When he moved to the side, Polijn took up a place a few steps behind where he had been and copied his actions. She performed the ritual with a little reluctance, lest she be guilty of presumption for using the advanced form allowed only to abbots. (There might even be a ban on women’s doing it at all, which could mean trouble if he stopped calling her “lad.”)
She looked to him when she finished. The abbot smiled, and she smiled back. “I’m new at that,” she told him.
He nodded. “At that, you did better than our other guest, who is an adept, he says. But the frost may be in his bones, as he said, walking miles from Spezales. Or it may have been hunger. He emptied six bowls. Yours is hungry work, I believe.”
He led her from the small room to a larger one. Here, in another niche, was something Polijn found far easier to revere: a cooking pot hot among the coals.
Anderal took a plate and a mug from the cabinet next to the fireplace and served her himself. “Are you alone on evening duty, then?” Polijn inquired.
“Only for a little longer,” he told her, ladling steaming noodles onto the plate. “Then Brother Pinyd takes my place. I must be awake at dawn to supervise breakfast for our many residents.”
Polijn smiled. He had slipped that in so deftly, how he might look solitary, but actually had, oh, dozens of followers to call on in case she was studying the shelter as advance agent for a band of robbers.
“So large a religious shelter should jump to my memory at once,” she replied as he set plate and mug before her. “But I am so lost I have no idea where I am, even to the names of the nearest villages.”
The abbot nodded. “You are not entirely to be blamed, lad. We are not one of the great landmarks of this county. But you will surely have heard of the Crossroads Shrine, not two miles west of us, past the lone tree. And beyond that, the castle of the Duke of Molian, whose armies guard the western border. The year’s-end festivals begin tomorrow with the duke’s procession to the shrine. He means to bring us a mighty cheese as our annual gift.”
From the reverence in his voice when he mentioned the cheese, Polijn guessed that this shelter was occupied by a vegetarian sect. Certainly the noodles and parsnips on her plate agreed. And most noblemen on a year’s-end procession would have offered venison as their donation to the shelter’s continued well-being.
Not that Polijn was prejudiced against vegetables. This was the best meal she’d been offered in a week, and she said so. Anderal accepted the compliment but was more interested in discussing the places she’d been recently than what she’d eaten.
They talked for some time, until Polijn’s third yawn alerted the abbot to the hour. “You’ll be weary after walking through the snow,” he said, rising. “No, lad, leave the plates; I’ll take care of them later. Our guest room is down this hall. We have only one other guest tonight, a minstrel like yourself, as I mentioned. You’ll have your choice of beds.”
He opened a door into a large dormitory. Beds stood in niches in the walls around a low-burning, smoky hearth. It was a little chilly, but Polijn could see that each bed was stacked with quilts.
Something moved, despite their care in stepping inside. “Hey-ho!” called a voice. “Time to eat?”
Polijn’s heart sank. Anderal called, “No, good sir, only another minstrel.” He lit a splinter at the hearth to give Polijn a little extra light, now that the other guest was awake.
“Well,” said the same hearty voice, “it’s the kitling!”
The face matched the voice: an unruly thatch of hair, a square nose, an eyepatch. It was, indeed, Carasta, who had taken Polijn under his protection when both were banished from Rossacotta. He had promised to teach her a few things and to shield her from the dangers of traveling alone. One of the things Polijn had learned from Carasta was that there could be worse things than traveling alone.
“I was afraid we’d lost each other for good!” he called.
It had been good. Anderal, seeing Polijn hesitate, stepped up next to her, in case the two minstrels were rivals. Polijn simply waited with resignation for Carasta to call, “Come tuck yourself in next to me. It’ll be warmer.”
But instead the one-eyed man settled back onto his cot. “We’ll chat in the morning,” he called. “Nice to see you.”
Polijn shrugged and moved to a niche in the opposite wall. It could mean only one thing: Carasta had some money on him that he didn’t want her to know about. The abbot looked to her for a sign that this was really all the minstrels were going to do. She nodded, and he moved out.
Polijn was a light sleeper; it was one of the skills necessary for survival in Rossacotta. She woke briefly during the night, hearing footsteps. Once again, though, Carasta did not seem inclined to seek out her company. Not being one to question a blessing, Polijn went back to sleep.
She rose early the next morning, but no earlier than Carasta, and was subjected to a detailed description of all his recent travels as they consumed a steaming breakfast of milk and meal. “So naturally, using the innkeeper’s directions, I was lost in no time,” he declared, thumping the table for emphasis. “Fortunately, I walked smack into the wall of this fine establishment and was treated to as fine a meal as I’ve had in weeks. Two of the finest meals, counting this one. They really do quite well at this place with such a small staff: just four religious and ten others, laymen mainly who want a warm job inside for the winter. Workhorses, they are, though, not lazy louts: keeping the place clean, doing proper honor to powers beyond theirs, and with deliveries from the duke only once a month.”
Polijn raised an eyebrow. “You’ve learned a lot about this shelter.” She didn’t ask why he’d bothered, except with that eyebrow.
He saw it, though, even with one eye. “One pays one’s debts with song in this business,” he replied, lifting his chin imperiously. “I’ve got the beginnings of a lyric in my head.”
Carasta wouldn’t have a lyric in his head even if the skull were opened and the manuscript inserted by hand, a process Polijn had sometimes daydreamed about. But whatever he did have in mind, he wasn’t ready to explain yet.
When he’d cleaned up all the food that was available, he took one of Polijn’s wrists and sought out Anderal, who was still on gate duty in a cubicle next to the big door. “Many thanks for your hospitality, good abbot,” said the minstrel. “But we must certainly be on our way early if we are to make the duke’s palace in time to take our places in the grand celebration.”
Anderal nodded but asked, “Must you both go?” Being of a similarly practical mind, Polijn could see that the abbot would like to have a minstrel or two on hand for some kind of fanfare when the duke’s party arrived. But he couldn’t ask them to stay, for that would be as much as asking for payment in service for their room and meals.
“The lad could stay,” he went on.
Carasta winked, though whether at her or at Anderal Polijn could not tell. “Ah, the lad’s not too young to want to make a bit of money,” he replied. “And we’ll make more if we sing for His Lordship and then accompany him back here. When we return, we’ll have a song to sing of your hospitality that will surely double his donations.”
Anderal disavowed any necessity for this and passed them as a parting gift a cloth bag with a loaf of bread and a few herbs inside. Then he unbarred the door.
The storm had ended in the night, and the air was warmer with the sun shining through it. The going was wet and sloppy, though, through half-melting snow shindeep. The increasing weight on her lower legs as they soaked up the moisture was augmented by the pounding in her head as Carasta sang tunelessly a song that had once possessed a perfectly good melody. The big fraud’s sunny mood did not warm her at all. He had worn just this same expression the afternoon he made the deal to rent her to a goblin merchant for the night, neglecting to mention this to her until dusk. He was working on some kind of scheme. Polijn hoped she could do something to spoil it.