“Are we not free to—” I began.
“You are free to do whatever you wish,” said Yue, scowling at me. “But if you have a lick of sense, you will come and speak with me before you leave my town. Is that understood?”
“Of course,” I said quickly, raising a hand to pacify her.
“One question before we go,” said Mag. “A traveler may have arrived here ahead of us—a woman with nut-brown skin and—”
“No travelers have arrived here,” said Yue. “Not for many days.”
“Constable, if I may,” I said. “It sounds as though there is some trouble here. Is it anything we can help with?”
Yue’s scowl deepened. “That is my business. Keep to your own. And heed my words.”
“Of course,” I said at once, nodding. “Can you recommend an inn for us?”
“If you have coin to spend, find the Sunspear,” said Yue. “If you do not, the Stag’s Sty will be easier on your purse, and they do not have too many fleas.”
“A stellar recommendation,” I said. “Fare well, constable.”
She turned and nodded to the others, who heaved the gate open for us to ride through.
I WAS MORE ALERT NOW than ever, and as I rode through Lan Shui, I tried to take stock of the town. Though the wall was poorly kept up, it was manned, with several archers pacing its length. But though the guards looked alert and wary, they were few. It would have been easy to slip past them unnoticed, if that was the aim. It gave the air that this town was wary and watchful, but was unused to being either.
Armored soldiers walked the town’s streets as well, but they wore neither the king’s livery nor the red armor of constables. I guessed they were locals, pressed into service to guard the town. But against what? Had the Shades passed this way? Or had some rumor of their coming reached these people? I could think of no other threat that would have put them so on edge. But I saw some people weeping in doorways and in alleys, clearly in mourning.
“What has happened here?” I said, hardly meaning to speak the words aloud.
“In many places across Dorsea may be found the consequences of war,” said Mag.
“Yet Dorsea makes war on no one but Selvan these days,” I said. “And this town is far from those battles.”
“It must have something to do with the Shades, then.”
I shook my head. “If that were the case, and the town had been attacked, Yue would never have let us in.”
“Then guess at the answer yourself, if you are so wise,” grumbled Mag. “One thing we told Yue was the truth: I want a bed to sleep in, and quickly.”
We had a fair bit of coin on us—with the excellence of Mag’s ale, she had never wanted for money—and so we asked after the Sunspear and found it before long. Its sign hung over the door, a spear thrusting up with a red-rayed sun in the background. I glanced at the spear on Mag’s saddle and bit my tongue. A girl at the stables took our horses, and we purchased dinner in the common room for a handful of pennies. The food and ale were fine enough, but I found myself longing for Sten’s cooking and Mag’s brew.
Before we had finished eating, an old man walked into the common room. There were only a handful of people there aside from the two of us, but they all looked up eagerly. The man’s eyes were grey and blind with age, and he picked his way through the room with a walking stick. One patron quickly moved a chair from his path to ensure he would not strike it as he walked. Though the top of his head was entirely bald, he had thick, bushy grey brows and a long grey beard down to his waist. He wore deep blue clothes in a common Dorsean style, with a shirt that tied at the side and loose trousers collected at the ankle. Despite his stooped figure and slow walk, his lips curved in a smile that seemed nearly permanent.
The old man sat on a small platform near the unlit hearth, sitting with his legs folded and his walking stick across his knees. A barman appeared beside him with a bowl of broth and a cup that looked to be filled with wine. The old man took a few sips of the broth and a deep swig of the wine, and then settled himself on the platform. I noticed that he had not paid for the meal.
And then he leaned back, lifted his head, and began to sing.
From the very first notes, I knew I was in the presence of a master. Here was a man who had been singing—and, unless I missed my guess, telling tales—for decades before I was even born. Though his frame was diminutive, his voice was thick and powerful, and I could feel it thrumming in the wooden chair upon which I sat.
He sang some songs I knew by heart, and others I had never heard before. He sang some songs I knew, but to strange tunes, and some songs with new words, but set to tunes that were as old as the hills. I had to keep reminding myself to eat, for I kept staring at him, spellbound by the sound of his voice and his effortless command of melody. I was not the only one. All conversation in the common room ceased as everyone listened to the old man. Mag, who had far less appreciation for song and story than I, was yet as entranced as I was. Though the man sang alone and without any instrument, it seemed to me that I could almost hear a troupe behind him: a pipe and a lute and one steady, thudding bodhran.
After mayhap a quarter hour, the man subsided into silence and reached again for his broth and wine. I shook myself as if waking from a dream and turned back to my stew. It had very nearly gone cold.
“That was astounding,” I said, surprised at the reverence in my own voice.
Mag smiled at me. “Sky above, you look jealous. I always said you would have made a better bard than a mercenary.”
I pointed my spoon at her. “That was not a compliment when you first said it, and it is not a compliment now. Where would you be if I had pursued a life in a king’s court, and had not been there to look after you?”
Her eyebrows shot for the ceiling. “Oh, I would surely have perished long ago,” she said, straining mightily to hide the joke in her voice.
“And do not forget it.” I glanced over my shoulder at the old man, who was still resting before he resumed singing. “Besides, it is hard to say that I should have been a great and renowned bard when in the presence of one who deserves the honor so much more.”
“If you are so enchanted with the man, go and speak to him,” said Mag, chuckling.
“In fact, I think I shall,” I told her. “And not just for my own entertainment. We want information, and who better to give it to us than a man who tells tales for his supper?”
So saying, I stood and went across the room to sit beside the old man. He heard me coming, and his head tilted up as he listened to my footsteps approach. His milky eyes looked just over my left shoulder, and I smiled, entirely forgetting he could not see the expression.
“Greetings, friend,” I said. “I wished to give you my praise for your songs, and your voice. I have rarely heard a singer so fine.”
“Rarely?” said the old man. His grin revealed a few missing teeth in the back. “I am losing my touch, then. I must work harder until it becomes ‘never.’ But I thank you for your kind words.”
I chuckled and pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “That would be a tall order. I have traveled to many lands and been in many fine courts of nobility.”
The old man’s bushy brows rose. “Courtly bards,” he scoffed. “If you ask me, they are limited in skill to the moment when some foolish noble hires them. They think they were hired for the songs and stories they already know, and so they never bother to learn any more.”
“That is an interesting thought, and I am somewhat glad to hear it,” I said, smiling still wider. “I sometimes think I should have become a bard, but if it would have stunted my skill, I am glad I never did.”
He laughed at that, and then he held out his hand. I grasped his wrist and shook firmly.
“They call me Dryleaf here in this town,” he said.
“And what do they call you elsewhere?” He smiled and did not answer. “I am Albern of the family Telfer.”
“Telfer?” he said, cocking his head. “From Calentin then, are y
ou?”
That made my heart skip a beat. Of the many people I had met across the nine kingdoms, only a handful had ever recognized the name Telfer. Even when they did, it was rare they could place the kingdom it came from.
I tried to speak easily, passing off the moment of hesitation. “I am indeed,” I told him. “But you do not look like a man from my homeland.”
“Nor am I,” he said. “I am from everywhere, as they say. In my day I was a wandering peddler who roamed all over the nine kingdoms. But one day my eyes went”—he pointed to the milky white orbs—“and once they started going bad, it happened fast. I was on my way north, but I was injured crossing the Blackwind just outside this town—I had an uppity horse, and it threw me, and my leg broke. It was not such a bad injury, but old bones are slower to heal. By the time I was ready to ride again, my traveling days were over. Since then, I have waited for anyone traveling to Selvan, hoping I could beg to come along, but the opportunity has never presented itself. It must be … three years now? Lan Shui does not lie on any of the great roads that cross Underrealm. We rarely see travelers at all—and even more rarely, lately.”
His mention of Selvan dampened my mood. Even now, the Shades would be pursuing Loren through the Birchwood, and I doubted anyone who lived there was safe. I thought to myself that it was a good thing Dryleaf had never reached his destination. Sometimes fate is kind in cruel ways.
But the last thing he had said caught my attention. “I thought something seemed amiss when I came here. Why is everyone so afraid? We were questioned quite closely by the constable when we arrived.”
“Yue, you mean?” said Dryleaf. “She is a good sort, if a bit stern. But if she let you in, you will have seen that for yourself.”
I noticed that he had deftly avoided answering my question. “A good sort indeed. But why did she suspect us so?”
Dryleaf pursed his lips and nodded a few times, as though bobbing his head in time to some beat I could not hear. His bushy brows had drawn close together. “I am not so sure I should speak of it,” he said. “After all, you are a stranger, if an exceedingly polite one. Some strangers are folk of pure intent, but others are less so.”
“And have you met any of the latter sort?” I asked. “Anyone in the town who seems not to have the best interest of the people at heart?”
He shook his head, but he did it with a little smile. “I am sorry, but I will not say more. Not yet. If you remain here for a while, we might discuss matters in more detail. But for now I think it is best if you look to yourself, and I do the same.” He shifted where he sat and reached for his meal. “And now, if you will forgive me, I must have a few bites before I get back to what earns my meal. I wish you well, and I hope we speak again.”
Despite his courtesy, the end of the conversation came so abruptly that I felt myself at a loss for a moment. Yet it seemed clear that I would glean nothing more from him just now, so I politely excused myself and returned to Mag.
“WHAT A STRANGE OLD MAN,” said Sun.
Albern laughed. “He was.”
“He has died, then?”
“Oh yes,” Albern said quietly. “He was old even then, and as I said, this was decades ago.”
Sun frowned. “I do not understand. Why was he so polite, and yet unwilling to help? He said strangers could not always be trusted, but if that was the case, why would he speak with you at all?”
Albern’s somber mood vanished. “You must learn to allow the elderly their peculiarities,” he said. “Oftentimes we do things only to make your life difficult, as revenge for the toll time has wreaked upon us.”
“But the town was in danger!”
“And how did he know it was not in danger from me?” said Albern. “That is pulling a little ahead of the story. But you should remember not to be too trusting of strangers, even if you still manage to be courteous to them.”
“I should not have trusted you, if I took that advice,” muttered Sun.
“True enough,” said Albern. “But as Dryleaf himself would discover, I am no one of ill intent.”
He remained silent for a good long while, staring down at the reins he held in his hand. He did not look as mournful as when he had recounted Sten’s death, but Sun thought she could still sense a deep sadness in him.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing exactly,” he said. “It is only that I have not recalled Dryleaf in a very long time. The old man and I rode many long miles together. When you get older, you will find that all your stories are laced with grief, for they always concern at least one person who is no longer with you. It is a curse that grows worse the older you get—that fewer and fewer people are left who attended the most important parts of your life. But enough somber talk. In truth, I was only thinking that our expedition tonight is rather like those adventures then, though of course I am much younger now than Dryleaf was, and you are much younger than I was.”
Sun blinked. “You mean that Dryleaf is a part of the story?” she said.
Albern smiled. “Oh yes, very much a part of it,” he said.
“He did not seem very important when you met him,” said Sun. “I thought he would be just another name in a tavern, heard briefly and then never seen again. Like Elsie, who you left in Northwood. I have never heard of him in any other tale of you and the Wanderer.”
“But you had never heard of Sten either, and yet you can see how important he was,” said Albern. “None of this would have happened without Sten. Indeed, I was just some man in a tavern when first you laid eyes upon me. Yet now here we are, riding off together.”
Sun raised her eyebrows. “We are not riding anywhere together. You are riding, and I am walking.”
That made Albern laugh aloud, his voice ringing through the night to be swallowed by the trees on either side of the road. “A privilege of age. And you will not have to walk for much longer.”
“I am pleased to hear it.”
Albern smiled and shook his head. “In any case, you should never discount strangers met by chance—if, indeed, you believe in chance at all. My own thoughts on that matter are far from settled, and my opinions have changed much over the years. But the more I see in my life, the more I begin to believe that there is indeed some great pattern that binds everything together, drawing certain people closer to each other before pulling them away.
“I do not think it was chance, for instance, that brought Mag and Sten together. The moment those two met, it was as though they had been together all their lives. Sten was a simple farmer in northeastern Selvan, and Mag and I were passing through in one of those years when we served no mercenary company in particular. We only intended to stay in the town for a day or two, but then, there was Sten. We had been there almost a week before I even realized we had remained longer than we planned. And that was strange, for I spent most of those days alone, while Mag and Sten would go walking together. I usually only shared their company in the evenings, when we would sit and talk and drink in the way that only young people can drink, with no fear of the pain morning will bring. Yet it all seemed … right. Natural. I was traveling with Mag, and Mag belonged in that town, at that time, by Sten’s side. And so nothing seemed untoward, as far as I was concerned.
“We left the town after three weeks, and we joined another mercenary company soon afterwards. We campaigned for some months, and then we returned to northeastern Selvan—and we went back to Sten’s town while we waited for the company to get hired again. We only stayed a week that time—but the next time we returned, we were there for two. Every time the company came home, Mag and I found ourselves in that town, and Mag found herself by Sten’s side.
“Now, as I have told you already, Mag was not the sort to seek out bedfellows. She had had one or two whirlwind romances while I had known her, but they never went past a certain point. But in those early days with Sten, it never even went that far. It was as though she and Sten did not even think of each other as lovers. Rather, Mag seemed to have adopted
the attitude that time spent away from Sten was simply foolish. If she had to, for our duty to the company, of course she would part from him. But given the option, she would always be with him, and that was simply the way it went.
“Not long afterwards, the company went out on one of the longest campaigns I have ever seen. Almost a year we were on the road, and Mag’s mood grew more and more dour. About six months into the campaign, Mag approached the captain and requested a leave of absence. ‘To visit family,’ she told him, but I knew full well that Mag had no living family. Of course, she told me where she was really going—she was returning to northeastern Selvan for a month, to see Sten, because she was worried how he was getting on.
“The captain was loath to let her leave, but he did it anyways. Mag was gone for three weeks, and then she returned. In some ways, it seemed as though a great weight had lifted from her shoulders, and she joked more often and laughed more readily. But I could tell she was troubled, and when she thought no one was looking, I caught her staring into the distance, her expression one of deep thought.
“At last I approached her. ‘Mag,’ I said. ‘Something happened while you were gone. Would you spit it out and tell me, so that I can stop worrying about you?’
“She looked entirely confused. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘I am the same as I have always been.’
“‘May the dark take me if that is true,’ I said. ‘You seem relieved ever since you visited Sten, but it also seems as if something else troubles you. Why are you upset?’
“‘I am not upset,’ she assured me. ‘Though I suppose you are right that something has bothered me. But it is not my own sadness that bothers me—it is Sten’s. He was happy to see me, of course. But something weighed on him, and no matter how I asked, he would not tell me what was wrong. There was a great sadness in his eyes when I left him, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since.’
“Then I laughed at her, laughed long and loud. ‘Mag, you are the greatest warrior I have ever known,’ I told her. ‘And you are also the greatest idiot. Sten is troubled because he loves you with all of his heart. And judging by the fact that you took leave to go visit him—when you have never taken leave in all the years I have known you—I would guess that you love him, too, and are too stupid to realize it.’
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