The Hidden City (14 page)

Zalasta's face twisted, and he threw back his head and actually howled. ‘I'd rather see her dead!'

Scarpa's pale, bearded face grew sly. ‘Why don't you kill her then, Father?' he asked in an insinuating whisper. ‘Once a decent woman's been bedded by an Elene,
she can never be trusted again, you know. Even if you
did
persuade her to marry you, she'd never be faithful.' He laid an insincere hand on his father's arm. ‘Kill her, Father,' he advised. ‘At least your memories of her will be pure;
she
never will be.'

Zalasta howled again and clawed at his beard with his long fingernails. Then he turned quickly and ran off down the street.

Krager straightened, and his seeming drunkenness slid away. ‘You took an awful chance there, you know,' he said in a cautious tone.

Scarpa looked sharply at him. ‘Very good, Krager,' he murmured. ‘You played the part of a drunkard almost to perfection.'

‘I've had lots of practice,' Krager shrugged. ‘You're lucky he didn't obliterate you, Scarpa – or tie your guts in knots again.'

‘He couldn't,' Scarpa smirked. ‘I'm a fair magician myself, you know, and I'm skilled enough to know that you have to have a clear head to work the spells. I kept him in a state of rage. He couldn't have worked up enough magic to break a spider-web. Let's hope that he
does
kill Sephrenia. That should
really
scatter Sparhawk's wits, not to mention the fact that as soon as the desire of his life is no more than a pile of dead meat, Zalasta's very likely to conveniently cut his own throat.'

‘You really hate him, don't you?'

‘Wouldn't you, Krager? He could have taken me with him when I was a child, but he'd come to visit for a while, and he'd show me what it meant to be a Styric, and then he'd go off alone, leaving me behind to be tormented by whores. If he doesn't have the stomach to cut his own throat, I'd be more than happy to lend him a hand.' Scarpa's eyes were very bright, and he was smiling broadly. ‘Where's your wine barrel, Krager?' he asked. ‘Right now I feel like getting drunk.' And he
began to laugh, a cackling, insane laugh empty of any mirth or humanity.

‘It's no use!' Ehlana said, flinging the comb across the room. ‘Look at what they've done to my hair!' She buried her face in her hands and wept.

‘It's not hopeless, my Lady,' Alean said in her soft voice. ‘There's a style they wear in Cammoria.' She lifted the mass of blonde hair on the right side of Ehlana's head and brought it over across the top. ‘You see,' she said. ‘It covers all the bare places, and it really looks quite chic'

Ehlana looked hopefully into her mirror. ‘It doesn't look
too
bad, does it?' she conceded.

‘And if we set a flower just behind your right ear, it would really look very stunning.'

‘Alean, you're wonderful!' the Queen exclaimed happily. ‘What would I ever do without you?'

It took them the better part of an hour, but at last the unsightly bare places were covered, and Ehlana felt that some measure of her dignity had been restored.

That evening, however, Krager came to call. He stood swaying in the doorway, his eyes bleary and a drunken smirk on his face. ‘Harvest-time again, Ehlana,' he announced, drawing his dagger. ‘It seems that I'll need just a bit more of your hair.'

The sky remained overcast, but as luck had it, it had not yet rained. The stiff wind coming in off the Gulf of Micae was raw, however, and they rode with their cloaks wrapped tightly about them. Despite Khalad's belief that it was to their advantage to move slowly, Berit was consumed with impatience. He knew that what they were doing was only a small part of the overall strategy, but the confrontation they all knew was coming loomed ahead, and he desperately wanted to get on with it. ‘How can you be so patient?' he asked Khalad about mid-afternoon one day when the onshore wind was particularly chill and damp.

‘I'm a farmer, Sparhawk,' Khalad replied, scratching at his short black beard. ‘Waiting for things to grow teaches you not to expect changes overnight.'

‘I suppose I've never really thought about what it must be like just sitting still waiting for things to sprout.'

‘There's not much sitting still when you're a farmer,' Khalad told him. ‘There are always more things to do than there are hours in the day, and if you get bored, you can always keep a close watch on the sky. A whole year's work can be lost in a dry-spell or a sudden hailstorm.'

‘I hadn't thought about that either.' Berit mulled it over. ‘That's what makes you so good at predicting the weather, isn't it?'

‘It helps.'

‘There's more to it than that, though. You always seem to know about everything that's going on around you. When we were on that log-boom, you knew
instantly when there was the slightest change in the way it was moving.'

‘It's called “paying attention”, my Lord. The world around you is screaming at you all the time, but most people can't seem to hear it. That really baffles me. I can't understand how you can miss so many things.'

Berit was just slightly offended by that. ‘All right, what's the world screaming at you right now that I can't hear?'

‘It's telling me that we're going to need some fairly substantial shelter tonight. We've got bad weather coming.'

‘How did you arrive at that?'

Khalad pointed. ‘You see those seagulls?' he asked.

‘Yes. What's that got to do with it?'

Khalad sighed. ‘What do seagulls eat, my Lord?'

‘Just about everything – fish mostly, I suppose.'

‘Then why are they flying inland? They aren't going to find very many fish on dry land, are they? They've seen something they don't like out there in the gulf and they're running away from it. Just about the only thing that frightens a seagull is wind – and the high seas that go with it. There's a storm out to sea, and it's coming this way.
That's
what the world's screaming at me right now.'

‘It's just common sense then, isn't it?'

‘Most things are, Sparhawk – common sense and experience.' Khalad smiled slightly. I can still feel Krager's Styric out there watching us. If he isn't paying any more attention than you were just now, he's probably going to spend a very miserable night.'

Berit grinned just a bit viciously. ‘Somehow that information fails to disquiet me,' he said.

It was more than a village, but not quite a town. It had three streets, for one thing, and at least six buildings of more than one story, for another. The streets were
muddy, and pigs roamed freely. The buildings were made primarily of wood and they were roofed with thatch. There was an inn on what purported to be the main street. It was a substantial-looking building, and there were a pair of rickety wagons with dispirited mules in their traces out front. Ulath reined in the weary old horse he had bought in the fishing village. ‘What do you think?' he said to his friend.

‘I thought you'd never ask,' Tynian replied.

‘Let's go ahead and take a room as well,' Ulath suggested. The afternoon's wearing on anyway, and I'm getting tired of sleeping on the ground. Besides, I'm a little overdue for a bath.'

Tynian looked toward the starkly outlined peaks of the Tamul Mountains lying some leagues to the west. ‘I'd really hate to keep the Trolls waiting, Ulath,' he said with mock seriousness.

‘It's not as if we had a definite appointment with them. Trolls wouldn't notice anyway. They've got a very imprecise notion of time.'

They rode on into the innyard, tied their horses to a rail outside the stable and went on into the inn.

‘We need a room,' Ulath told the innkeeper in heavily accented Tamul.

The innkeeper was a small, furtive-looking man. He gave them a quick, appraising glance, noting the bits and pieces of army uniform that made up most of their dress. His expression hardened with distaste. Soldiers are frequently unwelcome in rural communities for any number of very good reasons. ‘Well,' he replied in a whining, sing-song sort of voice, ‘I don't know. It's our busy season -'

‘Late autumn?' Tynian broke in skeptically.
‘That's
your busy season?'

‘Well – there are all the wagoneers who can come by at any time, you know.'

Ulath looked beyond the innkeeper's shoulder into the low, smoky taproom. ‘I count three,' he said flatly.

There are bound to be more along shortly,' the fellow replied just a bit too quickly.

‘Of
course
there are,' Tynian said sarcastically. ‘But we're here
now,
and we've got money. Are you going to gamble a sure thing against the remote possibility that some wagon might stop here along about midnight?'

‘He doesn't want to do business with a couple of pensioned-off veterans, Corporal,' Ulath said. ‘Let's go talk with the local commissioner. I'm sure he'll be very interested in the way this fellow treats his Imperial Majesty's soldiers.'

‘I'm his Imperial Majesty's loyal subject,' the innkeeper said quickly, ‘and I'll be honored to have brave veterans of his army under my roof.'

‘How much?' Tynian cut him off.

‘A half-crown?'

‘He doesn't seem very certain, does he, Sergeant?' Tynian asked his friend. I think you misunderstood,' he said then to the nervous innkeeper. ‘We don't want to
buy
the room. We just want to rent it for one night.'

Ulath was staring hard at the now-frightened little Tamul. ‘Eight pence,' he countered with a note of finality.

‘Eight?'
the innkeeper objected in a shrill voice.

‘Take it or leave it – and don't be all day about it. We'll need a little daylight to find the Commissioner.'

‘You're a hard man, Sergeant.'

‘Nobody ever promised you that life would be easy, did they?' Ulath counted out some coins and jingled them in his hand. ‘Do you want these or not?'

After a moment of agonized indecision, the innkeeper reluctantly took the coins.

‘You took all the fun out of that, you know,' Tynian
complained as the two went back out to the stable to see to their horses.

‘I'm thirsty,' Ulath shrugged. ‘Besides, a couple of ex-soldiers would know in advance exactly how much they were willing to pay, wouldn't they?' He scratched at his face. ‘I wonder if Sir Gerda would mind if I shaved off his beard,' he mused. This thing itches.'

‘It's not
really
his face, Ulath. It's still yours. You've just been modified to look like him.'

‘Yes, but when the ladies switch our faces back, they'll use
this
one as a model for Gerda, and when they're done, he'll be standing there with a naked face. He might object.'

They unsaddled their horses, put them into stalls and went on into the taproom. Tamul drinking establishments were arranged differently from those owned by Elenes. The tables were much lower, for one thing, and here the room was heated by a porcelain stove rather than a fireplace. The stove smoked as badly as a fireplace, though. Wine was served in delicate little cups and ale in cheap tin tankards. The smell was much the same, however.

They were just starting on their second tankard of ale when an officious-looking Tamul in a food-spotted wool mantle came into the room and walked directly to their table. ‘I'll have a look at your release papers, if you don't mind,' he told them in a loftily superior tone.

‘And if we do?' Ulath asked.

The official blinked. ‘What?'

‘You said if we don't mind. What if we
do
mind?'

‘I have the authority to demand to see those documents.'

‘Why did you ask, then?' Ulath reached inside his red uniform jacket and took out a dog-eared sheet of paper. ‘In our old regiment, men in authority never asked.'

The Tamul read through the documents Oscagne had
provided them as a part of their disguise. These seem to be in order,' he said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘Sorry I was so abrupt. We've been told to keep our eyes out for deserters – all the turmoil, you understand. I guess the army looks a lot less attractive when there's fighting in the wind.' He looked at them a bit wistfully. ‘I see you were stationed in Matherion.'

Tynian nodded. ‘It was good duty – a lot of inspections and polishing, though. Sit down, Commissioner.'

The Tamul smiled faintly. ‘Deputy-Commissioner, I'm afraid, Corporal. This backwater doesn't rate a full Commissioner.' He slid into a chair. ‘Where are you men bound?'

‘Home,' Ulath said, ‘back to Verel in Daconia.'

‘You'll forgive my saying so, Sergeant, but you don't look all that much like a Dacite.'

Ulath shrugged. I take after my mother's family. She was an Astel before she married my father. Tell me, Deputy-Commissioner, would we save very much time if we went straight on across the Tamul Mountains to reach Sopal? We thought we'd catch a ferry or some trading ship there, go across the Sea of Arjun to Tiana and then ride on down to Saras. It's only a short way from there to Verel.'

‘I'd advise staying out of the Tamul Mountains, my friends.'

‘Bad weather?' Tynian asked him.

‘That's always possible at this time of year, Corporal, but there have been some disturbing reports coming out of those mountains. It seems that the bears up there have been breeding like rabbits. Every traveler who's come through here in the past few weeks reports sighting the brutes. Fortunately they all run away.'

‘Bears, you say?'

The Tamul smiled. ‘I'm translating. The ignorant peasants around here use the word “monster”, but we
all know what a large, shaggy creature who lives alone in the mountains is, don't we?'