They drove the mules hard. The twins no longer smiled and sang, even though Loy took to crooning wordlessly over the girl. She did not wake from her sleep. Her body grew thinner with each passing hour until it seemed she was only a collection of bones wrapped with skin. From time to time, Loy managed to trickle drops of honey and water between her lips.
“Her skin feels like fire,” he said. “And the wounds on her leg stink of rot.”
“Tomorrow morning we’ll be there,” said Murnan.
“Might be too late.”
“Aye,” said the other twin. “If these lazy mules of yours weren’t weighted so heavily, we’d make better time. Be there by nightfall.”
The twins both glared at the trader. He tried to stare them down but could not.
“All right!” he said. “Have it your way. It’ll mean less for all of us at journey’s end.”
After a hasty discussion they decided on the copper ingots, as well as a pair of silver cats that had caught Murnan’s eye in Damarkan.
“For a wedding,” he said to himself. “They’d have been a perfect wedding gift. Cwen loves cats.” But then he subsided into silence, for his thoughts turned to another wedding and the miller’s face staring up blindly at the sky.
They buried the copper and the cats at the foot of an oak in a dell near the river Rennet. It was beginning to rain. The mules stepped out eagerly, now that their burdens had been lightened.
“Ten hours,” said the trader.
It was closer to nine hours and just into night when they reached the gates of Hearne. The horses steamed with sweat in the light of the flaring lamps and the mules refused to move once they clattered under the stone arch. A young officer emerged from the guard tower.
“Sir—”
“I need a physician. Quickly, and the best you know!”
The officer raised his eyebrows.
“Physicians don’t just come for anyone, sir. Even in Hearne, only a few practice and they cost a—”
“What’s this?” said a voice behind the officer. A man sauntered down the steps of the guard tower. The young officer stepped to one side and saluted him.
“Murnan Col, is it not?” said the man.
“My lord?” said the trader.
The lamplight drew the man’s face out of shadow, revealing a bony visage with startling blue eyes and dark hair falling over his forehead.
“You sold me a pair of emeralds a year ago,” said the man. “Perfectly matched. Had them made into earrings for my wife.”
“Ah!” Murnan’s face lightened. “Owain Gawinn! My lord, surely fate has brought you here. I’m sorely in need of your assistance. I know a good physician’s hard to find, but not for the regent’s Lord Captain of Hearne.”
“For yourself, no doubt,” said Owain, though he didn’t mean it. His eyes had already noted the form cradled in Loy’s arms.
“Several days ago, my lord, as we came up from Damarkan, we arrived at a village on a tributary of the Rennet. A little place I’ve traded at before, pleasant and friendly folk. This time, however, when we entered the village we found a charnel house out of the worst nightmare! Every person slain except for this one poor girl we brought away, and she is gravely wounded. Perhaps it would be a kindness to let her die, seeing her people are gone, but who knows why one is left to live?”
The captain’s face had stilled at the trader’s words.
“How were the villagers killed?” he asked. His voice was quiet. “Did you take time to notice?”
Murnan’s face twisted in disgust. “Their bodies were disfigured by the birds and rats feeding, but it seemed they died in one of two ways. Some had deep wounds, thin and precise as if stabbed by knife or sword. Others had their throats torn out as if by a wild beast.”
Owain Gawinn said nothing more after that, except to snap an order to the young officer at the gate. Soldiers dashed out with fresh horses, and in a matter of seconds the trader and the twins found themselves hurried along through the streets of Hearne. The rain and the darkness and the looming walls around them passed by in a blur of clattering hoofs and the muttered talk of the soldiers. Owain rode at their head, but he seemed a shadow flitting through the night, only just in sight and always out of reach.
The street climbed up a steep rise. The houses were larger there, mansions, for the most part, set back behind walls and gardens. The rain rustled overhead in the branches of trees sheltering the street. They came to a gate in a high wall. Owain called out, and the gate swung open. They entered into a courtyard. Light spilled from doorways and windows. Servants came forward.
“Welcome to my house,” said Owain Gawinn.
The regent’s own physician came and tended to the little girl. He was an old man with a stern face, but his hands were gentle and the girl’s labored breathing eased under his touch.
“Her blood’s tainted with a strange poison,” he said. He bled her with a knife into a stone vial, though Loy scowled and grumbled in the corner so much that he had to be ushered from the room. Owain’s four children peeped in through the doorway, all with his blue eyes. Sibb, his wife, swept in and out with hot water and a cool hand that seemed to do just as much good, if not more, than the physician.
Murnan Col left that same night, relieved and heading north to Thule and home. One twin, Gann, went with him, but Loy stayed behind in the house of Owain Gawinn, for, as he said to his brother, he had felt the little girl’s life ebb away in his arms over the course of those past days and he wished to see her whole again before he left.
Her fever broke after three days, and the wounds on her arm and leg began to heal. But even though she opened her eyes, she would only stare at her visitors. Not a sound escaped her lips, despite Owain’s repeated attempts to question her. Finally, his wife banned him from the room.
“She’ll speak when she’s ready,” she said. “Until then, you’ll have to wait. Now go, before I lose my patience.”
“Know your place, Sibb!” said her husband. But then he laughed and kissed her. He was a wise man and knew that his wife was wiser still in most matters.
The days passed, and still the girl remained silent. All of them grew used to her grave eyes—Owain, his wife Sibb, their children, the servants, and Loy—though Owain wondered what it was that she had seen. This was not the first tale he had heard of such killings, but it was the first time he had encountered a survivor.
After some time, the girl plucked up enough courage to venture out of her room, but only if Loy was in view. Besides Owain’s wife, he was the only one she would suffer to pick her up. But even for him she remained silent and solemn, despite the many ridiculous faces he would make for her benefit. Not a night went by without a nightmare coming to her, and it was only then she made noise—screaming as if she were looking into the darkness of Daghoron itself. The household waited patiently for her improvement and speech. She remained mute, however, and so the family grew to expect nothing more of her, though Sibb wept over her sometimes at night.