“Gram!” Allystaire’s voice was sharp, his face stone. “You ought to know better.”
The boy’s face paled, and he stammered, “I’m sorry, Sir All—”
By the time the boy had begun to apologize, Allystaire’s face had begun to crack, and he’d bent at the waist to scoop up a handful of the damp snow that melted even as he tried to pack it between his hands.
“Know better than to pick a snow fight with an Oyrwyn man.”
The boy was caught wide-eyed as the fistful of slush exploded across his chest, knocking him back a step.
* * *
Rohrich was well and truly into his sales pitch, and Torvul was watching and weighing from a few paces away, arms crossed over his chest.
“Finest cloth a silver link to the hand, two to the pace and five the span,” Rohrich was saying, as he arranged bolts of fabrics on a shelf that folded out of his wagon. “Can be dyed to your taste, good women,” he added, “for additional weight, but what is cost when you get precisely the colors you desire?”
The half-joyful, half-panicked squeals that Gram emitted as Allystaire slung the boy off his shoulder into one of the larger piles of snow cut through the noise and drew some surprised stares.
“Calm, good people,” Torvul said, effortlessly pitching his voice to drown out Rohrich’s for a moment. “That terrifyin’ expression your paladin is wearin’ upon his broken husk of a face is meant to be a smile. I know, I know,” the dwarf said, raising his hands to the air. “It’s ghastly. But he’s tryin’.”
Rohrich shot a glare at the dwarf, with an upturned eyebrow. Torvul grinned and wave a hand as if in surrender. The merchant cleared his throat and continued.
“Pots, iron and copper,” he belted out. “Knives, needles, and other assorted domestic ironmongery. Needles, pins, thread of all colors and sizes, soap, salt, pepper, and spices still more exotic and delightful to the palate!”
“Ghastly? Broken husk?” Allystaire crossed his arms as he stood at Torvul’s shoulder. Folk had gone back to examining Rohrich’s wares, stepping forward to fondle bolts of cloth or hold up pots and knock them on the bottom with a knuckled fist.
“Made ‘em stop starin’ at you.”
“I suppose so. Cold, have I become so dour that people are shocked to see me having a bit of play with a lad?”
Torvul craned his neck to look up at the paladin. “Isn’t that a question you ought’ve asked yourself, oh, half a score of years ago? More?” He went back to contemplating Rorhich’s sales pitches. “He’s not bad,” the dwarf murmured, so only Allystaire would hear. “Not too good, either. So long as he doesn’t try pitching any tonics or medicines.”
“I think the village folk have the good sense not to buy that sort of thing when they have a resident alchemist whose potions and philtres have something of a potent guarantee, and an agreeable price,” Allystaire pointed out.
Torvul hrmphed, and waved his hand to dismiss the notion. “I’m not worried about competition. I’ve cornered the market, though, of course, it bein’ a market with no weight, that’s not quite the achievement it sounds like. Just don’t want to him t’be a charlatan.”
“Have you any reason to believe he is aught but an honest merchant?”
“The most honest merchant in the world is like t’be the poorest,” Torvul pointed out. “There’s differin’ degrees of acceptably crooked, though, and I doubt he’ll cross any lines. I just like t’be sure.”
Allystaire looked from the dwarf to the peddler, who was now heaving a heavy, locked strongbox to the edge of the wagon.
“Books!” He jingled a ring of keys on his belt, selected a long, heavy one, slid it into the lock and clicked the top open theatrically, sweeping back a heavy cloth covering that shielded perhaps a dozen slim volumes stacked carefully inside the wool-lined wooden box. “Some of them carefully block printed, all the way from the Keersvast Archipelago! In bindings of wood and leather, hand-stitched and clasped with fine metalwork.”
Allystaire eyed the case of books, felt a sudden thought bloom. He started to step forward only to realize that he had no purse on his belt, and couldn’t, truthfully, account for how much weight in gold, silver, copper, or gemmary he could claim to have.
“Welcome t’the life of the holy man,” Torvul muttered, having caught Allystaire’s suddenly halted step. Rohrich, with a peddler’s sharp eye for custom, had noticed it as well.
“Sir Allystaire,” he called out genially, his voice all smiles and warmth and conviviality, “a learned and lettered man, I knew it right away! If you wish to examine my selection of titles privately it can surely be arranged.” He set the lockbox down, quickly scanned the crowd for other interested customers and saw, for the moment, none, so quickly locked and stowed it.
Allystaire merely nodded, waved a hand in acknowledgement. “I was wondering if Gideon might want any of the titles,” he muttered.
“Wouldn’t kill ya t’read them yourself.”
“Where will I find the time?”
“Even you have half a turn as you lay down t’sleep if y’want it,” Torvul replied. “Stones, I’d like to look at his books myself. Always eager to add t’the library in my wagon.”
Allystaire sighed. “In truth, Torvul, I would not mind taking the time to read now and then. What, I do not even know. Some old histories, perhaps. Yet there is so much to manage.”
“I know. Time t’get all our guests back where they belong. Off to Wind’s Jaw, the Dunes, and the Archioness off to the Vineyard. Not to mention whatever we’re going to do with Rede.”
Allystaire sighed heavily. “Cold, would you believe I had almost forgotten all about him?”
“I hadn’t,” Torvul said. “I’ve kept an eye on him as I could. So has Idgen Marte. He’s done a great deal of stayin’ out o’ your way, I’ll say that much. Like a hare that knows just where t’lay up and avoid the hawk altogether. He’s made himself useful here n’there, doin’ chores. Lot of it where people don’t see. Woodpiles stayin’ stacked, water barrels full, cowsheds mucked, that sorta thing.”
“Mayhap he means it, his repentance,” Allystaire said. “The Shadow’s Curse seemed a powerful thing.”
“Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t,” Torvul said, then raised a finger towards Allystaire and spat to one side. “Mark my words, now. You should’ve killed that cold-eyed bastard.”
“I cannot kill him now,” Allystaire pointed out. “Unless he gives me reason.”
“I could find a reason,” Torvul grumbled, then gave his head a quick shake. “Come on. These village folk are canny enough, they don’t need me lookin’ o’er their shoulders. I’ve somethin’ for ya.”
The dwarf set off without another word and Allystaire followed him, curious. For all that his legs were so much longer than Torvul’s, it was still a chore to keep up with the dwarf when he put on a determined stride.
Rohrich’s patter diminished and was soon gone, swallowed up in the general buzz of shouting, laughter, drinking, and camaraderie that filled the air. Soon even that receded as Torvul led Allystaire towards the armory.
“You did not happen to see a Concordat man with a lute case on his back head into the Inn, did you?” Allystaire asked.
“I believe I did,” Torvul replied, “with Gideon taggin’ along, studying him careful and gathering up all the questions he means to ask later on.” The dwarf held up a hand to call a halt, as they had reached the trio of structures where Torvul spent most of his time: the shed, his wagon, and the house. The dwarf pulled himself up onto the board of his wagon, and disappeared inside it.
* * *
“Radys. Glythe.”
It took a moment for Idgen Marte to realize that the words spoken aloud were a name, and that the name referred to her. She was propping up the bar in Timmar’s Inn, halfway through a cup of some of the better brandy rather than joining i
n the ale-quaffing throng outside.
When she turned around, she registered Gideon first, but the boy quickly melted away. Then her eyes were on the minstrel she’d met, seemingly ages ago, in Ashmill Bridge. The finely sculpted cheeks, the warm hazel eyes, the wooden lute case slung behind his cloak and coat. Carefully, like a parent lowering a child into its crib, he slid the instrument off his back and set it down by his foot, let it lean against his hip.
He smiled and gave a very small bow from the waist. “Andus Carek,” he said, slipping into their native tongue, “at your service. If only I knew your name, so I could greet you properly.”
Idgen Marte set her brandy down and stood. Adjusting the sword at her hip to where it sat just right, so as not to tangle into her legs or drag too heavily at her side, took barely a touch of her hand. She offered a conciliatory smile and a small shrug. Her voice rasped as she replied, with more than its typical huskiness, as the words of her homeland had grown foreign with disuse.
“I am sorry to have deceived you, Andus Carek,” she admitted. “It was necessary.”
“I do not doubt you there,” the bard replied with a carefree shrug, followed up with a glance that took in the rustic Inn, its mortar-chinked stone walls and bare timber beams. “Having seen the place myself, though, regrettably I do find your claims of how much silver the folk of this village would be willing or able to pay me a bit exaggerated.”
“I’m sure you’ll be paid and well paid for any music you care to give us,” she replied carefully. “I would see to it that your box was well salted with silver, though from what I heard of your lute, it should earn gold.”
“I would count your name among the first payments put down upon my skill,” Andus Carek replied, smiling once again in a way that Idgen Marte found appealing enough to nod, take a deep breath, and answer.
“My name,” she said, “is Idgen Marte.”
He bowed again, slightly. “It is well to meet you. Truly of Cansebour, as well? Your accent is of the region, I think. But perhaps it could be Viefaldt?”
She cleared her throat, suppressed the reflex to raise her hand to the scars along her throat. Time was no one would’ve mistaken my voice for a Viefaldt shepherd girl. “No. Cansebour it is.”
“It is a common enough name, but you wear it exceptionally well,” Andus Carek said, as he came a few steps closer, leaned his lute case against the bar. “I recall hearing stories of an Idgen Marte of Cansebour, when I traveled there to study with the lute masters of the Tower.”
She snorted. “It’s a common enough name. You said so yourself.” She picked up her brandy, turned her face away from his. “What is it that they say?”
“Many things. Most on the theme of how dangerous it can be to come too close to the wrath of a Mercator prince,” Andus Carek said. “But surely such men are accustomed to killing the enemies they bother to acknowledge. Coincidence, I’m sure.”
She drained the cup, set it down, shrugged. “Agreed.” She turned to him, put on her lopsided grin, tilted her head to shade her eyes a bit. “How long do you plan to stay?”
“Well,” he said, wetting his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, “there are more things in the world than silver. I’ve a sense there might be songs waiting to be found here.”
“Songs?”
“The battle! The paladin! Someone’s got to make songs of it.”
Idgen Marte chuckled. “Have you met the paladin?”
“At the gate to the village, yes.”
“Your impression?”
“That man had the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen. And yet, I wasn’t frightened of him.”
“That’s good. Means you’ve no reason to be. Be careful, though,” she added, as she stood up, stretching to her full height, and crossed behind the bar to retrieve another cup and the brandy. “You’re around him long enough, you’ll find yourself hopping to his orders.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“After a time, you just sort of want to follow him.” She poured small measures into both her cup and the one she slid in front of the bard.
“Been following him long, then?”
She lifted her cup, tilting it towards him; he mirrored the gesture and they tapped rims with a dull clunk. “The longest.”
He smiled as he passed the cup to his lips and sipped. “What is it that you do here, then? Do paladins typically employ swords-at-hire?”
“Mostly I hang about in his shadow,” she replied as she downed her own drink. “And, no. That was another—”
“Necessary deception, yes. Well,” he finished the rest of his brandy and sat down. “At your convenience I’d like to hear it. All of it. From the moment you met him.”
She held up a hand to forestall him. “Not that easily, Andus Carek. You’re going to have to earn it. And you can start by tuning up and giving them a taste of the music.”
“If I play The Streets of Cansebour, will you run away again?”
“Nowhere for me to go,” she said with a rueful laugh. “But no one else will know the tune.”
He slid off his stool and grabbed his lutecase in one hand, the stool in the other, and headed for the hearth, looking about him theatrically. “Well. There’s no one else in here, is there? Except the lad over there,” he added, pointing to where Gideon had faded into a corner, “who is quiet as a damned mouse.”
“I had naught to add to the conversation,” Gideon said.
It took both of them a moment to realize he’d responded in the Concordat, and not the Barony, tongue.
“You speak my language, lad?” Andus Carek tilted his head to one side. “Where are you from, then?”
“I don’t know,” the boy replied. “I was largely raised in Keersvast but I have no idea where I was born. I do speak the Concordat tongue, and three or four of its regional variants.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Well,” Gideon said, “my Islander is little used, but it is simply a rougher edged Keersvasti anyway. Say four Concordat tongues. The Baronies. The Eldest.”
That’s probably enough, Gideon, Idgen Marte sent the thought quickly.
The boy trailed off with the bard looking at him in wonderment. “Storms, lad. You’re a prodigy, to command that many tongues at your age.”
The boy shrugged, his bearing neither modest nor confident, though he chose his next words carefully, pausing over them. “I had thorough teachers who believed in negative reinforcement. I learned quickly.”
Andus Carek opened his mouth to respond, but Gideon pointed at the lute case. “Are you going to play or keep questioning me?”
The bard sat down upon the stool he’d carried over and shook his head. “Ah, you have me there. It is in my nature to be inquisitive.” With that, he unlatched his case and slipped the lute from it into his dark, long fingered hands.
It was as beautiful an instrument as Idgen Marte remembered. Not because of any precious metals or inlays, but because of the wood, the bands of it that gleamed in the soft firelight, carefully waxed, the patina of endless, loving use beaming from every piece of it.
Andus Carek began tuning it, strumming absently at the strings and adjusting pegs, bringing it quickly into line, plucking a chord here, a run there. And Idgen Marte slowly realized that Gideon was watching his hands move on the strings with utter, rapt attention.
* * *
Torvul shut the door of his wagon with a push of his hip, and carefully set down a cloth wrapped bundle on the board, hopped down, took the bundle reverently in both hands, and walked towards Allystaire.
“Seems right, on the day that winter ends,” the dwarf said. “Spring is upon us soon, all three turns of it, and summer after it. The sun will hold sway and dominion once more. It’s time.” He held it up to the paladin, who reached for it, and instantly knew he was holding a hammer made, with greater skill
than he had ever known, to his own hands.
Allystaire carefully, slowly pulled the cloth aside. The hammer he held was roughly of a size with the one he’d broken, though the head was more slender, rounded rather than squared. He let the cloth fall to the ground and took it in both hands.
Instead of stout oak, banded in iron and nailed where it had split, the haft was made of bright steel, with the lower half of its two-foot length wrapped in well-cured hide. He turned it over in his hands, marveling at the weight. It was heavier than his old hammer, true, but not so heavy that he could not swing it at need.
The rounded head was slightly darker, duller than the haft. When he looked at the blunt face, he saw something etched into the surface. He peered closer, squinting; it was the same sunburst as on his shield, his cuirass, and his pennant, picked out in golden filigree. Inside the sunburst, he could barely see the plain outline of a hammer.
“Hammer of the Sun,” Torvul murmured solemnly. “That is what the Voice says they may call you some day, many years from now. I thought you needed a weapon appropriate to the title.”
Allystaire stood back, took it in both hands, wrapping his fingers around the hide-wrapped part of the haft and testing its weight. “Torvul. It is beautiful. How did you manage it?”
“Much is taken from me, Arm,” Torvul said, looking solemnly down to the toes of his boots. “Much of the craft I could once have brought to bear is gone. With Stonesong and mchazchen I could make you something with true magic in it. Something to call down the fury of the sun itself. But much remains. There is not, I think, a human worker in metal who could do as I have done.”
Allystaire took a few steps back, extended his arms, and gave the hammer a slow, sweeping test swing. “There is some give in the haft,” he said, wonderingly. “Some sway.”
“Aye,” Torvul agreed. “When Her Gift is upon yer arm, the force you bring t’bear is too much for wood. But the steel I’ve wrought will flex as you swing, will deliver the force of your Gift without destroying the weapon in your hands. What’s more, it’s a match to your armor.”
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