“Come on!” Jeirran dragged the stable door open. He shoved Teiriol through then wedged it shut with his stave. Stuffing his stained gloves into a pocket, he put on his cape, securing the front to conceal the blood on his shirt. He looked cautiously out from the mouth of the alley. “We need to get clear and quickly.”
Teiriol caught up his own cape, pausing to splash his boots through water gathered where some cobbles had been dug up. “That should show our man Harquas we mean business,” he observed with satisfaction. “And I can tell Keisyl I’ve settled his debts in full.”
“You’ll say nothing of the kind, not a word to him nor to Eirys,” snapped Jeirran. “Anyway, it was hardly a fight to boast of, was it? They call these Watchmen tough? They wouldn’t last three days in a mining camp!” His eyes rested briefly on the wrestling matches still being hotly contested. “We leave swiftly but calmly and we don’t look back. We came to watch the wrestling, we found nothing to interest us and now we’re going back to our lodgings. That’s what we tell Eirys and Keis and anyone else who comes asking. Do you understand?”
“Of course,” Teiriol couldn’t resist one glance over his shoulder as they left the slaughter yards behind them. “So what now?”
“We clean ourselves up before the others return. We eat whatever that thief of a landlady claims is a four-Mark dinner and then you and Keisyl take yourselves off for whatever entertainment you fancy. Eirys and I deserve a quiet evening in, just the two of us,” announced Jeirran, eyes bright with anticipation. “I think it’s about time she showed me some appreciation.”
Selerima, Western Ensaimin,
Second Day of the Spring Fair, Evening
The runes finally rolled my way when I reached the Crackwillow, a tidily kept eating-house on the corner of the Audit Way. The resonant song of a lute floated out through an open shutter. Childhood recollection stirred to Forest rhythms and I pushed open the door to find a neatly furnished room where respectable worthies were entertaining wives and daughters over sumptuous pastries and expensive wines. It was several breaths before the servitors noticed me, all eyes turned to the minstrel sat by the stairs, his own closed as he lost himself in the melody.
He was no new traveler, fresh from the Forest and eager to taste adventure. This man had been pacing the roads that knit together the Old Empire for nigh on a generation, if I were any judge. Of a little less than common height, his angular face was weathered, hair no longer the red of autumn leaves but faded amber streaked with white, receding at temples and crown and cropped close. His long-fingered hand on the frets of his lute was bony, the other plucking the strings in the Forest manner was deft with the thickened nails and calloused tips of a lifetime’s playing. His voice had the rich timbre of a double-reeded flute and the depth of a thousand leagues’ experience. His clothes, unremarkable in color or cut and showing signs of wear at knees and elbows, had once cost good coin paid to a master tailor. He was unmistakably of the Folk but old enough to be wise and spend winters traveling where inns offered warm beds and hot food, returning only when the woods were green, the living easy in the fruitful days of summer. A heavy gold chain around his neck was threaded through a handful of rings and each ear was pierced several times, gems catching the candlelight. Forest Folk, like pied crows, have a taste for such things.
“Can I be of service?” A youth in a spotless apron hovered politely at my elbow.
“I wish to speak to the singer.” I rolled the Forest cadence off my tongue, my father’s accents vivid in my memory.
“He takes his break in the back yard.” The boy looked uncertain. “Would you care to wait there?”
“Thank you.” I hardly expected the usual dumping ground for broken crocks and empty casks, given the good order of the house, but the yard still came as a welcome surprise. The gray paving was swept clean and pots of herbs were ranged around the walls, warm in the late sun and sweetening the air as I brushed against them. A bower seat’s roses were scarcely more than bare stems at this season but still made a pleasant place to sit and wait and admire a carved statue of Halcarion. The goddess gazed at her own reflection, combing her hair over a broad marble basin. I recalled I’d wanted to find a shrine for an offering.
“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?” The minstrel’s voice sent a thrill of recognition through me as he stood silhouetted against the early lamps behind him. I recalled a garret bedroom, my father halting on the threshold after singing me to sleep with songs of a heritage so long lost to me. But this man was not my father, so I got myself in hand at once.
“If you see the Maiden tending her hair and biding her time until Drianon calls her to motherhood. For myself, I prefer the tales where she makes men and moons alike dance to her tune.” I realized I was gabbling and shut my mouth.
“That’ll be your blood talking, given the color of your hair.” The minstrel said something else in the fluid tongue of the Forest, the stresses suggesting some proverb or truism but the words meant nothing to me.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” I shook my head in apology.
The minstrel leaned against the flecked and crumbling orange brick of the wall and raised an eyebrow. “You have all the pieces, and if you want to talk to me, I assume you want to play, but you don’t know the rules?”
“That depends on the game,” I countered. I can do this kind of banter readily enough but wondered what his point was.
“Life is the game, my dear, the whole round of it.” He smiled at me and this time a light that I recognized well enough lit his copper-colored eyes. “So if you’re not of the Folk, how do you come to have all the pieces that make a Forest maid, and such a very fine set at that?” He looked me up and down with that slow intensity many women find flattering.
“My father left me the outer shell.” I tried to convey polite disinterest. Luckily another concern diverted my companion.
“Where and when were you born?” he asked, a faint worry wrinkling his brow.
“In Vanam, in the Aft of Autumn twenty-seven years past, to a servant girl called Aniss,” I replied, my smile broadening.
He evidently ran rapidly through his memories of travel and conquest and his expression soon cleared to share my amusement. “In that year, at the relevant season, I was in Col, my dear,” he said with a formal bow. “If you are seeking a lost father, I am afraid I do not have that honor.”
“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, don’t worry.” The door opened with a timely interruption as the lad came out with a tray of fancy pastries and an etched glass jug of golden wine, moisture beading the sides as it carried the chill of an ice cellar.
“Here’s to our common blood in any case.” The minstrel poured me a glass and raised his own in salute. “What is your name?”
“I’m Livak.” I toasted him in turn.
“And I am Frue,” he responded. “Your father left you with a fine Forest name, at very least,” he observed before hungrily biting into a flaky shell crammed with spiced apple.
I accepted his mute offer of an apricot tart, curiously remembering how my mother had resisted every blandishment and threat my grandmother could summon in her various attempts to rename me after my father’s periodic visits ceased. “His name was Jihol,” I volunteered, surprised by my own unbidden words.
“Of what kin?” Frue cocked his head to one side. “Do you know?”
“Of the Deer, I think.” I drank some wine and cast around for some means of ending this fruitless conversation.
Frae’s stillness was broken with an abrupt shake of his head. “No, don’t know him, not to my knowledge.”
“It’s not important,” I said with relief. In fact, I’d probably take some pains to avoid my long absent parent, if the breezes brought any scent of him. I had enough uncertainties to juggle in my life at present.