13

IT WAS JUST on dusk as we rode into the market square alongside the safe house. I had taken a circuitous route from the city gate.

I asked Gahltha to stop and took a long careful look around the market. He moved restlessly under me, sending that his flesh itched and stank abominably and asking why we had to go so slowly.

“I have to make sure we weren’t followed,” I sent firmly.

He trotted into the lane leading to the wagon-repair yard without comment. I slid off his back and removed the false bit and bridle, lighting a lantern. “I’ll wash/brush you down,” I sent.

We walked together to the high gate leading to the grassy courtyard. At the far end of the yard was a shed where hay and oats were kept. Jaygar was a shadow grazing in the deeper darkness alongside it, and he lifted his head to greet us.

I hung the lantern from a nail and stepped into the shed to find a brush.

“Clean Gal-ta?”

I started at the voice rising from the shadowy interior of the feed shed.

“Dragon?” I called softly.

The empath-coercer emerged carrying the curry brush. She looked even dirtier than usual, her face woebegone and tearstained.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her.

She held up the brush. “Dragon dirty Gal-ta. Dragon clean Gal-ta. Dragon waiting and waiting.”

“Does Kella know where you are?”

“Kella sad,” Dragon said earnestly. “Cryingcryingcrying here.” She pointed to her slight breasts. “Water here.” She touched one of her eyes. “Not see. Not hear Dragon.”

I frowned. The empath’s ability to perceive emotions was improving dramatically if she could sense inner tears. “And Matthew? Where is he?”

Dragon scowled. “Matthew say, ‘Dragon go away.’ Dragon go. Not need Matthew. Dragon wait here with Jaygar. Dragon loves Jaygar!”

I sent an inquiry to the roan.

“Mornir has been here since sundeath,” he confirmed. “Water came from her eyes.”

Dragon’s tears did not surprise me. Matthew had been unremittingly cold to her since our arrival at the safe house. He was being childish, but it was a personal matter between them, and I did not wish to intervene. Better if he and Dragon resolved their own difficulties.

Poor Kella’s tears were somewhat more worrisome, for her emotions were already stretched taut.

“See if you can do as good a job at cleaning Gahltha as you did in dirtying him,” I told Dragon absently. “Come inside when you have finished.”

She nodded and set to work with the brush, seeming glad of something to do. I was sorry for her boredom and loneliness, but perhaps she would learn from it that disobedience did not always produce what was desired.

Domick, Kella, and Matthew were in the kitchen. The Farseeker ward spotted me first.

“Thank Lud,” he cried fervently, jumping to his feet. “We’ve been worried sick. I tried to farseek ye, but there is so much static about. Maybe it’s just from all these minds crammed together, but it feels like trying to see over Blacklands or tainted ground.”

“Kella said a gypsy followed you at the market,” Domick interrupted. There was no sign of the previous night’s anger over what he perceived as Rushton’s mistrust.

I told them what had happened.

“Perhaps this gypsy simply mistook Elspeth for someone he knew,” Domick said dismissively. “In any case, you lost him, and I have more important news. The Council is about to institute stringent new measures for checking papers in an attempt to catch two renegade halfbreed gypsies who set another gypsy free in Guanette, killing a Herder and two soldierguards in the process.”

There was a tinge of righteousness in his tone.

“You realize this will make it more difficult for you to leave Sutrium. And as soon as you begin asking questions of gypsies, the Council or Herder Faction will hear of it, because information is as good as coin. Someone will talk, and then the gates will be nets, waiting to catch you. And the soldierguards within the city will look for you as well. There will be random street searches, and if you are wandering about …”

“I have no intention of wandering about,” I said crisply. “Nor will I be asking indiscreet questions. If I had to, I could simply have Kella wake the gypsy woman, and she could tell me whom to contact.”

To my surprise, Kella nodded easily. “If you want, I can break it now. It’s only a light seal, and it will not harm her to talk.”

“I do not like the idea,” Domick protested. “Why not simply put her in the street before waking her? She can make her own way to her people.”

Kella gave Domick a fierce look. “What if she is recognized before she has time to find them? And how will she make her way anywhere in her condition?”

“Her welfare is not our concern,” he answered coldly. His eyes shifted to me again. “I don’t understand why you are so determined to deliver her personally. Or why you have risked so much for her. She could report us.”

“And what will she have to report?” Kella asked. “A wild story about being saved by gypsies who live inside a building in the city? In any case, she is hardly likely to march off to the Council to tell her story, is she? And since we will not be dumping her in a street, she is unlikely to be caught by them and forced to speak.” She stopped abruptly, staring at her bondmate. The tension between them was fraught with unspoken angers.

“As for letting her creep away herself,” I said gently, “it would be a waste. I want to find out more about the gypsies, and this will give me the perfect opportunity. Or so Maryon advised,” I added.

“Maryon did?” Domick echoed, his belligerence lessening. “You did not say that the Futuretell guildmistress had spoken of this.”

“Didn’t I?” I asked offhandedly. I stood up and looked pointedly at Kella. “Shall we go and wake her, then, and see what she has to say?”

The healer laid a gentle hand on the gypsy’s forehead.

The woman stirred almost at once and opened her eyes. I was startled anew at their queer coloring. She gave me a deeply suspicious look, her heavy brows drawing together over the bridge of her nose.

“Who are you?” she rasped hoarsely. “Where am I?”

“You are in a safe house,” Kella said soothingly, giving her water to moisten her throat. “You have been very ill.”

The woman’s head turned sideways, and she frowned up at Kella for a long moment before her odd eyes shifted back to me.

“I do not know you.”

“I am a friend,” I said, relieved that she had no memory of her previous brief wakening.

Her chin lifted. “I would not forget the face of a friend. Yet your voice sounds … familiar.” She sounded as if this were more cause for suspicion than comfort. “What is this place?”

“As she said, it is a safe house.”

“Whose safe house? This Landgirl’s? Or yours? A gypsy girl dressed up as a boy.”

“I am no more gypsy than I am a boy,” I said bluntly. “I dye my skin and dress like this so as to travel unnoticed about the Land. I was traveling through Guanette when I came upon you. I stole you from a Herder who was about to roast you, and he was killed. Now the soldierguards are hunting me and you both. Your friend in the trees shot that Herder, not I, but the Council believes I did it.”

Her eyes were suddenly wary. “My friend?”

“The gray-haired man who helped me get you out of Guanette,” I said, bending the truth slightly.

Her eyes widened with alarm. “He helped you?”

I nodded, still narrowly skirting a direct lie. “If you tell us how to contact him, we will send him word that you are here.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Where is here?”

“We are in Sutrium.”

Her eyes darkened with mistrust. “You brought me all the way to Sutrium? Past the city gate and the soldierguards?”

“I hid you in our wagon.”

She nodded as if such trickery were commonplace, and perhaps it was among her kind. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Why not?” I could not tell her Maryon had commanded me to bring her to Sutrium.

“Why did you help me in Guanette?”

“Perhaps because we may be of some use to each other and might even become friends.”

She closed her eyes. “I have no friends.”

“Then a stranger did you an unbelievable service if that gray-haired man was not a friend,” I snapped.

Her eyes opened, glinting. “As you have done? If he was a friend, why would he ride off and leave me with strangers?”

I felt my cheeks redden and realized I had underestimated her intelligence. “We became separated. He rode toward Sutrium,” I said less aggressively. “Look, all I want to know is how to bring you to him.”

Her eyes were abruptly cool. “I do not recall asking for aid. Then or now.”

“You were in no condition to ask for help then. Nevertheless, I gave it and thought you would be pleased,” I added, unable to prevent irritation from seeping into my tone.

“You interfered of your own free will,” she snarled. “I was not afraid to die.”

“No,” I agreed shortly. “You were afraid to live.”

There was a flare of pain in her eyes then. “I am not afraid of anything,” she said, but there was a frayed edge to her tone. I guessed she was remembering snatches of her attempt to die and wondering at her dreams, for so would she judge my communications with her subconscious mind.

Her eyes went from me to Kella and back again. “What do you want of me?”

“No more than to return you to your people.” That was almost true. I tried to get into her mind again, now that she was conscious, but the block remained firm. Any further pressure and she would feel me.

“Why?” she demanded flatly. “I am no Twentyfamilies with a fat purse to reward you.”

I decided to take refuge in indignation.

“You are a fugitive wanted by the soldierguards and the Herder Faction, and they are no friends of mine. I helped you and I expected no more than a little gratitude. Well, that is too high a price for your life, it seems. Instead you insult me and accuse me of sinister motives. Well, if you want to die, that is your business, but I have vowed to return you to your people, and that is what I will do. With or without your help.”

There was a prickly silence.

“Help me to dress and show me a door and you will not need to trouble yourself,” she said stonily.

Again she had outmaneuvered me. “No.”

She nodded, as if she had anticipated the answer. “If you will not let me go, then I am your prisoner.”

I thought quickly. “In your weakened state, you are bound to be picked up by the soldierguards and questioned. You would speak of us and this place. I cannot risk it.”

“Who are you?” she said again, her expression openly baffled. Then she seemed to think of something and glared at me anew. “You needn’t think I will tell you anything.…” She stopped.

“Anything about your Twentyfamilies friend?” I asked without thought. Instantly, her face changed, and my heart sank.

Angry at my own mishandling of the matter, I said bitterly, “I don’t suppose you know what swallow means either?”

Her eyes widened in shock, the pupils swelling to devour the color. “Where … where did you hear that?”

My mind raced. “You said it in your sleep,” I lied.

“It must have been gibberish,” the gypsy said, closing her eyes again, her voice indifferent. “I do not know what it means, and I am afraid I can tell you nothing about my blood kin since I remember nothing more about myself than that I am a gypsy. If that gray-haired man you saw was a friend, I do not remember him either. Or even my name.”

She was lying, but there was nothing I could do to make her speak.

“Well, perhaps in time you will remember,” I said icily. “Just as I might recall why I bothered to save your life!”

I made a sign to Kella to put her back to sleep.

“Wretched, ungrateful woman,” I snapped as we left the chamber.

Kella shrugged. “You can’t really blame her, the way things are for halfbreeds. For all she knows, this whole thing could be an elaborate trap. You must admit it would look odd.”

Which is the closest she would come to telling me I had been clumsy. I sighed and my temper faded.

“Will you try talking to her again?” Kella asked, stopping outside the kitchen door.

“I think not. If she will not be forced to speak by the torture of her bondmate, there is no way she will tell her story to a pair of strangers with no good reason for helping her,” I said. “Damn the woman for being so difficult. I will have to find her people the hard way.”

“The hard way?”

I nodded. “I will have to go among the gypsies and probe at random people in the hope of finding some clue as to where she might safely be taken. It must be time for luck to work for me rather than against me. Where do gypsies camp when they stay in the city?”

Kella gave me a quick, comprehending look. “They are permitted to camp on any green, but most go to the largest green over near the Suggredoon.”

“Both half and pureblood gypsies?”

She nodded, clearly troubled. “Gypsies don’t think in terms of physical boundaries, so in spite of the Great Divide, Twentyfamilies camp alongside halfbreed wagons. But that does not happen often. Twentyfamilies gypsies come to Sutrium only in the Days of Rain, when they are to tender the yearly tithe. Otherwise they avoid cities.” She hesitated. “If you go there, you might encounter the Twentyfamilies man who followed us. Perhaps you could wait a few days until they have gone.”

“I dare not wait,” I interrupted. “I will have to risk it.”

Domick and Dragon were seated at the kitchen trestle when we entered, but Matthew had gone. No doubt he had departed when Dragon came in. I shook my head.

“What happened?” Domick asked.

“She will tell me nothing. I will have to go among the gypsies after all and see what I can winkle out.”

“You must be careful,” Domick said worriedly, and for a moment, he seemed like his old self. “I spoke to you of Faction and Council spies, but remember, the gypsies themselves are dangerous to cross. They may value the woman, but your knowing about her makes you a risk. The best way to protect her and themselves would be to kill you. Thinking you are a gypsy might stay their hand, but if they guess for a moment you are not what you pretend to be …”

“I will be careful,” I promised.

“Have you decided whether to meet with the rebels?” Domick asked as I ladled a mug of fement from a freshly boiled and fragrant pot.

“I have,” I said. “I am going to do it. Rushton wants to know where we stand with the rebels, and this meeting will give us an answer one way or the other. As soon as it is over, we will go at once to Obernewtyn.”

Domick nodded soberly. “That is best. But be careful tomorrow, for all our sakes.” He rose and reached for his cloak.

“You are going out again?” I asked, surprised.

“I have to go back to the Councilcourt. There is some sort of delegation from Sador arriving tonight.”

“Sador,” I murmured. There had been a lot of talk about the distant province of late. A year ago, only the few seamen who plied that part of the coast had even known of it.

He nodded. “They are coming by ship. I expect they will request the removal of the Faction mission from their domain. They have been sending delegations to that effect from the first sevenday the Herders dwelt among them.” He pulled on his cloak. “The Herders were sent not long after the road was opened. They are interfering in the Sadorian religion, and the Sadorians don’t like it. The Earthtemple in Sador regulates how much spice is harvested, and it will allow only a small yield. It is my guess the Herders have been sent by the Council to erode the power of the Earthtemple and take it for themselves. Then they will increase the spice yield.”

The coercer then departed with a perfunctory farewell that obviously distressed Kella. I felt for her, and spoke to give her time to compose herself.

“I should alter my appearance again. I dare not go out as a girl since the soldierguards have my description. I would need to have a coercive cloak the whole time, and that’s a risk. Since that Twentyfamilies gypsy saw me as a boy, I will have to think of something else. Perhaps I could remain a boy but cut off my hair.…”

“No!” Kella looked horrified. “It is so long and beautiful. Like black silk.”

Glad to have distracted her, I was nonetheless embarrassed by her words. “I don’t care about hair.”

“But gypsies do,” she said insistently. “They do not cut their hair—men or women.”

That was true enough. I had forgotten for the moment.

“Cut?” Dragon said. She was holding a knife in her hand and looking so hopeful that both Kella and I burst into laughter.

Dragon hooted along happily.

“What’s so funny?” Matthew asked lightly, coming in with his hair wet from a bath.

Dragon’s laughter died, and her eyes followed the ward as he moved across the kitchen and peered into the pot.

“I hope that is not for us,” he quipped, sniffing at the herbal preparation.

He could not have helped being aware of the empathcoercer’s obsessive regard, but he made out that he had not noticed her.

“What about something to drink?” Kella asked Matthew. He sat down and nodded.

“And will you sit and be waited on?” I snapped, disliking the lazy way he expected the healer to bring him his mug. He flushed and rose to help her, and I found myself thinking of him as he had been when first I came to Obernewtyn, with his thinness and his limp and his quick dark gaze. A child then, and not yet a man now, for all he looked like one.

“Dragon will drink,” Dragon said, looking up at him with pathetic eagerness.

The farseeker scowled, but he filled a mug with the steaming liquid and handed it to her ungraciously. Dragon took it and drank with the solemn air of a Herder acolyte performing a sacred rite.

Matthew turned pointedly away, and I felt my temper stir. He might not relish Dragon’s adoration, but there was no need for him to be so unkind. He had used all of his charm to make her obedient when he was developing her powers so that she could defend Obernewtyn, but now he was refusing to deal with what he had set in motion.

I forced my anger back, knowing Dragon would detect it if I was not more careful.

Matthew went to refill the empty pot from a stone jug on a bench, and Dragon trailed across the kitchen in his wake, drawn as if by some force she could not control. The farseeker did not notice her standing at his elbow, and when he turned back, he cannoned hard into her, sending both the full pot of fement and Dragon’s mug smashing to the floorboards.

“Fer Lud’s sake, ye idiot!” he exploded. “If ye’d drunk th’ stuff instead of gollerin’ at me like a fool, this wouldn’t have happened!”

Dragon’s face was white as paper. She turned and ran from the room without a word.

Matthew was left standing amidst the debris of broken mugs and steaming fement, looking from one to the other of us. “Ye dinna understand!”

“I understand that was unnecessary,” I said coldly.

He paled and ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “Ah, Luddamn it. Yer right. I’ll go an’ apologize.”

“Why?” Kella demanded fiercely. “She should not be surprised. More fool her for expecting anything more of you.”

“Kella, I’m sorry …,” Matthew began, but the healer tossed her head, her blue eyes flashing.

“Don’t tell me!” she said stonily. “I’m not the one you should be talking to. You don’t deserve her love, Matthew. She’s worth ten of you, but you’re too stupid to see it.”

“She’s a savage,” Matthew flared, stung by the disgust in her voice.

Kella laughed contemptuously. “You don’t have the slightest idea who or what Dragon is, even after all these months you’ve spent with her. She’s a lot of things, but she’s no savage. Eating with fingers and having dirty clothes doesn’t make a person a savage. Cruelty and thoughtlessness do. That makes you the only savage here.”

I was amazed to hear the gentle healer speak with such passion. Matthew glared at her, then turned on his heel and stalked out. A moment later, the stair door slammed.

I felt as though a firestorm had roared its destructive way through the room.

Kella let out a great sobbing breath and sank into a chair. I crossed to sit by her and lay a tentative hand on her arm. “Dragon will be all right. It wasn’t as bad as all that.…”

The healer shook her head. “It’s not Dragon, Elspeth. Matthew was wrong, but I should not have spoken to him like that. It … it is Domick. You saw how he was tonight. I’ve tried and tried not to see, but I can’t lie to myself anymore. He no longer cares for me. Sometimes I think he hates me.” She looked at me with tormented eyes. “He’s changed. That is why you did not tell him what Maryon said, isn’t it? I know it. Of course, I know. Oh, Elspeth, I just want to go home to Obernewtyn.”

She began to weep in earnest.

I stared at her helplessly. After a long minute, I crossed to the sky window and stared up. Rain fell lightly but steadily on the glass.

“Perhaps it is time for all of us to go home,” I said softly to the night.