by Tanya Huff
“Yes, I have.” The blue eyes actually twinkled as the emperor smiled up at him from the lower step. “I’ll speak to her alone after our evening meal. You’re anticipating me now, Captain. Well done. I like that in my staff.”
* * *
Danika’s skin crawled as Adeline examined her, pressing a brass bell gently against her belly, a nipple on the hose attached to the narrow end of the bell tucked into the midwife’s ear.
“No bleeding?”
“Other than the obvious?” Danika smiled at Adeline’s scowl. “No.”
“Where fork?” In a just world, Adeline would be keeping the artifact in her apron pocket. Who wouldn’t want to brag about that?
“No pain?”
“You were there for the pain.”
“No other pain?”
“No.”
“Where fork?”
“Don’t start thinking you can lift the wooden thing from my pocket. It’s back in the emperor’s hands.”
And Leopald was unlikely to just hand it over, no matter how often or how loudly Danika asked.
* * *
Onnyle Cobb wasn’t at dinner either.
When Reiter asked about her, the young priest who’d sat at her other side for all the meals Reiter had taken in the formal dining room patted at the ludicrous golden sunburst ruff he wore around his skinny neck and frowned in exaggerated confusion. “Who?”
“The young woman from the treasury who’s been sitting between us.”
“I’m sure I don’t know who you’re talking about.” The frown turned into an equally exaggerated smile. “More bread?”
Reiter had told no one that Cobb had asked him about the captured mages.
It seemed he hadn’t needed to.
Ask about the captured mages…disappear.
It seemed people disappeared from court often enough that those who sat at the lowest ranking table weren’t surprised.
* * *
Gryham had been right about them disappearing into the crowd. They’d entered Tardford at dawn with the wagons arriving from the country. The crates of squealing piglets squealed louder when they caught Tomas’ scent, but as it was only a matter of degree, Mirian doubted anyone else noticed. When their country escorts turned left toward their waiting buyers, they stayed on Old Capital Street as instructed, keeping to the right when given the choice.
They walked like they knew where they were going, quickly, purposefully, her hand in the crook of his elbow, with their heads slightly down so as not to give offense to their betters.
“Our betters?” Tomas asked after Mirian explained it. “Where are you getting this stuff?”
“It’s how Joy Miller, an innocent country girl, walked through town unseen on her way to confront her real father. It’s a novel,” she added impatiently when Tomas’ brows went up. “It’s not like either of us have real world experience in walking around unseen.”
“I was a scout in the Hunt Pack.”
“On four legs. And we’re dressed like country people…”
“In stolen clothes.”
“Fine, we’re not innocent.”
“Or in a novel.”
Mirian stopped, grabbed the front of his jacket and dragged him around to face her. “Don’t make eye contact,” she growled. “The way you do it, people will think it’s a challenge and we can’t attract attention. Clear?”
He held up both hands. “Clear.”
“They will skin you!”
“I know.”
“Fine.” As she let him go and they started walking again, an elderly woman smoking a pipe and leaning on the sill of a second-floor window across the street, gave her an approving thumbs up.
Most of Tardford was north of Old Capital Street and the street itself remained working class enough they never felt terribly out of place. Mirian kept up a constant murmur of don’t notice us, don’t notice us although she had no idea—and no confidence—it was doing any good. The practicing she’d done at Gryham and Jake’s had been inconclusive. Pack could hear her no matter how quietly she spoke and Jake was so used to hearing what no one else could he paid no attention. Outside of town, just before they reached the road, she’d rubbed dirt into Tomas’ hair, making it look less like fur and adding enough weight only a stiff gust of wind would knock it askew, exposing his ears, but she still kept part of her attention on his head. She didn’t really care what the people around them thought as long as they didn’t think abomination.
At midday, she rummaged in the bedroll hanging off Tomas’ shoulder and finally opened the purse she’d stolen from Captain Reiter, using his money to buy them four skewers of grilled meat off a street cart on the right side of the street. Tomas assured her that he could only smell pork. She was a little surprised by how many bills were in with the coin. Aydori had only recently—and reluctantly—changed to paper money. The empire had used it for decades. Did army captains usually carry that much cash? Did they have to buy their own bullets? Pay their own men? Her parents had been fairly generous with her pin money, but if she’d correctly converted the value from Imperial to Aydori, this was more money than she’d seen in one place outside her father’s bank.
“It’s not that much,” Tomas told her, licking grease off his fingers.
“It is.”
“Bills were sent to your parents, right? You never carried more than a few coins. The captain’s pay packet probably caught up to him in Abyek. He could have a month or more back pay in there.”
“He snuck into Aydori and captured the Mage-pack!”
Tomas snickered and started on his third skewer. “I’m not saying he deserved to get paid for that, I’m saying he was doing his job. First time Harry and me got paid, we…” He flushed. “Never mind.”
She supposed it made sense that a country couple heading to Karis to seek their fortune would have their life savings with them. So, logically, it made sense for thieves to look for couples heading to Karis to seek their fortune in order to rob them. She put a little more emphasis on her don’t notice us, then had to stop when Tomas pointed out the eddies chasing after them against the prevailing wind.
By midafternoon they’d only the East Gate Market and a few cross streets of increasingly rural houses to get through before Old Capital Street joined up with the new Capital Street and started following the curves of the Vone River to Karis.
“The East Gate Market marks the place where the old east gate used to be when there was a city wall.” When Tomas turned to glare, Mirian pointed at the wall. “There’s a plaque.”
“And we’ve got so much time to stop and read.”
“Because charging right through town doesn’t look suspicious at all!” Mirian snapped. Watching out for an entire city as well as Tomas’ ears left her feeling as though she were being pulled to pieces. “Forgive me for needing a moment to collect myself.”
“These boots are too tight and my feet are killing me. Why are you such a…Never mind. Not important.” He went to run a hand up through his hair, caught himself when her eyes widened, and muttered something she didn’t catch. Pivoting on one heel, he headed away from the building. “Come on.”
Mirian grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. “The last time we tried crossing a market, it didn’t work out so well. You almost died.” I killed someone.
She still hadn’t told him how Harn the farm worker had burned. Didn’t want him to think differently of her. Had no idea of what he saw on her face, but his expression gentled.
“That won’t happen this time.” He adjusted her grip, tucking her hand into the bend of his elbow, and tugging her forward. “We’ll stay to the right just like Jake told us to.”
By midafternoon the market should have been emptying out, but banners had been strung across the small square, there was a distinct scent of toffee in the air, and a stage was being set up near an inn called…
“The Cock and Bottle,” Tomas told her. “If you keep squinting like that, you’ll have lines.”
She studied the market as though she could still see into the corners.
It was warm enough that men and women drank at tables set up outside. Young children and dogs chased each other around the small square—although the dogs stayed away from Tomas—and older children lingered in groups. There weren’t a lot of men between fifteen and thirty.
“The empire went to war this winter, and the army always recruits heavily from the working class.” Tomas shrugged when Mirian looked up at him. “I’m Hunt Pack, but Harry was an officer in the 1st. He liked to share what he’d learned even if I didn’t give a rat’s…if I didn’t care.”
“I wish I’d met him.”
After a moment, Tomas smiled. “He’d have liked you.”
With Tomas’ arm warm under her hand and his shoulder bumping hers as they walked, it felt like they’d crossed a line. Just for a moment, they might have been walking out in Bercarit. They might have met each other the usual way. Her mother would be having joyful hysterics in the background. Then one of the children shrieked and a heated argument started up as they passed a cheese shop, and the moment ended. They weren’t those people anymore.
Those people would never have bought cheese for later and, next door, the last round loaf of dark rye bread over Tomas’ protest.
“It’s solid,” Mirian sighed, stuffing the purse back in the bedroll. “It won’t get crushed.”
“Rocks are solid,” Tomas muttered.
Those people, the people they’d been, they had people who bought food for them. Bought it. Prepared it. Served it to them. As much as Mirian didn’t really want to be those people anymore, it certainly wasn’t all bad. Most of it—like food and clothes and beds and privilege and a total lack of terror—was wonderful.
“Tomas…”
There were four young men, more noticeable because of the lack of young men, watching them from across the square. Mirian’s mother would have called them toughs and, secure in her social standing, loudly wondered why they were permitted to linger in the same places as their betters. They were unshaven, in jackets heavier than the weather required. Jackets heavy enough to hide things in and under. Stolen things and things used to steal things.
“I see them. Remember what Jake said. We stay to the right.” Tomas caught her hand and pulled her back beside him. “That’s not your right.”
“What is it about men in groups?” Something squished under her foot. She flinched and kept walking. “Individually, they may be perfectly tolerable, but get a group of men together and they become insufferable. Give them guns and they’re an army.” One of the toughs blew her a kiss.
“Stop looking at them. They’ll wait until we’re out of the market to attack. There’s too many witnesses here. We’ll lead them somewhere isolated, and I’ll take care of it.”
“Somewhere isolated enough no one will scream abomination.”
“Absolutely.”
“If they’re just going to rob us, don’t kill them.”
“Mirian…”
“I know. Try not to kill them.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Smiling, laughing, the toughs changed the angle of their approach.
“Tomas…”
He stiffened. “Okay, I was wrong. They’re not going to wait until we’re in a dark alley to attack, they’re going to make their move right here. Jostle around us, intimidate us. Rob us without a fight. Probably threaten you, to make me give in.”
“What if we yell for help?”
“I can take them. I’m not going to…Ow.” He glared at her. “You pinched me!”
“You can’t take them here. You’ll give yourself away!”
“I’m going to have to because there’s no point in yelling for help. The way people are deliberately ignoring them, they’ve been terrorizing this neighborhood for years.”
They were at the far right of the market already and couldn’t go any farther right. Soothsayers were useless! Still, they could always go back…
“For this to work, there has to be more of them, probably two more behind us.”
“Would that be the sensible thing to do?” Tomas muttered.
Mirian only barely resisted the urge to pinch him again. “For them.”
They could let themselves get robbed. After all, she’d stolen the money in the first place.
But the chances were too high that a gang of young men looking for trouble would discover what Tomas was. They weren’t expecting him, they wouldn’t be carrying silver, but his changing and their dying in the middle of the afternoon during some kind of festival with people drinking beer and watching like they were at the theater would set a hunt after them. And the hunters would have silver.
If she waited until they got close enough and put one of the toughs to sleep, what would the others do? Stupid question. They’d fight. Just looking at them, Mirian could see that would be their reaction. And fighting brought them back around to Tomas being found out. She’d have to sleep them all at the same time. But she needed to touch them to sleep them and there was no way she could touch them all at the same time.
No. Technically, the mage-craft needed to touch them.
She had to stop them while they were still far enough away no one would know what had happened and who’d been responsible.
A breeze lifted her hair.
Air-mages laid words on breezes all the time.
Words had power.
She’d moved scent on a breeze that first night in the cave.
She’d slept that soldier without even thinking. It was second level healer-craft.
All she had to do was lay the power on the air and deliver it to the toughs the same way she’d made the leaves dance.
Logically, she could do this.
The breeze swept around her, small whirlwinds gathering up debris. She had seconds before someone noticed.
“Sleep!”
* * *
Tomas got Mirian out of the square and down one of the side streets with no direct line of sight to the market, hoping he’d bought them enough time. They didn’t run, but he kept them moving as fast as wouldn’t attract attention. Not only Pack chased when prey ran. Mirian’s hand was tucked back in the angle of his elbow, his hand clamped over it, and it felt like ice with fingers. She stumbled as she walked, pressed up against his side.
He turned them down a lane between two silent houses, saw a cat asleep in the sun…
“How far did it spread?”
“What?” She twisted and stared up at him, squinting like she couldn’t see his face even though he wasn’t that much taller than she was. Just for a moment, it looked as though her eyes had gone to pieces, bits of the gray floating around over her pupils. Then she blinked and the moment passed. “Tomas?”
He’d probably been brushed by the mage-craft and it had affected his vision. He blinked his own eyes and said, “It’s starting to look like you put the whole city to sleep.”
The four jackasses who’d planned to rob them had fallen first. They’d crumpled to the ground as the breeze whipped past, then men, women, children, dogs, even pigeons, everyone in the market went to sleep. Everyone but Tomas and Mirian. Given her lack of control, he’d been thankful for that at the time, but now he wondered if they were the only two standing in all of Tardford.
And if Healer-mages could do this, why weren’t they standing on the front line? A sleeping army wouldn’t have killed Harry. And if this was something Mirian had made up, because she’d never been taught the rules Gryham said mages had made for themselves, then the rules needed to be changed.
A dog, out of sight behind a garden wa
ll began to bark and a voice yelled at it to shut up.
“Okay, it didn’t go this far. That’s good to know.” He steadied her as she tripped, but kept them moving. “Are you all right?”
Mirian dug the heel of her free hand into her eyes. “I didn’t mean for everyone…”
“I know.” He twisted one ear back the way they’d come, that silence suddenly shattered by a single raised voice although he couldn’t make out the words. Time was running out. “Come on.”
They left the city on a footpath, north of where Old Capital Street joined the broader, newer Capital Street. Tomas could smell horses and oxen and see a cloud of dust rising behind a carriage down near the river, but this section of the road was empty. He got them across it and immediately down another lane. The low building to the right was a dairy; in spite of lunch, the smell of cow was almost overwhelming.
“When we’re past and we’re upwind, you’ll have to keep my scent from reaching the cattle, or they’ll panic and lead anyone following right to us. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can.”
“Of course you can? You blew a bunch of trees down and passed out for two days. There’s no ‘of course’ about it.”
She shifted so less of her weight was hanging off his arm. “I did it that first night in the cave. I can do it.”
And she did.
At least he assumed she did. Nothing blew down or over or away, but the cattle didn’t panic, and that was all Tomas cared about. If the two women whitewashing one of the outbuildings, or the man with the manure fork noticed them, well, it stood to reason that strangers had to walk out of cities as often as they walked in.
They began to pass farm lanes, then fields, and as the sun began to set the lane they followed ended at a pond where geese hissed a warning from the opposite shore. To the south, the land sloped down toward the river.
“Karis is that way.” Mirian pointed to the northeast, then knelt and began tugging at the laces of Jake’s old shoes. “We have enough light to run for a while.”
Tomas heard I need to run and began to undress.
His feet stopped hurting after he changed, but he still sat down to spend a minute or two chewing his pads.