
Will crashed out the final chord of the song and the two dancers slumped, exhausted, onto their benches. At Halt's suggestion, he had discarded the distinctive mottled Ranger's cloak when he left their camp, wearing a long, thick woollen outer coat instead. By the same token, he had left his bow and quiver behind, and unclipped his throwing knife and sheath from the double scabbard arrangement at his belt, leaving the larger saxe knife in a single scabbard. The throwing knife had gone into a sheath sewn inside his jerkin, under the left arm. Some years earlier, Will had experimented with a sheath sewn into the back collar of his jerkin, with near disastrous results.
Halt, of course, wore his normal Ranger's outfit and carried his bow. There was nothing significant about that in a countryside where everyone seemed primed for trouble. The mottled appearance of the cloak might be a little unusual but, even so, he had the appearance of a woodsman or farmer. Horace wore a plain leather jacket over his leggings and boots, with his sword and dagger in a belt round his waist. He wore a cloak, of course, to keep out the biting cold of the wind. But unlike Halt's, it had no cowl. Instead, he wore a close-fitting wool cap, pulled down over his ears. He wore no armour or insignia ofany kind. To outward appearances, he was a simple man at arms.
As a result of these varied costumes, there was nothing to connect the two newcomers to the foreign minstrel who had arrived earlier in the evening. And with Halt's carefully renewed Hibernian accent, they didn't even appear to be foreign.
Their food arrived, and the coffee, and they fell to eating with a will. Horace was particularly willing but, over the years he had known the young warrior, Halt had become more or less accustomed to the younger man's prodigious appetite. Horace spooned the savoury lamb and potato stew into his mouth, using the thick slice of bread that came with it to mop up the juice. Finishing his own bread, Horace noticed the half slice remaining in front of Halt and reached for it.
`You going to eat that?'
`Yes. Hands off.'
Horace was about to protest but a warning shake of Halt's head stopped him. He realised that Halt, while maintaining the appearance of eating his meal, was eavesdropping on the other diners. With the music halted temporarily while Will took a break, a babble of conversation had broken out around the room.
There were three men seated at the next table. Villagers, by the look of them. Probably tradesmen, Horace thought. He could see them while Halt, with his back to them, was much closer and in a better position to hear what they were saying. Not that it was too difficult to do that. With the level of background noise in the hot, smoky room, they had to raise their voices to be heard.
`A bad business is what I've heard tell,' a bald man was saying. From the flour
that coated the front of his shirt, Horace guessed he was either the local miller or baker. He caught another warning head shake from Halt and realised that he was staring at the next table. Hastily, he looked down at his plate, just as Halt slid the crust of bread across the table towards him. Smiling, he took it and began to make a show of wiping the remains of his meal from the plate with it.
`Four killed, so I've heard. A terrible thing. My wife's brother was there just three days gone. Happen he'd been there yesterday, he could be among the dead now.'
Halt pretended to take a sip at his coffee. He was tempted to turn and ask the locals for more information. But so far, he and Horace had gone virtually unnoticed in the room. The locals might be willing to discuss this freely among their companions. With strangers it might be a different matter altogether.
`What think you about these religious folk at Mountshannon?' asked another of the men. Horace took a quick glance at him. He was a few years younger than the bald-headed miller/baker. Possibly a merchant of some kind. Not a warrior, Horace thought.
The man's two companions snorted derisively.
`Religious quacks is more like it!' said the third, the one who hadn't so far spoken. The bald man was quick to agree.
`Aye! Claiming to be able to keep Mountshannon safe. Funny how religious folks like that say their god will protect them — right up until someone hits them with a club.'
`Still,' said the merchant, seeming unconvinced by their scorn, 'the fact remains that Mountshannon has beenuntouched so far. While at Duffy's Ford there's four dead and the rest scattered God knows where in fear.'
`There are over a hundred people at Mountshannon,' the bald man explained to him. 'Duffy's Ford is no more than three or four houses. Barely a dozen folk to begin with. It's the bigger villages that have less to fear. Like Mountshannon.'
`And Craikennis,' put in the one who'd agreed with him about religious quacks.
`Aye,' said the bald man,' I'll warrant we're safe enough here. Dennis and his watchmen do a good job keeping an eye on strangers to the village.'
As he said the words, he glanced up and became aware for the first time of Halt and Horace at the next table. He muttered a guarded warning to his companions and both of them turned to glance at the strangers behind them. Then they leaned forward over their own table and continued their conversation in lowered tones, inaudible against the buzz of a dozen other conversations in the room. Halt raised his eyebrows at Horace, who essayed a slight shrug. He had no doubt that they'd hear no more from them now.
A few minutes later, there was a stir of interest in the room as Will struck up the opening chords of a new song. People turned from their conversations and settled back in their seats to listen. When the serving girl came to collect their platters and see if they needed a refill on their coffee, Halt shook his head and dropped a handful of coins on the table to pay for their meal. He jerked his head at Horace.
`Time to go,' he said.
They rose and threaded their way to the door. The bald man looked up after them briefly. Then, deciding there
was nothing threatening about the two strangers, he turned his attention back to the music.
Outside, the cold wind cut into them again as they retrieved their horses and mounted.
Horace shivered briefly, huddling down into the warmth of his cloak.
`We should have taken a room ourselves,' he said. 'It's damned cold out here.'
Halt shook his head. 'This way, we'll be forgotten within half an hour. If we'd stayed, more people would have noticed us. More people would be asking questions about us. You'll soon warm up back by our camp fire.'
Horace smiled at his grim-faced companion.
`Is it such a bad thing to be noticed, Halt?'
The Ranger nodded emphatically. 'It is to me.'
They rode past the sentry station, nodding to the men who were on duty. This time, none of them felt the need to come out into the wind, away from the fire they had burning in a steel grate inside the shelter. As Halt had predicted, within an hour, their presence in Craikennis had been forgotten.
* * *
Chapter 17
* * *
The following morning, Halt and Horace were sitting around their camp fire when Abelard gave a snort of welcome. A few seconds later, Will and Tug rode into the clearing where they had made their camp. He glanced at the two small tents, barely a metre in height and two metres long. It had rained during the night and the canvas sides were beaded with moisture.
`Sleep nice and warm, did we?' he grinned.
Halt grunted at him. 'At least we weren't eaten to death by bedbugs.'
Will's grin faded just a little.
`Yes, I'll have to admit the Green Harper could do with a thorough spring cleaning. I do seem to have had one or two little visitors.' He scratched idly at an itchy spot on his side as he said the words. Halt looked down at the fire, hiding a satisfied smile.
Will dismounted, unsaddled Tug and set him loose to graze. He joined the others by the small fire, where a coffee pot sat in the coals to one side.
`Still,' he continued, 'they do a good breakfast at the Harper. Bacon, sausages, mushrooms and fresh bread. Just the thing to set you up on a cold morning.'
There was a low groan from the point where Horace sat, poking idly at the coals with a dead stick. Will wasn't entirely sure if the groan had come from Horace or from his stomach. Breakfast at the camp had been a frugal matter of flat, slightly stale bread, toasted over the fire and eaten with a ration of dried meat.
`Hard rations build character,' Halt said philosophically. Horace looked mournfully at him. Already the vast helping of lamb stew he'd eaten the previous evening was nothing but a dim memory.
`They also build hunger,' he said. Will waited a few seconds more, then relented and tossed a substantial bundle wrapped in a napkin down beside Horace.
`Fortunately, the kitchen girl saw fit to give me some food for my journey,' he said. 'Seems she's a music lover.'
Horace eagerly unwrapped the bundle, to reveal a pile of still-warm food inside.
He transferred a large portion to his plate, which was standing by the fire, and reached for his fork. He paused as he saw Halt moving to join him and take his own share of the bacon and sausages, ripping off a chunk of fresh, soft bread to go with it.
`I thought you said hard rations build character?' Will said, managing to stay straight-faced. Halt looked up at him with some dignity.
`I have character,' he said. 'I have character to spare. It's
young people like you two who need their characters built.'
`I'll build mine tomorrow,' Horace said through a
mouthful of food. 'This is excellent, Will! When I have grandchildren, I'll name them all after you!'
Will smiled at his friend and took a seat by the fireplace, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He added honey and drank appreciatively.
`Aaah!' he said. 'They may know their way around bacon and sausage at that inn. But their coffee doesn't hold a candle to yours, Halt.'
Halt grunted, his mouth too full to answer. He finished off the plate of food that he had taken and sat back, patting his stomach. Then he couldn't resist leaning forward and taking one more piece of crisply fried bacon.
`So, did you hear anything at the inn?' he asked as he finished off the titbit.
Will nodded. 'The main talking point was an attack on a place called Duffy's Ford — a small settlement by a river some ten kilometres from here.'
`Yes. We heard about that too,' Halt said. 'Did you hear any mention of a village called Mountshannon?'
Will drained his cup and tossed the dregs into the fire before answering.
`Yes. Quite a few people were talking about it. Sounds as if our friends have set up headquarters there.'
`We heard they were claiming to be able to protect Mountshannon from the sort of thing that happened at the ford,' Horace put in. Although he hadn't heard too clearly the night before, he and Halt had
discussed the matter when they reached camp.
`I heard much the same thing. Opinion seemed divided as to whether there was any value to the claim,' Will said. Halt looked at him shrewdly.
`What did most people think? Did you get any idea?'
Will shrugged. 'I'd say it was two to one against. Most people I spoke to, or heard discussing the matter, seemed to think Mountshannon could look after itself. It's a big village, apparently. They talked about it quite a lot after I'd finished singing.'
Halt chuckled briefly. 'That's the handy thing about your being able to pose as a minstrel,' he said. 'People seem to think you're one of them. They'll talk far more openly about matters in front of you. Anything else?'
Will considered. He wasn't quite sure how Halt would react to the next piece of intelligence he had learned. Then he decided there was no way to sugar coat the message.
`General opinion is that King Ferris is a broken reed. There's precious little respect for him. Nobody seemed to think that he was capable of sorting out the mess that Clonmel's in. The ones who think the Outsiders might have the answer were particularly strident about it. And if anything was going to sway the others to their point .of view, it was the fact that Ferris is- weak and ineffectual. They all agreed on that.' He paused, then added, 'Sorry, Halt. But that's the way people see it.'
Halt shrugged. 'I can't say I'm surprised. For years Ferris has cared so much about just being King that he's neglected to act like one. He was like that from the beginning.' There was a note of bitterness in his voice and Will regretted having to pass on the negative information about his brother.
Horace checked the spread-out napkin to make sure there were no leftovers remaining. Then he shifted to a more comfortable position.
`Halt,' he said now, in a serious voice, 'I think it might be time you told us more about you and your brother.'
There was no trace of his former light-hearted tone when he had grumbled about breakfast. This was a serious matter. But there was also no trace of apology in his words. He was prying into Halt's past, he knew, but it was time he and Will learned all the facts about King Ferris, and his relationship with his brother. Will and Horace were in a potentially dangerous situation in Clonmel and Horace had learned that it was important to understand as much as possible about a situation like this.
THE KINGS OF CLONMEL Page 11