It was not long after midday when a woman walked through the inn's front door. She was long and lean, with the grace of a dancer and the lush curves of someone well past her girlhood. Her dress and heavy shawl were pale, her mane was black, and Dirk saw her eyes were the blue of an untroubled sky. When she saw him, she smiled. The expression, though it made a few lines appear at the corners of her eyes and mouth, was enchanting. As she crossed the room, Dirk noticed she wore soft-soled slippers that barely made a noise on the floorboards.
“You are Dirk Crier?” she asked.
“I am,” Dirk said. “Where is your husband?”
Her smile grew a little wider, and a touch mischievous. “Who said I have one?”
“You have both a husband, and a daughter,” Dirk said, taking the last bite of the honeyed biscuit he'd had for lunch before dusting crumbs from his hands. “You are Delyth, unless I mistake?”
She had her mouth open to speak when Aban stepped through the door. He wore the same, heavy boots as he had on the road, but he wore a long vest with a billowy shirt that was open at the throat. His hair had been trimmed, but his mustache was just as thick as ever. Behind him came a girl almost too old to be called such. Her feet were clad much as her mother's, and her long skirts were a dozen shades of brown patchwork. She had some of both her father and her mother in her, and both were evident at a glance.
“I leave you alone for a few moments, and this is what you get up to?” Aban asked, shaking his head.
“I did nothing,” Delyth said, turning up her face for her husband to kiss.
“I was not talking to you,” Aban said, cupping Delyth's cheek and giving her a soft kiss. “You will do as you will, and I can only hope to be standing at the end of it.”
“Or not,” Delyth said, pulling Aban back for a harder kiss. The girl stepped around the table, ignoring her parents. She looked at Dirk with open curiosity.
“You would be Saren,” Dirk said.
She nodded, stepping closer. She seemed hesitant, as if Dirk was a dog who might bite without warning. “You are the one who fought the Hann Dak'ham?”
“I am,” Dirk said.
Saren took another step closer. “And did you really fight a dozen of them? Leaving them to cart off their dead, and carry their wounded?”
Dirk looked toward Aban, raising an eyebrow. Aban shrugged his shoulders, and pulled away from Delyth's embrace. He glanced at the heavy blades sitting on the table, before turning his gaze to Dirk's face. “That is the word being whispered in the street. Though some say they vowed vengeance as they rode away, and others that you swore to kill them all if ever they returned.”
Bea bustled out of the back, pushing a hand through her hair. She stopped when she saw the three newcomers, and sighed. Aban gave her a beaming smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Bea sniffed, and gave her sleeves another turn until they were back above her elbows.
“The midday is set, and nearly done,” she said. “If you wish a drink, tap it yourself. Make your mark, and Cad can tally you when he shakes loose from his sheets.”
“I am flattered you trust me so much,” Aban said, crossing the room. He exchanged pleasantries with a balding man at the bar who was puffing on a pipe, and his younger companion who had been slowly nursing a mug of ale for the past hour. Aban pulled two mugs from one of the kegs, and made his way back to the table. Bea shook her head, her thick hair bouncing.
“Does he ever stop?” Bea asked Delyth.
“No,” Delyth said, taking one of the mugs from Aban. She sipped, and licked foam from her lips. “That is why, when I have had enough of him, I send him back out on the road.”
Bea snorted, and turned to Dirk with a raised brow. He nodded, and gestured at his companions. Bea went back into the kitchen, the door swinging behind her. Aban sat in the chair opposite Dirk, and Delyth sat on Dirk's left. Saren sat at Dirk's right, staring at the trophy knives. When she looked up and saw Dirk watching her, she glanced away.
“My thanks for your kindness,” Aban said, sipping at his cup.
“You pay for my drinks, and we will call it flush,” Dirk said, raising his water cup. Aban laughed, and toasted him. The laughter was short-lived, though, and the trader leaned his elbows on the table.
“What happened?” Aban asked. “Tell me true.”
“I fought two men,” Dirk said. “A third watched.”
“Why?” Aban asked.
Dirk shrugged. “He was older, perhaps wiser. He saw what befell the other two, and disliked his chances.”
Delyth snickered into her cup. Saren put a hand over her smile. Aban frowned, took in a breath, and let it out through his nose.
“That is not what I meant,” Aban said, shaking his head and setting his mug on the table. “I told you how dangerous the Hann Dak'ham are. You saw with your own eyes what some of them did to Caddell. After I told you of a hornet's nest, what made you decide to seek it out and set about it with a stick?”
“I asked the town folk if any had seen Teller the day he left, and where he had gone. Many of them said he rode north. I reckoned if the Hann Dak'ham were as zealous as you said in finding trespassers, they would have found Teller if he had entered their lands.” Dirk made a vague gesture to the north. “If they had not seen him, then I would know one more place he had not ventured.”
Aban took a long drink from his mug, and wiped his thumb across his mustache. He sighed, and leaned his elbows on the table. “Let us have it all, then.”
Dirk obliged. His telling was shorter than many of the fireside legends that had been spun the past few days, and it lacked any flair or embroidery. When he finished the telling, Bea bumped the kitchen door open with her hip. She set plates of potato soup, and cold slices of roast meat before each of them. Without being asked, she plucked Dirk's cup off the table, and filled it for him. Delyth spooned up a mouthful of the soup, and made a low, pleased sound in her throat. Dirk cut a long slice of the roast, folded it with his knife, and slipped it into his mouth.
“You are quieter than the other one,” Saren said.
Dirk gestured at Aban with his knife before cutting another slice of his meal. “Your father said much the same.”
“What are you going to do when the Hann Dak'ham come here?” Saren asked, looking into her soup as she spoke. Her mother frowned at her.
“I will do as I did the other day,” Dirk said, spooning a large chunk of potato into his mouth. “I will talk.”
“And if they do not come to talk?” Saren asked. “What then?”
“It matters not,” Dirk said. He scraped a chunk of thick beef from the side of the bowl, and chewed thoughtfully. “Soon or late, one of them will talk.”
Saren licked her lips, her eyes darting to her mother. Delyth raised her eyebrows, smiling at her daughter as she took another spoonful of soup. Aban sat, stroking his mustache and frowning. If he noticed the silent conversation between his wife and daughter, he didn't remark on it. Finally, he nodded, and cut into his meat.
“You believe he went north, then?” Aban asked around his first mouthful.
“I follow where the trail leads me,” Dirk said, setting his bowl down on his empty plate. “I reckon that is the direction he went, though I know not the why.”
Aban nodded, dabbing his mustache with a kerchief as he chewed and swallowed with great relish. “Ever since our return, I have been rolling hither and thither, dickering and delivering. I inquired about Teller at every stead I visited, but no one, not a farmer, a ploughshare, or a shepherd has seen him pass.”
Dirk nodded. “Could he have passed by unseen?”
Delyth snorted into her mug, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Dirk raised an eyebrow at her.
“Aban told no lie when he said you were from afar,” she said. “I know not how herders and sowers are where you come from, but here they grow idle in the summer months. In these hills, idleness breeds gossip. Their eyes are often cast afield, and any out-of-place noise will stir them. A big
storm, or a missing sheep, will be all they talk of for days. If a stranger rode past them, especially one such as your blood, they would have seen him unless he was wood wise and tricksy.”
“Such folk are much the same where I come from,” Dirk said.
“Do you have those like the Hann Dak'ham where you live?” Saren asked.
“Sometimes,” Dirk said, raising his bowl and tipping broth into his mouth. “Rare do they stay.”
“Why?” Saren asked.
“My grandmother does not tolerate fools and braggarts near her mountain,” Dirk said. “When they vex her, they often find it is best to pull their stakes, and move on to another place.”
“I believe I know the men you tussled,” Aban said, cutting in before Saren could ask anything else. “The older man sounds like Owin. He was a goatherd before Lanissara came to the hills, and something of a drunkard. A hard man, and a suspicious one, there was little love lost between him and... well, anyone who was not a goat.”
“And the other two?” Dirk asked.
“His sons, unless I misjudge” Aban said, starting in on his own soup bowl. “Farran and Narav. Shepherding and hunting came easily to them, and it left them much time to start trouble. No sooner had Lanissara told the town folk they would be expected to provide when called upon by the Hann Dak'ham than those two began swaggering about making demands.”
Dirk nodded to show he'd heard. A door creaked open on the other side of the room, and Caddell hobbled out. His hair was tousled, and his shirt rumpled. He paused at the bar, catching his breath. The few loiterers raised hands and cups toward him, offering toasts to his health. The cat leaped up, purring as it butted the back of his hand. Caddell petted the animal, glancing toward Dirk.
“Here you sit,” Caddell said. “Has there been no word, or did I sleep through another row?”
“The day has been quiet,” Dirk said. “Thus far.”
Caddell nodded, and limped behind the bar. He poured a tarred jack of ale, and sipped it carefully. Dirk finished his meal, and stacked his dishes. Aban followed suit not long after. Delyth and Saren both lingered over their food, but soon enough they had all finished eating. Bea brought Caddell a bowl of thin stew, and he ate at the bar. Thicket tried to poke his nose into the soup, but laid down when Caddell put a hand on his scruff. Bea cleaned Dirk's table, and after some cajoling from the other loungers, poured a fresh round of drinks. The sun crawled a few degrees further to the west. Aban lit his pipe, and smoked contentedly. Delyth and Bea exchanged words, with Saren occasionally adding her thoughts. A fire was laid in the hearth. Aban tapped his ashes into the fire, stretched, and sighed.
“I wish you luck with the eve, my friend,” Aban said, clapping Dirk on the shoulder. “But it seems your words have gone ignored.”
The words were no sooner spoken, than there was a sound of hooves outside. Several beasts moving at a gallop, and slowing to a fast walk as they neared the inn. There was no creak of saddle leather, and no jingle of tack. Several doors closed on the street. One of the idlers at the bar peered outside, only to stumble back from the door. His face was white, his eyes wide and staring like a panicked horse. He ducked through the door to the stable, shutting it hard behind him. Delyth frowned, standing. Saren did the same, mother and daughter like morning and evening as they turned toward the door. Aban frowned, his forehead furrowing. Dirk sipped his water, and waited. Footsteps approached the door, and a man shouldered his way inside.
He was long, tall, and ugly. His dark, greasy hair was pulled back into a tight braid, and his nose was crooked from a badly-set break. His arms were ropy with muscle, and his gaze flicked round the room, missing nothing. He was dressed in the same uniform as the other Hann Dak'ham had been, but his whites were gray with dirt and use. He wore his blade tilted forward on his right hip. His thin lips stretched into a rictus smile when he saw Caddell, and he nodded to the innkeep. Caddell's eyes widened, and his face went white except for two points of high color in his cheeks. A second man entered behind the first, and though he wore his hair loose, and his mouth was carved into a deep frown, they were too alike to be anything other than brothers. They settled their gazes on Dirk at the same moment. He raised his cup to them, and drank. That was when the one with the braid turned his head, and said something over his shoulder. The two men stepped aside, and a woman entered.
She was young, with the sort of high breasts and wide hips that drew stares of envy and want without any special effort. Her skin was newly-turned earth, and her hair a splash of the night's own cloth. She was wrapped in layers of white, and she wore bleached, leather boots. She pulled back her hood as she entered, and crossed to Dirk's table. She held her hands out, showing her open palms in a gesture that revealed she was unarmed, even if the two dangerous-looking men dogging her steps were anything but.
“You all go,” the grim-faced man said, turning to face the room. “This is not for your ears.”
Those who remained stood to leave, most of them abandoning their drinks unfinished. Aban glanced toward Dirk. Dirk nodded. Aban put one arm around Delyth's shoulders, and the other around Saren's waist. He led them through the door, and into the street after the others. The bodyguard turned his frown on Caddell, and narrowed his eyes.
“Get yourself gone,” the sour-face man said.
“I live here,” Caddell said through clenched teeth. “I will not be moved from this place.”
“Bold words for a broke-jaw cur,” the man said, taking a threatening step toward the innkeep. Thicket raised his hackles, and hissed at the man.
“Leave him be,” Dirk said.
“Or what, ba-swamm?” the dour man demanded, wheeling on Dirk. The young woman put her hand on her bodyguard's arm. He shrugged it off, but said nothing further. He glowered at Dirk from beneath his heavy brows. Dirk paid him no mind, returning his attention to the woman. She folded her hands in front of her, and offered a smile. It was as lovely as the rest of her, but strained at the corners.
“You are the man called Dirk Crier?” she asked.
“I am,” Dirk said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Afra,” she said. “May I sit?”
“Please,” Dirk said, gesturing with a hand to the chair opposite him.
Afra sat, resting her hands on the tabletop. The guard with the braid leaned against one of the support beams, and the other stood two paces back from Afra's right shoulder. Dirk extended his index finger, and nudged the heavy blades toward Afra.
“These are for you,” he said.
She frowned, confused. “Why?”
“A peace offering,” Dirk said.
“You have odd notions of peace, ba-swamm,” the man with the braid said. “You attack two of our men, take their sacred blades, and then dare us to come here. Is that how peace is made where you come from?”
“My grandmere has a proverb she taught me when I was small,” Dirk said, speaking to Afra rather than her guardian. “Be kind first, as fair words are tainted when they follow bitter actions. If kindness does not sway, be firm, as the wise will see and respect strength. If they are not wise enough to respect your strength, hurt them. Pain speaks in a way even the deaf will hear.”
“Wise words,” the dour man said, a growl in his voice.
“Yes,” Dirk said. “And that is why I asked your men politely if they would speak with me. For my politeness, I was struck across the face. I asked again, and they drew their blades. After I took them away, I asked a third time. They gave me no answer, so I told them I would wait for someone who would.”
“What did you wish to speak with them about?” Afra asked.
“I seek a man. He came through here a season past. Young, tall, dark of hair and fair of face. He rode an old gray nag, and was seen heading up the north road.” Dirk lifted his cup with his right hand and took a slow sip, careful to keep his left hand resting near the table edge. “I was told outsiders were not welcome in the north, so rather than cross your boundary, I sought to ask men who w
ould know.”
“Did he have a name, this man you seek?” Afra asked after a long, quiet moment.
“He told those here it was Glynn,” Dirk said. “His true name is Teller.”
“And what is he to you?” Afra asked. “This man you seek?”
“My cousin,” Dirk said.
“Is he not grown?” the man with the braid sneered. “Does he need a harame to come wipe his nethers, and give him a milk rag to suckle?”
Dirk answered the bodyguard without looking at him. “It matters not how many years he has. He called for aid. So I came.”
The man's sneer vanished, replaced by a scowl. Afra entwined her fingers together, and regarded Dirk. A log popped on the fire. Caddell twitched, his knuckles white around his walking stick's knotted head. Dirk waited, watching his three white-clad visitors with half-lidded eyes.
“A man such as you say did come north a season past,” Afra said. She spoke carefully, weighing each word before letting it pass her lips. “He was brought to Lanissara, and they spoke.”
“Do you know what they spoke of?” Dirk asked.
“No,” Afra said. “It is not my place to question. If the Vor Dak'ham wanted me to know, then she would have told me.”
“What happened after they spoke?” Dirk asked.
“He left,” the braided bodyguard said. He gestured at himself, and at the other man. “We two walked him out of our lands, and saw him westward down the road.”
Dirk nodded. Afra nodded. Her bodyguards nodded. She pushed back from the table, and smiled at Dirk. The strain pinched her face, turning the smile into a pretty grimace.
“I wish you good fortune on your travels, then,” she said. “I hope you find him, before long.”
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