He was looking at that instead of watching around him, when dark movement came from the side and, out of nowhere, metal-clad men suddenly confronted him.
I brung ʼim, the boy said. I brung ʼim, master Aman.
He was frozen with fear, facing such grim expressions, like Maurylʼs expression when he had done something wrong. The boy was looking quite proud of himself and seeming to expect something of the men, who were holding weapons and waiting, he supposed, for him to account for himself.
My name is Tristen, sir. Are you the master here?
One of the men grinned at him, not in a friendly way. The other:
The master, he wants? that one asked, leaning on what spoke other Words: Pike, War, and Killing. Which master in particular, Sir Strangeness?
I supposethe master of all this Place.
They laughed. But the men seemed to be perplexed by him. The one leaning on the pike straightened his back and looked at him down a nose guarded by a metal piece, eyes shadowed from the deepening twilight by a metal-and-leather Helm. The third, helmless, had never smiled, not from the beginning.
Come along, that one said, and motioned with his pike for him to enter the arch of the gates.
The boy, he said, remembering his manners, the boy would like supper, if you please, and a place to sleep.
Oh, would he, now?
He has, he said, finding himself wrong, and chased by one of Maurylʼs kind of debates, he has nowhere to sleep. And he wants supper, Iʼm sure, sir.
He wants supper. The man thought that strange, and dug in his purse and flipped a coin to the boy, who caught it, quite remarkably. Off wiʼ ye. And no Gossip, or Iʼll cut off your Weasel ears.
Weasel was four-footed and brown.
And there was, clearly, another way one found coins. The guards had coins to give. For himself, he saw no such chances, but he was prepared to go where they asked and wait until the men could make up their minds what to do about him.
Come along, said the one the boy called master, and another shoved him, not at all kindly or needfully, in the shoulder. He thought how pigeons fluttered and bumped one another. If this man was indeed master here he seemed a rough and rude sort. But he remembered how the men at the fire had behaved, and how they had grown quite unfriendly once they became afraid of him, and the weapons these men had were far more threatening than knives.
So he thought he should do what they asked and not give them any cause to be afraid; and then, he thought, he might find out whether this man was the master of the Kathseide, or whether he was only master of these men. Perhaps there was someone else, after all, who might ask him inside and talk to him much more reasonably than men outside, and perhaps even be expecting his arrival.
He walked through the gateway, believing they would go through into the courtyard and straightway to the inner halls of the keep, but he was no more than under the gateway arch when the one man dropped the staff of his pike in front of his face and made him stop a roughness which he was not at all expecting, and which might be misbehavior on their part.
But he was not certain. He might have been in the wrong. He let the other man take him by the arm and direct him toward a doorway at the side in the arch, which his fellow opened, showing him a room bright with candlelight, a plain room with a table and chairs, and another man sitting curious sight with his feet on the table. Dared one do such a thing?
Not, he suspected, at Maurylʼs table.
Weʼve an odd ʼun, the helmless man said. Wants to see the master of the Zeide, he says.
Does he? The man at the table wrinkled his nose. And on what business, Iʼd like to know. Is this our report from about town?
Seems tʼ be our wanderinʼ stranger.
Has either of ye seen ʼim before?
Never seen ʼim, one said, and the other shook his head. Truth tʼ tell, ʼt was Paisi picked ʼim up, led ʼim up to us wiʼ no trouble to speak of.
Paisi did. Led ʼim up, ye say?
I was surprised meself. I figured the little Rat could find what smelt odd, so I sent him out. But I never figured heʼd bring it himself. Clever little Rat, he is. Anʼ this ʼun The man sat half on the table. Him talking like a Lord, the man said. Airs and manners and all. He wasnʼt at all meetinʼ wiʼ anybody of account in town. Talked to some on the streets, as of no account at all, wandered here, wandered there, ainʼt no sense to it, by me, what he was doinʼ or askinʼ.
A lord, is he? The man slowly took his feet off the table Mauryl would have been appalled, Tristen decided uneasily. He was surrounded by behavior and manners he began to be certain that Mauryl would not at all approve, manners which far more reminded him of the men in the woods. And from one master, now there seemed two, and they wondered whether he was a Lord, which held its own bewilderments.
But, then, they had brought him in under stone, where he was safer. They might have shoved him about quite rudely, but they had not harmed him.
And what, the man in the chair wanted to know, what would be your name?
Tristen, sir, thank you. And I came to find the master of the Kathseide.
The man frowned, the grim man looked puzzled, and the one sneezed or laughed, he was not certain which.
Is he the Mooncalf all along? Or only now?
A mooncalf in lordʼs cloth, to us at least. All up and down the town, nothing of trouble nor of stealinʼ that weʼve heard yet, and the boy had no trouble to win his copper. But he come strolling up from the low town, bright as brass, and he had to be through the gates sometime today, though Ness anʼ Selmwy donʼt report seeinʼ ʼim.
So how long have ye been lurkinʼ about the streets, rascal?
Not lurking, sir, Tristen replied, he thought respectfully, but the man at his back fetched him a shove between the shoulders. Walking.
How long have ye been in the town? the foremost man asked, and he was glad to understand it was a simple question, and anxious to lay everything in their laps.
I came in from the Road, sir. I walked through the gates down below, and the boy led me up to this gate to see the master of this Place before the dark came.
Did you, now? the man said, leaning back again, and one of the other two shut the door, a soft, ominous thump, after which he heard the drop of a heavy bar.
Paisi certainly done better ʼn Ness anʼ his fool cousin, the grim man said.
And how, pray, asked the man in charge, did you pass through the gate, sir mooncalf?
I walked through, sir. He remembered ducking behind the cart. He knew he was in the wrong.
Is that so? The man brought the chair legs down with a thump and waved a hand at the two who had brought him in. Is he armed? Did you make certain?
One man took him by the arm and held him still while the other ran hands over him and searched his belt and the tops of his boots. That began to frighten him, the more when the man, searching the front of his shirt, discovered the Book and the mirror and razor.
Now whatʼs this?
Mine, sir. He saw the man open the Book and anxiously watched him leaf through the pages, turn it upside down and shake it. Please be careful.
Careful, eh? The man laid the Book on the table, showing it, open, to the man in the chair. It donʼt look proper to me.
Foreign writinʼ.
Itʼs mine, sir. Please. He reached to have the Book back, and the man behind him seized his arm and twisted it back, hard.
It hurt, and it scared him. He turned to be free of the pain. The man shoved him into the wall, hurting his other shoulder, and he tried then to make them stop and to have his Book back.