“Hey! Merchant?” Maldron’s bitches were already hailing the wagon, even before Spendwell slowed it.
“And an honest merchant.” Spendwell pulled his donkeys to a stop and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Pretty damn late for an honest merchant to be out on the road. Sure you’re not a bloody robber?”
“If honest merchants were never caught on the road after dark, who would the robbers attack?” he replied.
Thorn leaned forward and put one hand on Spendwell’s arm. That was the kind of thing a merchant’s woman would do if she got nervous. She could feel his muscles shaking. “Who are you?” she called. “How do we know you aren’t robbers?” Bad. She was supposed to be some rabbity merchant’s woman. Her voice should have shaken like Spendwell’s muscles.
“Do robbers wait around beside gibbets to get eaten by marsh bugs?” The speaker came forward, a medium-tall spearwoman with an ordinary face (but all faces were ordinary in bad light) and a voice that sounded as if she should clear her throat. “We’re Maldron’s women, watching a damn sorceress to death for him.”
Frostflower was just a black shape above and between the smoke-pots, high enough so that she could have been hanging by wrists instead of shoulders and her feet would still not have touched ground. Either the hood had fallen over her face or she hung with her back to the road, because the only whiteness was her hands tied together across either belly or buttocks. She hung still, motionless—not a twitch, not a moan. Maybe it was the bad light—but Thorn had seen enough poor buggers dangling from the gibbet to know how each jerk swayed when a person was off the ground.
“How do you know she isn’t already dead?” This time, damn it, Thorn’s voice seemed to shake a little. No honest woman’s voice should shake when she asked a question like that about a sorceron.
Maldron’s bitch laughed and slapped at bugs. “Come have a look.”
“Can I bring my wagon off the road?” asked Spendwell.
“Ya, if you want to get mired. Cutbone and me aren’t here to help push you out when your bloody wheels get stuck.”
The merchant stopped his wagon on the edge of the road, got down, and hobbled the lead donkeys. Thorn forced herself to wait for him to come back and help her down. She swatted savagely at the bugs and itched in her wimple and skirt, thinking a steady stream of curses.
Spendwell came back and handed her down. They followed Maldron’s spearwoman over the spongy earth to the gibbet. From this angle, Thorn could make out the little white blot of Frostflower’s chin beneath the draping of her hood. Still no sign of life.
Maldron’s warrior twirled her spear and poked the butt into Frostflower’s stomach. Spendwell clutched Thorn’s arm to keep her from grabbing the sword beneath her skirt.
“That isn’t dead meat,” said the spearwoman, although after quivering with the blow Frostflower again hung still. “Want to try it yourself?”
“I wouldn’t know the difference,” said Thorn, with Spendwell squeezing her arm to remind her not to smash her sword into Maldron’s fathermilking bitch.
“Hey, Clist!” shouted the other warrior, Cutbone, who had stuck to the smoke-fire instead of coming out where the bugs were thicker. “His Reverence said weapons off the bitch.”
“Who’s going to tell his Reverence? Especially if we can get the demon’s-turd to talk.” Clist raised her spear again and struck the shaft across Frostflower’s back. This time the head jerked up slightly, with a low moan.
“How about it, sorceress? Ready to name the brat’s parents?”
Frostflower’s head had fallen forward and the victim was silent again, as if only her body and not her mind had reacted. You damn fathermilker! Thorn thought at the spearwoman; and then, switching the voice in her brain to the sorceress—Hold on, Frost! Just hold on a few bloody moments and we’ll have you down!
She did not know if she was glad or sorry for Spendwell’s hand cringing on her arm to keep her from putting Slicer through Maldron’s rotten bitches.
“Come on back to the fire, damn you!” shouted Cutbone in a bored voice. “No sense standing out there getting chewed up.”
“We’re not, you lazy cow. The damn sorceress has it better than we do at the fire. Her Ladyship’s incense pots are better than the stinking smudge-cakes his Reverence gave us.”
“Unh? Maybe you’d rather hang up there with her than roll a few more games?”
“All right, all right, coming.” Clist wiped her arm across the bottom of her nose and turned back to the merchant and his supposed woman. “Well, had your bellyfill of gawking? No sense gawking at a damn sorceress if you aren’t going to poke her around a little.”
They followed the spearwoman to the fire. “You’re sure she’s power-stripped?” said Thorn, looking for something to say that would both explain her staring up at Frostflower and keep her from cursing Clist and Cutbone aloud.
“If she wasn’t power-stripped, you think she’d be hanging there? Pricker who did the job even looked a little like you, merchant,” said Clist.
“Na,” said Cutbone, “that poor slob didn’t have a woman to travel with him. Too stinking tight-pursed even to hire a swordswoman. Who are you, merchant?”
“From the south,” Spendwell replied, as if he had misunderstood the question. “On our way up from Middle Lorn. Let me get you a sample of my Southvines purple.”
He hurried back to the wagon. Damn cringing bastard. Thorn thought she had convinced him it would be safer to use his own name, take advantage of Maldron’s favor and the little suspicion that would attach to the man who pricked the sorceress. Instead, he had shied out on her, gone back to his own idea of trying to stay anonymous and hoping they would not recognize him. And there was not a damn thing she could do about it now except play along. She heaped up a pile of faggots at a little distance from the fire and sat, trying to go down gingerly, like a damn dainty craftswoman.
“Hey, merchant’s woman! You play dice?”
“No.” She refused without thinking, because for once in her life she did not want to play. Only after she spoke did she realize that by refusing she had both kept herself in the shadows on the other side of the smoke and helped insure that Maldron’s warriors would not later connect her with the ever-gambling Thorn.
“Come on in closer to the fire anyway. Don’t sit out there for the bugs.”
“I’d rather face the bugs than—the smoke.” Where the Hellbog was that bloody Spendwell? Gods, if he dawdled around much longer, she was going to slip back into cursing aloud. How long did it take to find the damn flask? They had left it handy, between two bolts of cloth near the seat—Thorn could have found it quicker herself.
Well, maybe it only seemed long to her. Cutbone and Clist were not complaining yet.
Clist threw the dice, cursed a bad roll, and looked at Thorn again. “Hey, merchant’s woman! How’s your man for milking?”
So they were going to claim warriors’ privilege on her? Good; that was one way she had planned to help get them woozy and drunk…but how the Hell would they expect a good little common wife to react? Proud of the honor? Jealous? She had always been on the taking end of warriors’ privilege before—and not too often at that, preferring unattached males, especially ones who had not been milked for several days. “Always has plenty for me,” she said.
“Throw you cow’s eyes for first go at him, Clist,” said Cutbone.
Thorn stared from the quiet figure barely visible on the gibbet to the swearing, grunting, stinking warriors, squatting like rutty toads over their dice, so much alike in their bloody filth that sometimes she was not sure which was Clist and which was Cutbone. Warriors’ God! she thought, suddenly disgusted with her whole way of life. She might be sitting there dicing instead of either Clist or Cutbone, and anybody else looking on would never know the difference.
Her hands twitched on the hilts of Slicer and Stabber beneath her skirt. She could almost have gutted Maldron’s women for no other excuse
than their likeness to herself.
Spendwell reached the fire just as Cutbone was crowing over a successful toss. “Ready for a tumble, merchant?”
“Honored.” Spendwell went around to their side of the fire. “Delighted. I’m always ready to roll a warrior—two at a time, if you like.” As he bent to give them the flask of wine, Thorn saw his grin in the firelight and thought, Gods! The greedy bastard means it.
“Fine with me,” said Clist, who had lost the throw for first tumble.
“Na,” said Cutbone. “One of us has to stay on guard.”
“Who the Hellbog’s going to come and take the bloody sorceress down?”
“Just in case she talks, you damn quarter-wit.”
“Why don’t you warriors drink some of my fine wine,” said Spendwell, “and settle the question while I bring a blanket?”
That was Spendwell—too damn fastidious to roll a couple of warriors on the bare ground, even if the bitches were almost as dirty as the ground themselves. “I can keep an ear on her for you,” said Thorn.
“Thanks, merchant’s woman. We’ll even leave enough of him to grow back for you in a couple of days.”
One of Maldron’s warriors took a noisy swig of wine and tossed the flask to the other. “Hey, merchant! How much are you going to charge us for your bloody wine?”
Already more than halfway to the wagon, Spendwell paused. “For that flask,” he shouted back, “nothing but your own pleasure and mine. For a second flask, three coppers.”
They would not get a second flask like the first. Thorn had squeezed the berries only into the one. Warriors’ God—no. No, God of the Sorceri, make their throats nice and dry so they drink it all, and let it be those same bloody berries that gave me the fluttering nightmares!
“Fair enough at the price. Let’s have it again before you drink the blasted thing dry, damn you, Clist.”
“Hey, merchant’s woman, want a swig?”
“Quiet, quarter-brain. Let her and her man drink up their own bloody stock.”
Thorn smiled grimly. All the gods, Warriors’ God, Sorceri’s God, even the half-demon Goddess of Greed seemed to be on her side. She watched Clist and Cutbone guzzle down their free wine as if each was afraid that unless she drank fast her comrade would get more.
The merchant strolled back, wandered around to find a suitable patch of ground, spread out his blanket with dainty care, doing everything slowly, giving them plenty of time to finish the flask. Even if the purplish berries were not dream-poison, the wine itself was strong—Spendwell’s best Southvines purple. Clist and Cutbone were swaying when they got up and began to fumble with their belts. Damn fools! Swizzling themselves silly. At least Thorn did not share that habit with them.
“Hey! Bring it here!” shouted the spearwoman, her voice slurring. “Naked out there an’ the buggers’ll eat us raw.”
“Stay in the fire an’ get seen milkin’ when we should be washin’?” said Cutbone.
“Who’s goin’ to come by, you damn bish?”
“Some honest mershant, some robber…never know. Take th’ smudge-pots over there. Few buggers on her face’ll do the damn sorceress good.”
“Good. Hey, mershant’s woman. Get those smudge-pots an’ bring ‘em over to th’ blanket.”
“Carry your own damn smudge-pots,” said Thorn.
It was a stupid slip to make, but Maldron’s warriors only laughed, no doubt thinking she was simply jealous. “Better tell your rutty woman we’ll leave enough of you for her!” one of them called to Spendwell.
“The question is what I’ll leave of you,” the merchant called back. His jollity was strained. If he were close enough, Thorn knew he would squeeze her arm again or mutter some warning in her ear. Watch it yourself, merchant, she thought. Make sure you don’t get too bloody nervous to show them a good time until the wine gets them. or until I have to pinch their mouths and nostrils to make them black out.
She watched Spendwell carry over the smudge-pots and arrange them on either side of the blanket, leaving Frostflower to the bugs. Maldron’s bitches stripped and began rolling each other, wine and exertion keeping them warm as they waited for Spendwell.
Completely disgusted, Thorn located a faggot that still had one end unburning and picked it out of the fire to hold like a torch. She found a couple cakes of smudge-incense, crumbled one onto the burning end of her faggot, put the other into her tunic pocket, and walked over to the gibbet.
“Hey, mershant’s woman! Goin’ to tickle ‘er toes?”
Damn it, Spendwell, hurry up and start screwing them! If I hear “Hey, merchant’s woman!” once more I’ll ram this torch down their bloody throats. “I’m just going to keep watch for you.”
“Sure you wouldn’t rather wash us? Maybe learn somethin’!” They laughed again. It was a big, drunken joke to them. Hellbog, Thorn had tumbled in groups of four and five. She even remembered with dull wonder that she had enjoyed it at the time. Now all that seemed important was how aware or unaware Frostflower might be of the things going on below.
Spendwell got himself stripped and then lunged in between Maldron’s bitches. They grunted like pigs and, from that distance, looked more like white grubs wiggling together on an overturned log than like humans. Turning her back on them, Thorn lifted the torch higher, trying to hold it so the smudge would protect Frostflower without choking or singeing her.
Now, nearly beneath the sorceress, Thorn could make out most of her face. It was paler than ever, the eyes closed, the mouth slightly open, the upper lip clotted with dry mucus. The smudge-pots had not kept all the bugs away. A score of bite-welts stood up plain and ugly.
The sorceress hung like a plummet, the long ends of the ropes binding her wrists criss-crossed down around her legs. Unless their bound hands were so anchored, hanging folk had been known to writhe until the rope slipped from beneath their armpits and tangled around their arms and wrists. But Frostflower was not writhing, not moving at all. Thorn could not even see any rise and fall of the chest beneath the dark robe.
All but three of Frostflower’s fingers were stiff with bandages, but the backs of her hands were bare above the knuckles. The flesh felt cold and slightly leathery. Thorn pressed harder, searching for the pulse. She seemed to feel something…but it might be only the echo of blood in Thorn’s own fingertips.
She stretched her arm still higher and forced herself to feel what she could of Frostflower’s belly, dreading to find the hard little knots of stones, after all. The skin was covered by layers of cloth, but the stomach seemed flat and empty. It also seemed to have a slight, very slight movement upwards and downwards; but Thorn could feel this only when she pressed as hard as she dared.
She could reach no higher. She took comfort in the fact that the eyes were closed. People usually died with their eyes open and staring. She could not remember which of Frostflower’s eyes was blue and which was brown, but she was glad they were closed. Even had they been open in a dead woman’s stare, Thorn would not have liked to see them fixed on the scene she could hear behind her—Spendwell and the two bitches thrashing around on their bloody blanket.
The grunts finally subsided. Eventually a few wet snores began to replace them. Thorn glanced around. One white form was stirring, beginning to pull on its dark clothes again. “Spendwell?” she whispered.
“Shhh!” He got his clothes back on, turned the edges of the blanket up over the sleeping warriors, then picked his way toward the gibbet. “One of them could have been awake,” he whispered angrily. “You could have given us away, calling my name like that.”
“You heard it because it’s your own damn silly name. Those drunken cows would’ve thought it was anything.” Thorn had intended to climb up the gibbet and untie Frostflower, letting the merchant catch her; but watching his arms tremble as he refastened his belt and slapped at bugs, she changed her plan. “All right, get up there and untie her.”
“Me? I thought you were going to—”
“I’m goi
ng to catch her. I don’t want you dropping her, you damn bugger. Or running away if a bloody owl hoots.”
“I’m exhausted, Thorn! Those randy warriors—”
“You’re exhausted, your horny bastard!”
“At least give them a little while longer, make sure they aren’t going to wake up.”
Frostflower had not moved since Maldron’s fathermilking bitch struck her across the back, and Spendwell wanted to wait some more. “Get up there, you motherpricker!”
“All right, all right.” Backing away from her torch, he hurried to the left-hand ladder and climbed it almost fast enough to satisfy the swordswoman. He hesitated, however, before climbing over onto the top, crosspiece ladder. “Heights make me dizzy.”
“I’ll burn the damn thing down with you on it.”
He edged out along the crosspiece, trying to keep in the dead center of a ladder barely wider than his hips. Midway to the sorceress, he paused. “How are you going to catch her with that torch in your hand?”
Thorn took a few steps to one side and jabbed the bottom of the faggot into the mucky ground. By the time she returned, he had nearly reached the rope. Thorn clasped Frostflower’s knees.
On the blanket, one of the warriors groaned loudly. Spendwell’s jerk sent a vibration through the solidly-planted gibbet. “Fall off and I’ll kick your kneecaps in,” said Thorn. “Now hurry up.”
“I need light.”
“You think I’m going to climb up there and hold the bloody torch for you?”
There was a shriek from one of the drugged warriors. Thank the gods, Spendwell stayed on the ladder. Thorn listened for a few moments, holding her breath. Hearing only a few grunts and a couple of moans, she turned her head and looked toward the blanket. Maldron’s warriors were hunched up beneath the cloth—dark blots with only a whitish leg showing. One of the blots bunched together and thrashed another limb out from beneath its covering.
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