Penric and the Shaman

V

Penric’s party came to the town of Whippoorwill, at the head of the lake, in the early winter dusk. It was half the size of the more successful Martensbridge, and a bit resentful of the fact, but still fivefold larger than Greenwell Town of Penric’s youth. Even the anxious Grayjay made no suggestion that they press on any farther this night. At the local chapter of the Daughter’s Order, which lay under the princess-archdivine’s direct rule, they found crowded, but free, lodgings.

Then Oswyl made the first practical use of the troop that had trailed them by sending them all out, severally, to ask after their quarry in the inns and taverns of the town. He didn’t mention brothels aloud; Penric was unsure if they were tacitly implied, if he thought the fleeing murderer would make no use of them, or if he was simply respectful of the guardsmen’s oaths to the Daughter’s Order. All business in Whippoorwill was settling down to merely local traffic as the high roads to the northern coast countries closed off for the season.

Penric and Oswyl had just finished eating at the tavern of their choice where, alas, no one remembered a dark-haired and dark-eyed Wealdean heading north alone in the past week, though any sensible fellow attempting the passes this late might have joined one of several parties and who would have noticed him then? Oswyl was rubbing his eyes in pain at this prospect when one of the guardsmen, Baar, came back. “I think I may have found something, sirs…”

With open relief but guarded hope, Oswyl followed at his heels down the streets, Penric trailing, to a lesser inn just off the main north road. Its air was homey and shabby, and it mainly served frugal local countrymen.

“Oh, aye,” said the tapster, when Oswyl had lubricated the man’s tongue with a pint of his own ale, and his purse with three more all around for their company. “Don’t know if he’s the man you seek, but certainly a well-set-up young fellow with dark hair and eyes. That describes half the Darthacans on the roads—”

Oswyl nodded rueful agreement.

“—but this one spoke with a Wealdean accent, and not lowborn. I thought he must be a scholar, because he said he wanted tales, as he was writing a book. Collecting them, see.”

Oswyl’s eyebrows went up. “What sort of book?”

“Old tales of the mountains, uncanny ones. Campfire tales, children’s stories, ghost stories. Not saints’ legends, much. He was especially interested in tales of magical beasts.”

“Did he get any from you?” asked Penric.

“Oh, aye! It was a busy night.” The tapster looked around mournfully at his current near-empty premises. “After he bought a round or two, I think he might have got enough for half his book right here.”

“Did he seem especially intent about any particular tales? Ask more questions?”

“He seemed quite pleased to get the fellows going on about rumors of uncanny animals being bred up in the high valleys.”

Penric came more alert. “Do you mean, um, current rumors, not just old stories? What are they?”

“Well, there’s supposed to be a man up the Chillbeck who raises specially smart dogs, very prized by the local shepherds and hunters. I’ve met some right smart mountain dogs, though, so’s I don’t know as there’s anything more to it than tales and bragging.”

“Did he say anything about following those rumors to their source?” asked Pen.

“No, can’t say as he did. He didn’t say much about himself, come to think. Contented just to listen, y’know.”

Oswyl put in, “Did he ask much about Carpagamo, Adria, the passes? Anything about how to get to the north coast?”

“A man hardly needs to ask about the passes this time of year—folks scarce talk about anything else, always hoping for a late thaw and one last chance to get through. But no, I don’t recollect as he did. He seemed tired. Went up to bed soon after.”

“Did you see which way he went in the morning?” asked Oswyl.

“No, sir, sorry. Mornings are a busy time, getting everyone out. He went off afoot, though. No horse for him. That’s why I thought, poor scholar, despite the kin-rich mouth.”

Penric blinked. “You have a good ear for accents.”

“Well, sir, we get a lot of travelers through, at least come summer, and they do tell their tales. Gives a man practice.”

Oswyl sat back, frowning, although not at anyone here. “How many nights ago was this, again? Try to be sure.”

The tapster, brows crooked with concentration, counted up on his thick fingers. “Six nights, sir. I remember because it was the evening of the horse-market day, and we had a lot of folks in from the country round for that.”

Oswyl gave a grunt of satisfaction, drained his tankard, and rose. “Thank you. The Father of Winter’s blessing upon this house, in His season impending.”

“Go with the gods, sirs.”

Learned divine though he now was, Penric did not add the Bastard’s blessing, first because most people didn’t appreciate the ambiguity, and second because he was incognito for the evening’s scouting. And, third, ever since he had once met the god immanent—as close as his arm’s reach but not, surely, anything to dare touch—he wasn’t exactly comfortable pledging His word. It might not prove to be a safely hollow courtesy.

The Daughter’s guard paced before them with a lantern as they made their way back along the dark streets to the Order’s house. Penric ventured, “It sounds as if a foray up the valley of the Chillbeck might be worth the time.”

Oswyl snorted. “Have you looked at a map? That valley has no good pass out of it to the north. And there are a dozen more just like it. It would be like plunging into a gigantic stone maze.”

“It’s not so different from my home country, just a hundred miles east of here.”

Oswyl eyed him dubiously. “There will be more people on the main road.”

“Strangers stand out more in the vales. People notice them. And besides, if that tapster spoke true, you’ve made up a few days on Inglis’s lead since the Crow.”

“Time I do not care to waste by haring off up blind alleys.”

“Unless the blind alley turns out to be a hunter’s bag.”

“Hm.” Oswyl paused and stared to the north where the high peaks glimmered in the night, a pale wall across the world. “I believe I was right to hold to my reasoning back on the Crow Road. I’d wager that stout Easthome sorcerer is saddle-sore and empty-handed now, somewhere in Saone.” The vision seemed to give him a certain understandable satisfaction. “Why should I think your advice better?”

Oddly, Penric didn’t sense that the question was rhetorical. “Because this is my home country, not his? Because why would Inglis, if the man was Inglis, ask all those questions and not pursue the pointers they gained him? Because Inglis, being a stranger here, will try the most easily reached routes first?”

“Time,” said Oswyl, though his teeth.

“Is it so desperate? He is no less or more trapped by the snow on the passes than he would be by Chillbeck Vale. It’s not as though he’s been leaving a trail of bodies.”

Oswyl was surprised into a noise that came as close to a laugh, if a black one, as Penric had yet heard from him. “I suppose I should not wish it.”

An oil lantern hung over the Order’s gates, its yellow light glittering from the snow sifted in between the street’s cobbles. Oswyl motioned Baar ahead of them into the warm, with a clap to his shoulder and a low-voiced, “Well done, man.” But he did not at once follow, and Penric paused with him.

“As a Temple sensitive, have you ever gone out, or been taken out, to check accusations of hedge sorcery?” Oswyl asked abruptly.

Penric, curious at this sudden turn in the talk, folded his arms against the night chill and replied, “Three times, when I was at seminary at Rosehall, I was taken along for training. Not for the working of the thing, since any sorcerer recognizes another as readily as I can tell you are a tall man, but to get a grasp on the legalities, which can become complex. For one thing, just because the accused is not a sorcerer, and they almost never are, it doesn’t necessarily mean no crime has been committed, by other means or persons. I did think the false accusations, if the accuser knew them false, to be especially heinous.”

Oswyl nodded grimly.

“I’ve not been sent out since I was made court sorcerer, as Tigney has others to call on for such routine duties. But Desdemona, after she became a Temple demon, went with her riders on hundreds of such inquiries, and found a real sorcerer involved, what—”

Twice.

“Only twice.”

“As a locator, I’ve seen the same from the other side,” said Oswyl. “In ten years, only a single case sustained, and the poor man, who’d thought he was going mad, flung himself upon the Temple’s mercy and found it. But one time…”

He hesitated so long, Penric nearly prodded him with a, But one time…? except that Desdemona quietly advised, Wait.

Oswyl glowered down the street at nothing, and finally said, “One time, we were laggard on the road. The reasons seemed sufficient—bad weather, a bridge washed out. Howsoever. We arrived at this dismal village out in the country to discover the accused woman had been burned to death by her frenzied neighbors the night before. No sign found that any demon had jumped from her pyre. She was almost certainly innocent, and if we had arrived timely, we could have disposed of the false charges forthwith, and given stern warnings to the slanderers. As it was, we faced the dilemma of trying to charge an entire village with murder. It all broke down in a sickening morass, and in the end… well, no justice was done there, in the Father’s sight or any other.”

While Penric, taken wholly aback, was still trying to come up with something to acknowledge this that didn’t sound fatuous, Oswyl yanked open the door and made to step within. But as he did he growled over his shoulder, “So I do not like being late.”

The door thudded shut like the end of an argument.

After a moment, Penric sighed and reached for the handle. This isn’t going to be so easy, is it?

The Father’s cases seldom are, noted Desdemona. Else they wouldn’t need Him.

They rode out of Whippoorwill very early the next morning.