After she left them alone in the room, Farlo said, "If I snore too loud, do you think she'll call the watch on us?"
"No doubt, but we got a good price."
Late that night when the street outside fell quiet, Farlo discovered to his misery that his bed was directly above the matron's, and that she snored louder than any sailor he had ever known.
They found the estate with the yellow tiled roof the next day. "It's worse than I feared," Farlo moaned. "This blackguard is unbelievably rich."
"And all that goes with it," Reyin said.
The street where they stood, not far from the ruins of the old city, cut a lane past several fairy-tale town houses, all with granite towers vying for dominance over exotic gardens where a trellis would be trimmed in gold.
"Look, he even has liveried guards in a gatehouse. Are you sure this is the place that you, uh, saw?"
"Yes. This is it."
"I'll bet he's the sort who has bull mastiffs running the grounds at night."
"Perhaps. We really do not know. We don't even know the name of this man whom we deem an enemy."
"By the gods of the deep, Reyin, it's been over a month since we stood on the Skialfanmir. How do you know that it is still here?" Farlo clutched Reyin's arm, his fingertips digging painfully into the flesh. "It could be anywhere."
"Go easy," Reyin said, "we will answer these questions soon enough." He gnawed at his lower lip. "Let's not hold conference here on the street, though. Already folk are looking at us."
They turned back toward the center of the city and walked in silence for a time. The afternoon sun, which earlier in the day had beat upon them hotly, now slipped behind one of the big clouds that had drifted in from over the ocean. They came to a place where five streets ran together, connected by a road encircling a large group of palm trees. Then Farlo said, "Do you need to be alone now, some quiet place?"
Reyin's puzzlement crossed his face as a silly grin. "Whatever do you mean?"
Farlo didn't look at him. "Aren't you going to — " He searched for the words. "You told me yourself you have ways of knowing things."
Reyin laughed in a flat tone, the joyless spasm coming harder and harder, the laugh becoming more and more sarcastic and twisted with anger as it rose.
"What," he spewed between gasps for air, "did you have in mind? That I should take myself to yon grove of palms and cast a ritual seeking? I've a better idea. I'll bring forth my wand of power from under my cloak, stride to the gatehouse, and with a simple tap split the gate asunder. Then, the light of the Essa shining like an aura all around me, I will walk past the frightened and cowering guards, right up to the master of the house, and by eldritch threat bring him sobbing to his knees, begging me to do whatever I desire if only I would lift the power of my hand from o'er his house." Huge drops of sweat ran from his forehead to meld with tears of anger. "I could do one as easily as the other, which is to say not at all. I have no power of my own."
His forearms were knotted by the strain of clinching fists, and his fingernails cut into his palms.
"Don't you see?" he said desperately. "This is not the high land of the Pallenborne, and I'm not a magician. There are less than a hundred in the entire world and when they are gone no more will come. That age passed before you or I were ever born. They have been undone by the merchants and scientists who will now take their place, and not even the kings and princes of this world have long to rule. Even — " A new thought shocked him into stillness, and he spoke softly once again. "Even the firebirds beyond the Western Sea will pass away."
He sat on the hard ground and wept quietly, not for himself.
Farlo didn't understand all of what Reyin had said, but he knew what to do. He led his friend over to the grove of palms and sat him in the shade, next to an old well. The bottom of the well lay deep in darkness, but when Farlo drew the water it was clear and cool. They each took long draughts, then sat for a time, not really watching when the dark-eyed folk of the south came to fill their earthen jugs.
CHAPTER 12: Hidden Measures
"It's alright," Syliva said to the old man, "I've already had mine." Never a good liar, she looked down at the table. Older than she, it had at one time been rough of surface and sharp-edged, now rounded and smoothed by many generations of hands and bowls. A large dark stain near the center had been scrubbed deeply into the wood by Kestrin's mother one summer day, Syliva remembered, after making a pot of black currant jam. She began to rise, saying, "I'll just leave you two in peace."
"Don't be foolish," the old man said. "Sit back down."
"If we can eat your soup," Kestrin said, "I think we can have you sit with us while we do it."
Syliva looked at her protégé. Kestrin was coming into womanhood in ways Syliva had never foreseen. Syliva could teach her only the herbal craft; where Kestrin learned to sense the feelings of others and how she got her fearless nature, Syliva did not know.
"Mmm, sure smells good," Kestrin said deliberately, looking at her father. She made a show of eating, drinking her soup loudly and saying, "Ahhh," while her father sipped cautiously from his oversized wooden spoon.
The house was small and dark. A few thin planks tacked at the floor and at a crossbeam formed the one interior wall in the place, dividing the house into two rooms. Great webs hung thick in the corners, but in this season of drought no spiders haunted them. They were only cobwebs.
The old man's face wrinkled in pain. This man has had his food stolen, thought Syliva. How would she feel in his place, angry and shamed? She couldn't imagine it. And she could not think that one of her neighbors did the inhuman deed.
Everyone at the dance had rushed to Kestrin and said that it could not be true. It could not be one of us. It must have been some rogue travellers, they had argued. Celvake and Aksel and some of the others had looked for footprints or animal tracks leading into the woods, but said they could find none due to the hard ground. Groups of men with hunting bows roamed up and down the valley for the next few days finding no sign of a camp or that anyone had passed. Kevas and Haron Monjor even took a three-day trek past Eldera Gorge. They didn't see any bandits, but they managed to bag a handful of rabbits. Kevas gave most of them to Kestrin in a quiet, almost apologetic way.
"Is it your stomach again?" Kestrin said to her father.
He dropped his spoon, soup half-eaten. His grimace cut deep furrows across his already lined face as he nodded to his daughter.
"He's started getting this pain when he tries to eat. Last night some of it came back up. I've been giving him sagemint tea each morning," Kestrin offered. "For nearly a week now."
"Hmm. Not just a tummy ache, eh?" Syliva lighted a candle and held it close to his face. She looked hard at the whites of his eyes, checked the color of his tongue, then pushed and prodded and listened to the man's stomach.
"Does it only hurt when you eat?"
"Mostly."
"But sometimes for no reason?"
The old man nodded.
"Keep up the sagemint tea," she said quietly, almost absentmindedly, as she glanced over his hands. "Better still, give him a second cup in the evening as well. Maybe a little starseed in it too." She looked again at his eyes, then stepped back and smiled big.
"We'll see if that helps," she said brightly. She turned to Kestrin and tried not to look puzzled. "I'll come back tomorrow."
The sky was still bright as Syliva made her way home. A gathering mass of people milled at the center of the village, and as Syliva approached them she heard heated voices. Two fishermen stood in front of the touching stone.
"Just start over again," Celvake was saying to them. "Everyone needs to hear this right from your mouth."
The grey-whiskered fisherman nodded, and turning to the villagers took off his cap, holding it awkwardly in both hands. "The matter is," he said, pausing to clear his throat, "the smokehouse, where we dry our fish, was near emptied last night."
"And they think we did it," Taila Keyvern called out before h
e could speak further.
The other fisherman and half the villagers all started talking at once. Syliva stepped up beside the older man.
"For goodness sake," she said, "let him have his ay. He's our neighbor." She touched him on the arm. "How are you feeling today Yothan?"
"I'm well. Thank you, Syliva."
"I'm sorry you were interrupted. What were you saying?"
"That we're not pointing a finger at anyone, or even all of you. But when we discovered the fish gone, we figured that someone from outside did it because, well, it's a community smokehouse. Everyone had their catch in there."
Taila Keyvern pushed her way to the front. "That proves nothing. One of your own fisher families could have taken it."
An entire family. Syliva had not thought of that. They would all have to be in on it, even the children would figure the truth about any extra food. Then she had another thought.
"Yothan, you said the smokehouse was near emptied?"
"Well, about half-emptied is closer to right. The thieves took only the fish that were fully cured."
“And a ten-stone basket to carry it all," the other fisherman added. "We think it was two men; loading the basket to the top would be about as much as they could carry and still walk quickly and quietly."
"You still haven't said why you think it was us," Taila said. Syliva thought that Taila must tie back her hair too tightly, for her face was always taut and strained.
Yothan cleared his throat once again and looked at his feet before he spoke. "We found a few cod on the trail leading here."
Celvake nearly jumped blurting out, "A clever thief would do that to throw others off the real trail."
Yothan turned to Syliva. "Like I said, we don't figure anyone here did it. We were just wondering if anyone saw anything here last night."
"Well," Syliva said, scanning the faces in what was now a crowd, "did anybody see someone toting a basket after dark?"
Almost everyone shook their heads or shrugged. Taila, looking as if it were really the most innocent question asked, "What about your son Jonn?"
"What about him?"
"Everyone knows he often gets up hours before morning, or is still up from the day before, I suppose. He goes roaming the woods at night, doesn't he? Was he out last night?"
Syliva didn't like her tone. "If he had seen anybody he would have told me."
"He might have forgotten. We all know how he is." Taila smiled at everyone, looking for agreement. "I'll bet he goes out all the time and you don't even know it,Syliva."
Syliva stepped close to her so that neither of them need talk loudly. The conversation had quickly begun to smell of Taila's trademark — a bit of truth, a bit of poison — but Syliva wasn't going to let this become a village affair. "I know when he's been out all night. Better than you, Taila."
"Of course," Taila said in the lightest manner she could affect. She looked only at Syliva now, as if they were having a private little talk, but she still spoke loud enough for all to hear. "Of course you do. I'm not accusing Jonn of being a sneak thief. Why he's the nicest young man in the valley, respectful and quiet, quiet as a mouse, you hardly notice when he's around. Now that's rare for a fellow who can lift ten stone with one hand."
Everyone fell silent as Syliva's eyes narrowed, her face reddening.
"I'll tell you," the younger fisherman said, "if it was him he should be tied and beaten. I know how you folk say that he has a sick mind, but he still knows right from wrong."
"He didn't do it," Syliva said.
"Of course not," Taila said. "As you told us, you would know if he did. The man is just saying that no one can be so sick that they don't know right from wrong. I think everyone can agree on that."
"It's late, we have to go, Syliva," Yothan said, giving her a chance to turn away from Taila. "Stop at my house next time you're down that way."
Walking with him a few strides, moving out of earshot of the others, she asked quietly, "What do you really think, Yothan?"
"I'm still hoping it were boys playing a bad prank, or even some wild nomads from out of the mountains."
"Me too."
"And if it isn't?"
"Everyone is very angry. I don't know if I could protect . . . I'm afraid someone could be badly hurt."
"Syliva, if one of us is stealing food, why would you want to protect them?"
"There's never been a killing in this valley. Never."
Yothan's eyes went wide. "Who said — "
"Fights, yes. Even a bad one I remember, but never a killing. I won't let it happen, Yothan. Whatever comes, I will not let it happen."
It was late by the time the crowd disbursed in the village and she walked the lane to her house. The shadows grew long as she crossed the yard to her kitchen door. She missed the evening song terribly. It had brought everyone together in spirit, talking, touching, seeing each other's faces. Her friends seemed far away.
Steamy air rolled out of the doorway. Aksel was there in an apron of all things, the baker's paddle in one hand, a dripping spoon in the other. "Just in time," he said. Jonn sat at the table grinning broadly. Before him lay cheese and dried apple, and a roasted hen with peas and cranberries. Syliva stood staring with her mouth open. The iron pot over the fire smelled strongly of the lentil soup she had made earlier, intending to serve it alone for their supper.
"Let's eat," Aksel laughed, dashing across the yard to the kiln, returning with an enormous loaf of flatbread that drooped over the edge of the paddle.
"Yeah," Jonn shouted from inside, still grinning, I'm hungry."
"A roast hen?" Syliva tried not to sound dismayed.
Aksel shrugged lightly. "Sure. Why not?"
"I know we talked about it, taking one to give the others a better chance . . . but all this at once." She went to the table. "What's this? Where did you get white cheese?"
"Tossed pebbles with Kurnt Monjor over it." Aksel turned back to the kettle, but not before a sly grin passed his lips.
She stiffened slightly. "That's not right, not over food." Especially with Kurnt being weak when it came to gambling.
"Oh, come on, where's your sense of adventure?" He reached into the pantry. "And I'm going to slaughter another kid in the morning, too. Just as soon as I sharpen the hatchet and the butchering knives," he said with a mischievous tone, pulling out the last jug of honey.
"Honey!" Jonn yelled triumphantly.
"Not the — " Syliva started to say, " — oh, all right, just a little." She wasn't going to argue now. Now they would have a family dinner, father and son happy together, and hope they had no visitors.
The sun stood two hands over the horizon when Syliva awoke the next morning to find her husband already up and gone. They didn't own a clock (those things cost as much as a horse), but it couldn't be later than five. In her kitchen she discovered a gallon of porridge simmering over hot coals and evidence of a few breakfast trimmings. The water crock sat full, the woodbin fully stocked. Looking out from the back door, she didn't see him in any of the yards. Perhaps he was behind the tool shed sharpening his knives.
She walked across the dead grass of the back yard, onto the dry, hardened earth of the barnyard, slowing as she came around the shed to where the grinding stone sat. Aksel wasn't there, but he had been. All the butchering knives were laid out meticulously, freshly and thoroughly sharpened. A new cutting edge shone on the hatchet and the ax, as well as the shears, a saw blade, the garden hoe, and the shod of the plow. Odd, she thought, he's even sharpened the tips of the hay fork.
The chopping block was clean, but she smelled a fire in the smokehouse. Then something far away caught her eye, beyond the village.
Smoke. A thick column drifting upward at a lazy slant in the light morning airs. Not a cooking fire.
Syliva ran toward the house. A fire in the east wood could spread to the village. The land was so dry. It could burn down the forest, and they needed the forest now more than ever.
"Jonn," she screamed. Wh
y wasn't someone in the village — now she heard it — someone finally blew the great horn.
"Jonn," she yelled again as she threw herself against the door, "there's a fire in the woods; we have to go put it out." But he wasn't there.
She found him with the firefighters. She had grabbed a shovel, a bucket, and her medicine kit and ran all the way across the village to where the wildfire raged. Luckily, the wind had died, and the scores of men, women, and boys digging trenches and hauling buckets of earth to douse the flames had managed to contain the blaze. Soon it became only a big smoldering patch of blackened forest. Some of the teenagers fetched water from the stream and hunted down every last spark.
Aside from a few minor burns, no one was hurt. When the excitement died down, Syliva asked after her husband but no one had seen him.
"It must have been a wild spark from a chimney," Kurnt said to Celvake. "Not much chance of it happening again."
Celvake shook his head. "I wouldn't be too sure about that. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before."
Syliva stepped into the conversation. "Celvake is right. We need to take precautions against this happening again. If the wind had been up, we might have lost our homes, or even our lives."
"Everyone keeps a bucket of dirt or water at their house just for fire," Kurnt said.
"They should all be kept in one place, in the center of the village. That way, if anyone can't come we will still have his bucket. I'll have my son Jonn make sure they stay full. And we should make some extras. Celvake, do you still have those seasoned staves? Could you make more buckets?"
"Those are barrel staves. I would have to . . . hmm," he cocked his head. "Okay, I think I can do it, but I'll need the help of one of the boat builders. Yothan would be my first choice." Then he suddenly smiled big, as he always did when saying something only half in jest. "Can I come eat at your house tonight, Syliva?"
Syliva thought about Aksel's cooking spree the night before, took note of how gaunt Celvake had become, and tried to return the smile. "Why sure. What would you like? Lentil soup, or soup with lentils in it?"
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