Bound (Bound Trilogy) (21 page)

The woman who had greeted us held out a hand. She was older than most of them, silver-haired and with deep lines around her eyes and mouth, but there was no hint of frailty about her. She radiated calm and confidence, and a hint of low-level magic.

I’d have to watch this one. Her magic didn’t seem significant enough to be a threat, but that depended entirely on what she could do with it.

“Jein Hammus,” she said. I realized we hadn’t come up with identities for ourselves. I’d paid for our room at the inn without giving names.

Rowan reached past me to give the woman’s hand a firm shake. “Penelope Jones,” she said, then laughed nervously. “I mean, Anderson.” She gazed up at me with a sickeningly sweet expression and smiled. “Sometimes I still forget, it’s all so new. This is my husband, Doug.”

Jein Hammus smiled. “Well, how nice. Terrible time to be traveling, though.”

“Autumn?” Rowan asked.

“That, too. Please, sit with my family. Have something to eat.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but perhaps we should just—”

Rowan interrupted me. “Oh, don’t be silly, darling. It would be rude of us to refuse such generous hospitality. Thank you, Missus Hammus.”

“Jein, please.” She led us toward the rear of the tent, pausing to speak quietly to a few people along the way. The ceiling was high, held up by tall posts. Flaps in the walls indicated either exits or connections to the other tents I’d seen outside. Rowan took my hand. Her skin was icy cold. We needed the shelter, there was no question about that, and the spiced meat stew smelled wonderful. The horses needed the rest, too. I just hoped we weren’t going to become trapped again. Now that we were inside the tent, I could read most of these people better. They seemed curious, but not hostile at all. The Hammus woman remained a mystery.

She introduced us to her husband Johen and their son Frans, who looked to be twelve or thirteen years old.

“Our daughter Patience is here somewhere,” Johen said. “Probably with the other children.” He offered Rowan his seat, and I took an empty cushion next to her. Frans watched from behind the curtain of dark hair that covered his eyes and said nothing.

“I’m sorry if we’ve interrupted something,” Rowan said. She accepted a plate of stew from Johen.

“Oh, not at all,” Jein said, and settled onto another seat. She indicated that we should go ahead and eat. “We accept hospitality where we find it, and we’ve yet to turn away an honest soul we’ve met on the road who was hungry or weary.” She glanced at our clothes. “Or damp.”

“Is this wise, Mother?” Frans asked, glaring at me. “With things the way they’ve been?”

Jein sighed. “Perhaps not.” She turned to us. “Are you trustworthy?”

Rowan looked down at her plate, thinking. She looked up and grinned. “
Bildich rohmnen, pesha,
” she said.

Jein raised her eyebrows. “Not a stranger at all, then!” she said, and returned Rowan’s smile. Frans scowled and wandered off.

“I was telling Doug not too long ago that I used to play with a little boy named Romul when his family stopped at my home,” Rowan told Jein. “They brought interesting things to sell, and Romul’s mother made the most amazing cookies.”

They talked for a while, and I tried to act like I’d heard at least some of these stories before. 

A thin-faced girl with bright ribbons braided into her white-blond hair stumbled out of the crowd of running children and dropped onto the cushion between me and Jein. “Will we have a show, Mother?”

“I think not tonight, my love. We haven’t unpacked here, and our guests are weary from their travels. Another time.” The girl pouted, and when the children passed by again she flounced off to join them. Jein sighed. “Sometimes I wonder why we name our children before we know them well. I’m not holding much hope of that one growing into hers.”

When Rowan mentioned that there had been other people on the road, following us, Jein excused herself. “Don’t worry about anything,” she said, and laid a hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “We haven’t let enemies find us before, and we won’t now.” She and Johen, along with many of the other adults, bundled into their shawls, capes, or jackets and headed out into the storm. I wanted to follow, but couldn’t without being seen. I stayed on-edge, aware, but nothing seemed dangerous. Perhaps these people were what they seemed.

No,
I thought.
No one is.

Two white-haired old women stayed behind, huddled close to a cluster of burning torches, and half a dozen other adults cleaned up after the meal, occasionally sending curious glances our way. The children continued their game, racing in circles until someone shushed them. Patience gathered the children close and spoke to them, and they all raced outside, yelling. The tent smelled of damp wool and burnt wood, but it was far more pleasant than being outside.

Rowan scooted closer to me. “How was your meal, dear?”

“Just wonderful, Penelope, oh light of my life,” I replied dryly, and she stifled a giggle behind her hand. “Nice names. Where did those come from?”

“I once had a goat named Penelope.”

“And Doug?”

“I have no idea.”

“And Bindig Row—”

“
Bildich rohmnen, pesha
. It means something like ‘We are friends, dear one.’ Romul’s mother taught it to me, said it was a good phrase to know, especially if I needed help from the Wanderers. I had forgotten all about it.”

I didn’t want to talk too much about what we were doing, not with other people possibly listening, but we couldn’t avoid it completely. “We can’t stay here. We know nothing about these people.”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you think everyone is after us? They’re Wanderers. I really doubt they’re working for your brother. They obviously don’t know who we are, anyway. You’re being too suspicious.”

“And you’re too trusting.”

“Well, I guess that evens it out then, doesn’t it?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. There wasn’t time to, anyway. A woman we hadn’t met yet was coming toward us with brightly-colored clothing folded over both arms. “Hello, my dears. I’m Alys. Jein thought you might like to borrow some clothes while your own are drying by the fire.” I reached into my pack. Everything was damp.

“Thank you,” I said, and she nodded.

“If you go through the flap over there you can get changed in the storage space. It’s small, but I don’t suppose that will be a problem.” She winked, then walked toward the old women. Rowan flashed me a smug smile and carried both piles of clothing toward the storage room.

Rowan changed her clothes first, emerging in an orange sweater with a wide neckline and a reddish-brown skirt that fit tight through the hips and fell in loose folds to her ankles. I took my turn, nearly tripping over the piles of boxes and sacks piled on the floor as I struggled to get out of my wet trousers. The smells of onions and spices tickled my nose. Alys had brought me a blue shirt that slipped over my head and laced at the front, far more colorful than I liked, but I wouldn’t complain.

I took my dagger from my bag and slipped it into the deep pocket of my borrowed pants. When I returned to the main room, Rowan was waiting nearby. Alys took our wet things and disappeared through another flap in the side of the tent, returning moments later.

“This place must be huge,” Rowan said, stretching to try to look through the other doorway.

“I’m sure when you spend most of your time traveling, you figure these things out. You never saw anything like this in your extensive dealings with the Wanderers?”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say extensive. I only met them twice, and not this group. Ours only came out in the summer.”

Patience dashed in out of the rain wearing a pink dress that she had to hold up to keep out of the mud, and a floppy red hat that dripped rainwater everywhere. A motley band of seven other children followed her, the youngest just a few years old, all dressed in wild and colorful clothes. “Ladies and gentlemen and extinguished guests!” she bellowed, and Alys chuckled. “Preeeeeesenting the finest show in the entire world!”

“Oh, I love the theater,” Rowan said, and joined in the scattered applause that was nearly drowned out by the rain.

Patience’s voice had no such problem. She bellowed out a rough program that sounded like it would drag on for hours. When she finished, Rowan clapped again, then stood. “Come on,” she said. “We should get better seats.”

“You’re joking.”

She frowned down at me. “Douglas Anderson, are you telling me that you’re too important and busy right now to enjoy a show performed by the great actors of the future?”

Once again I didn’t know how to argue with her. A few of the adults who had left earlier returned, and though they smiled at the children, none of them took seats with us. I stretched my awareness, but still felt nothing dangerous, and none of these people paid particular attention to us. I decided to stay alert, but went with Rowan to find seats close to the area the children were clearing for their show.

The theater had always seemed like a waste of time to me. I’d seen a few shows, but none like this one, a mixture of made-up play and plenty of opportunities for the performers to show off unrelated talents. I wasn’t particularly fond of children, but these ones put on an interesting, if confusing, show. There were several lengthy sword battles, and the littlest troll kept wandering off when he was supposed to be terrorizing a village. Everything was exaggerated and dramatic, and it wouldn’t have been hard to laugh at it, but I didn’t think it was supposed to be a comedy. I just clapped when everyone else did at the end of the scenes and tried not to jump to my feet every time someone came into the tent.

They surprised me, too. One of the older girls sang a song about a maiden who fell in love with a dragon, and her voice was beautiful enough to have commanded any stage in Tyrea. Rowan was wiping tears from her eyes by the end of that one.

You trust too easily and you cry too often,
I thought,
but there are far worse things.
I turned away before she could catch me watching her.

After a tumbling act put on by two brothers who would probably be great performers once they got their timing right—and stopped punching each other when things went wrong—the show concluded with a troll being run through with a collapsing sword and roasted over a fire made from orange and yellow fabrics. Rowan gave them a standing ovation.

By the time the play was over, the smell of another meal was filling the tent. Rowan ran over to the performers to congratulate them and ask about their costumes, and I walked around the inside of the tent, examining the walls and trying to figure out why I hadn’t sensed people near the ruins. There were no known or registered sorcerers among any groups of Wanderers, but this protective magic was strong enough that there had to be one here more powerful than Jein.

After supper, during which I stayed quiet and tried to remember everything Rowan was saying about us, we sat with Jein and drank strong, hot tea. The woman was charming and kind, but had a hard edge to her and avoided speaking to me. She had magic in her, and could surely feel mine. Perhaps that made her wary.

Several of the children came to say goodnight to Rowan before their parents bundled them off to bed. “I heard there was a performance this afternoon,” Jein said. “The children are always so happy to have a fresh audience. It’s good practice for when they’re older, but we don’t always have time to watch.”

“So you travel and perform shows?” Rowan asked. “All of you?”

“We do. We also do a little trading along the way, and yes, we always travel together, though not usually so late in the autumn. People want shows in the summer, when life is easy and fun. Most have no time for them when things are harder, though entertainment would probably do them more good then. It’s more difficult to travel in the colder months, too.” She glanced toward the tent’s roof, where rain was still beating out a steady rhythm. “Obviously. Normally we would be at home now, settling in before the snows come.”

I knew what Rowan was going to ask, and I didn’t want her to. I thought I could guess the answer. “Why are you traveling now?” she asked, oblivious to my warning look.

Jein sipped from her cup. “Things have been difficult for us, particularly the past two years. The… I don’t know whether he calls himself the king yet.”

He doesn’t
, I thought.
Not until our father is declared dead
.

“In any case, our home was a little too close to the capital city, and has been taken over as a military training ground. It’s nothing to him to displace a few people who hardly pay taxes and won’t swear loyalty to him. There were…” She swallowed hard and shook her head. “It’s better for us to be here.”

She took us outside into what had become a light drizzle and led the way toward one of the wagons. “No sense you two sleeping on the floor of the hall,” she said, and opened the door. The tall, hard-topped structure was cold inside, but they had set up a soft bed in the back with several heavy blankets, and left us a tall candle with twelve hour-markings on it.

“We’re not displacing anyone, I hope,” Rowan said, and picked up a soft-looking purple blanket to wrap around her shoulders.

“No. Not right now,” Jein said. “We’ll hope the sun shows his face in the morning. I’m growing tired of lamps and torches.”

After she’d gone Rowan asked, “You won’t sleep, will you?”

“Probably not. I don’t want to change here, and sleeping as a human means I can’t be sure of waking quickly if there’s a problem.” There was more to it, but nothing she needed to know.

“What if we took turns keeping watch? I can stay awake for a few hours while you get some rest.”

I wanted the first watch, but she insisted that I needed sleep more than she did. “Can’t have you dozing off, can we? Besides, I don’t trust you to wake me up to take my turn.” She pulled a pillow to a spot beside the door and sat with her legs crossed under her skirt, flipping through a book of plays she found lying on a box of larger volumes. The candlelight picked out the red in her hair, making it glow. I looked away and sat on the edge of the bed.