The Sorcerer's Widow

CHAPTER TEN

The farmer had been happy to provide food and lodging for a price that was only mildly outrageous; Kel thought it was a very good thing that Dorna had kept her purse on her belt, and not put it in the canvas bag with her magic. Kel had hoped that the obviously-magical fil drepessis might intimidate their host into accommodating them for free, or at least very cheaply, but instead it appeared to have the opposite effect. Even though the farmer had no idea what it was, and neither Dorna nor Kel would tell him, he seemed to think that its presence meant that his guests were magicians, despite their claims to the contrary. Everyone knew magicians were all rich and could afford to pay any amount asked. Dorna was too tired, and too angry at Ezak, to be in the mood for negotiations, and agreed on the bill with only minimal haggling.

Once the terms had been determined Kel and Dorna ate, bathed, and then settled onto the farmer’s bed, while their host made do with a blanket and a pile of straw. The bed was somewhat crowded with both of them in it, quite aside from Kel’s discomfort with the impropriety of the situation, but Kel had slept in cramped quarters before. As for the two of them sharing, Dorna told Kel he was being silly to worry about it, and they were sufficiently exhausted that not only were they both quickly asleep, but they both slept late.

Kel felt much better after a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast, and Dorna seemed equally pleased, even though their host had charged them almost three times what they would have paid at a good inn. The farmer also provided directions to Shepherd’s Well at no additional cost, and they set out around mid-morning.

This proved to be the warmest day of the year so far, and Kel would have been happy to spend it sitting in the shade somewhere, but Dorna maintained a brisk pace, and he kept up without complaint.

They reached the Golden Rooster an hour or two after noon, and found Irien waiting for them in the inn’s cool interior. Her reaction upon seeing Dorna walk in with the fil drepessis under her arm was an outburst of relief, and she flung herself at her friend with such enthusiasm that Kel had to snatch the big talisman away so that it wouldn’t be sent flying. The thought of accidentally triggering it and setting off another chase terrified him.

“You’re safe!” Irien exclaimed, as she embraced the sorcerer’s widow.

“I’m fine,” Dorna said, pulling away. “Has Ezak been here?”

“What happened to your hair?” Irien demanded, as she looked at Dorna and saw where Northern sorcery had sliced away a large hank of her hair.

“Nothing,” Dorna lied. “Is Ezak here?”

“I didn’t expect you to be gone so long!”

“I know; I’m sorry. It took longer than I expected. Have you seen Ezak?”

The repetition of the question finally penetrated Irien’s enthusiasm. “Wasn’t he with you?” she asked.

“He was. He ran off. Did he come here?”

“I don’t think so,” Irien said.

“Why are you in here, then? Is someone watching the wagon?”

“Oh,” Irien said. “I…I paid a local boy…”

“Come on.” Dorna turned and headed back out the inn door, then toward the stableyard, with Irien and Kel close behind. Kel was still lugging the fil drepessis.

A boy of about ten, in a brownish tunic and black cowhide breeches, was sitting on the driver’s bench of Dorna’s wagon, whittling at a good-sized chunk of wood; he looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps, lowered the wood, and brandished his knife. Then he recognized Irien and lowered the blade, as well. “Are they with you?” he called. He had a surprisingly loud voice.

“Ducks and rabbits,” Irien called back. Kel looked at her in confusion. “It’s a password,” Irien explained to Dorna. “If I’d said anything else, he was to raise the alarm.”

“Clever,” Dorna said.

Irien turned up a palm. “Simple enough,” she said. Then she called to the boy, “Has anyone else been here? Perhaps a young man?”

“No,” the boy said. “It’s been as dull as sheep.”

“Damn,” Dorna said.

“Isn’t that good?” Kel asked. “It means he didn’t steal anything more.”

“It also means we don’t know where he went, and there may not be enough traces left here for a tracker to follow.”

“He went home to Ethshar,” Kel said.

Dorna stopped and turned to look at him. “You said before that he’d meet you there. How do you know?”

Kel turned up an empty palm. “Where else would he go? He doesn’t know anywhere but Ethshar.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve known him all my life,” Kel said. “So far as I know, the first time he ever set foot outside the city walls was no more than three sixnights ago, when we went to look for your village.”

“Which Ethshar?” Irien asked.

“Ethshar of the Sands,” Kel replied.

“We knew that,” Dorna said.

“Did we?” Irien asked sharply. “How do we know that they told us the truth? How do we know he’s telling us the truth now? Every word could be lies!”

Dorna smiled. “Irien, do you think they’re smart enough to lie about all of it?”

Irien glanced at Kel, then grimaced. “Maybe not,” she acknowledged.

Kel thought she expected him to be insulted, but he wasn’t; Ezak always said it was useful if your target under-estimated you. Besides, Kel didn’t think he could have maintained so elaborate a lie. That was one reason he tried not to talk when he didn’t need to. He had inadvertently given away too many schemes and secrets in the past.

Then they were at the wagon, where Dorna threw back the cover and began poking through the contents. The boy on the driver’s bench watched with intense interest. “Is that magic stuff?” he asked.

“Sorcery,” Dorna said, as she fished out another of the golden-boot-heel talismans. “It’s all sorcery.”

“Dorna,” Irien said, “you don’t have your bag.”

“That’s right,” Dorna said. Kel was amazed she didn’t say something a little more pointed, where it had taken Irien so long to notice the bag’s absence.

“Ezak stole it?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Dorna stopped rummaging and straightened up, but did not look at her friend. Instead she let out a long, slow breath and said, “I’ll tell you later.”

“It was my fault,” Kel said.

Dorna turned, startled, to look at him. “No, it wasn’t,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have left him there.”

“I shouldn’t have left him there!” Dorna replied. “I was the one with the weapon.”

Kel tightened his lips and did not respond. Dorna stared at him for a moment, then said, “Give me that.”

Kel handed her the fil drepessis, and she heaved it up into the wagon. Then she pushed a few things around, pulled the cloth covering back into place, and turned to face Kel and Irien. “You’re absolutely sure he’d go to Ethshar of the Sands?”

“Yes,” Kel said. “He doesn’t know anywhere else.”

“You don’t think he might realize we’d look for him there, and try somewhere else?”

Kel considered that, thinking carefully about how Ezak would behave, then shook his head. Ezak had had enemies looking for him before, and had never tried to leave the city. “Ethshar is very big, and he knows it much better than you do. He has a hundred hiding places, and he wouldn’t know how to find a fence anywhere else.”

“Ethshar it is, then,” Dorna said. “There’s no sense in putting it off. Irien, pay this fine young man whatever you promised him, give him an extra two bits from me, and then let us get out of here.”

“I need to pay the innkeeper, too, and fetch things from our room…”

“Then go do it,” Dorna snapped. “I want to get moving.” She held out the boot-heel-shaped talisman and rubbed her thumb along one side of it; Kel thought he could see something shift and twist on its surface as she did.

“Can you find him?” Kel asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “There’s something in that direction.” She pointed toward one side of the yard, the side Kel judged to be in the general direction of Ethshar.

Irien fished coins from a purse on her belt and gave them to the boy as Dorna fiddled with her talisman. The boy accepted the money happily, jumped down from the wagon, then stood to one side, watching; he obviously found these people far more interesting than anything else in Shepherd’s Well.

Irien then turned and headed to the inn while Dorna went back to the wagon and straightened the cover. Kel stood aside, and glanced at the boy.

“I’m Bern,” the boy said.

“I’m called Kel,” Kel replied.

“Are you a magician?”

Kel shook his head. “No.”

“She is, though?” Bern jerked his head toward Dorna.

“Sort of,” Kel said. “Her husband was a sorcerer.”

“Was? Did he lose his magical powers?”

“He died.”

“Did one of his spells go wrong?”

“No.”

“Then what happened?”

Kel turned up an empty hand. “He just died.”

“Was he hundreds of years old?”

Kel shook his head.

“I heard that magicians can live for hundreds of years.”

“That’s wizards,” Kel said. “I don’t think sorcerers do.”

Dorna looked up from the wagon. She had obviously overheard some of the conversation. “Some of them live a long time,” she said as she turned around. “Not as long as wizards, but over a century.”

“Oh,” Bern said.

“My husband Nabal didn’t, though,” Dorna continued. “He was sixty-three when he died. His heart stopped.”

“Oh,” Bern said again.

“He had magic that might have saved him if he’d ever thought to use it on himself,” Dorna added. “But he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Kel said.

“He didn’t know there was anything wrong. If he had, he could have healed his heart, the way I healed your friend’s head,” she said, looking directly at Kel.

Kel could not think of anything to say, and just looked back at Dorna. Bern cast a nervous glance at Kel, and decided not to say anything, either.

“He thought he had plenty of time,” Dorna said. “So did I.”

“Have you healed your heart?” Kel asked.

“I checked,” she said. “It doesn’t need healing. Not that way, anyway.”

“I hope it heals the other way,” Kel said.

Dorna stared at him for a moment, then said, “I’ll get the oxen.” Her voice sounded oddly unsteady.

While Dorna was gathering draft animals and Irien was settling the bill, Kel found himself and Bern in the stableyard with the unguarded wagon-or at least, no one obvious was guarding it. He glanced at Bern. “Did you take anything from the wagon?”

Bern considered Kel for a moment, and then said, “No. Did you?”

“No. But my partner did.”

“You have a partner?”

“Ezak of Ethshar. He got away with a whole bag of sorcery.” Kel’s voice rang with pride as he said that, but at the same time he was embarrassed.

Bern thought this over, looking from Kel to the wagon, and back again. “Where is he, then?”

“He got away,” Kel repeated.

“But he’s your partner?”

“Yes.”

“Then why aren’t you with him?”

“I…I was busy,” Kel replied, his pride vanished.

“So he just left you with that woman?”

Kel paused before answering, “Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a partner. Is he going to come back for you?”

“No,” Kel admitted. “But when I find him he’ll give me a share of the loot.”

“It sounded to me like the bossy one was going to find him for herself.”

“Well…yes,” Kel acknowledged. “But when Ezak gets away from her again, if there’s any loot left, I’ll get a share.”

“Does she know that?”

Kel frowned. This conversation was not going the way he wanted it to. He had wanted to brag about being partners with someone clever enough to steal a bag full of magic, but this boy didn’t seem very impressed. It was true that Kel didn’t really think he would get a share of Ezak’s loot, because he didn’t expect Ezak to be able to sell it before Dorna found him and took it all back, but he hadn’t expected Bern to realize that.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“She seems to trust you,” Bern said. “Does she know you’re the thief’s partner?”

“Yes.”

“Then why doesn’t she have you locked up?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Kel said. “I helped her get that fill-dirt-presses thing back. We blew up a Northern sorcery, too.”

Bern frowned. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Are you on her side, or your partner’s side?”

Kel blinked at the boy. “I don’t know,” he said. He was startled to realize that he really didn’t know. Up until a few days ago he was always unquestionably on Ezak’s side, in everything, but he liked Dorna, and she had treated him fairly-generously, even. No one else had ever done that.

“Kel!” Dorna’s shout broke into Kel’s thoughts and interrupted the conversation before Bern could say anything more. “Get over here and give me a hand with this harness!”

Kel hurried to help, and Bern followed him. When Kel glanced back at the boy, Bern smiled. “Yoking oxen is easier with more hands,” he said. “It should be good for another two or three bits.”

It was indeed good for another three bits. Twenty minutes later Bern stood in front of the inn, waving with one hand while the other clutched his pay, as Dorna and Irien drove their respective wagons out of the stableyard onto the road and turned them to the southeast, toward Ethshar of the Sands.

Kel was riding with Dorna on the lead wagon, and when they had gone perhaps half a mile she handed him the reins and said, “Here. Keep us on the road.”

Kel took the lines and watched as Dorna fished out the boot-heel talisman. “There’s a concentration of gaja ahead of us, in that direction,” she said, pointing ahead and slightly to the right. “It’s moving, so it’s probably him.”

Kel looked in the indicated direction. “There’s a fence,” he said. That side of the road was indeed lined with a rail fence for as far as he could see.

“I know. We’ll stick to the road for now.”

Driving the oxen did not take a great deal of concentration, so Kel had time to think as they rode on.

He thought Dorna was almost certainly going to catch up to Ezak eventually, and reclaim her stolen talismans. She had said she wouldn’t kill Ezak, so after she had her bag back she would probably let them go-or maybe she would have Ezak flogged first, and then let them go. Kel winced at the idea of Ezak being flogged; having been through it himself, he knew how staggeringly painful and humiliating it was. He might have to spend a sixnight or so nursing Ezak back to health; he certainly couldn’t afford to pay for healing magic, and he doubted anyone else was going to provide it.

But Dorna might be satisfied with just getting her things back. That would be nice. Then he and Ezak would go back to their old life, as it had been before Ezak’s uncle told them about the dead sorcerer with a houseful of magic-stealing coins in taverns, running errands for a bit or two, and so on.

Kel looked around at the green fields stretching off in all directions, a flock of birds soaring in the blue sky ahead, a farmer with a tool of some kind poking at the ground off to the left, and for an instant he wondered if he really had to go back to living in alleys or attics, spending his nights grabbing for dropped coins in crowded taverns stinking of sweat and spilled beer.

But how could he possibly do anything else?