“Oh, aye, it was something of his trade. His partner was supposed to have inherited them, but they were together out hunting for meat to feed the beasts. His body they managed to dig out, at least. The dogs were scattered about to whoever would have them, after. So if you’ve come seeking to buy one, you might still have a chance.”
“Did, uh, you know Scuolla well?”
“Only to nod to. He was no kinsman of mine. He kept to himself up the east branch.”
He tried Beris: “Was Savo close to his uncle, do you know?”
She shook her head. “Savo’s mother’s a lot younger than Scuolla. I don’t think they had much to do with each other even before she married and moved to her husband’s farm.”
He wasn’t sure how to ask, Was your neighbor an illicit hedge shaman? without frightening them into silence. “Was Scuolla gossips with anybody?”
Laaxa shrugged. “He drank with Acolyte Gallin, time to time, I think.”
Inglis prodded, “Acolyte Gallin?”
“He’s our Temple-man, down Linkbeck.” Laaxa waved in the general direction of the valley. Indeed, such a small village was unlikely to rate a full-braid learned divine. An acolyte would typically be made to do. “He serves the whole of the Chillbeck upper vale.”
“So he would have conducted Scuolla’s funeral rites?”
“Gallin buries pretty much everyone, in these parts.”
Inglis worded his next question cautiously. “Did you hear any strange rumors about Scuolla’s funeral?”
He’d hit something, because both women gave him sharp, closed looks.
“Wasn’t there,” said Laaxa. “Couldn’t say. You’d have to ask Gallin.”
Shamans came as linked chains—half shackles, half lifelines. A shaman was needed not only to culture a Great Beast, but to conduct its sacrifice into each new candidate at the commencement of his or her service. At the end of that life of service, a shaman was again needed to cleanse the comrade soul, free it of that earthly link—some said, contamination—to go on to the gods. Among the reasons for the revival of the royal shamans of the Weald, it was said, was to sustain such chains, that no soul might go sundered. Among the reasons for keeping the practices discreet and contained was to limit such risks. At his own investiture, Inglis had accepted the hazards blithely. He was anything but blithe now.
If Scuolla had indeed been a hedge shaman, as Inglis now strongly suspected, whoever had conducted his investiture was probably long dead; with luck, readied for his last journey by Scuolla himself. So who had cleansed Scuolla in turn? And might that unknown person help Inglis in his woe? Follow the chain.
In this high country, it was rumored, the old ways were quietly tolerated by the rural Temple hierarchies, so long as their practitioners conceded precedence and authority to the Temple, and quarter-day dues. And if the local Temple folk were not too rigidly virtuous. So was this Acolyte Gallin an enemy of the old ways, or one of the quietly tolerant? And if the latter, had he quietly helped his drinking friend’s soul along by securing the services of another hedge shaman to perform those last rites? Or at the very least known where and how, and by whom, they were brought off?
In which case, the next link in Inglis’s chain must be to find Acolyte Gallin. Unless this new hope should prove yet another illusion, melting away like the others as his hand grasped for it… the despairing thought made him want, not for the first time, to plunge the accursed knife into his own breast, and be done with this struggle. One more try.
Although One foot in front of the other was perhaps no longer a very useful self-exhortation. Inglis twisted around. The toy-like houses were only a couple of miles away, as a rock might plummet. Getting himself down the mountain in his current battered condition would be a much trickier problem.
The middle-aged woman returned, her arms full of what looked to be sheepskin scraps and sticks. One of the scraps turned out to be a simple sheepskin cap, folded over fleece-inward and sewn up one side in a sort of triangle, which she plunked unceremoniously over Inglis’s head. He jerked but did not rise. “Don’t let your ears freeze, lad.” The absurd-looking object made a startlingly swift difference in his comfort.
Two sheepskin booties, equally simple, for his other extremities followed; she knelt to fit them over his feet as though he had been a toddler. Outer boots of woven withy and rawhide looked crude but proved clever. He suspected they would grip the snow, though he doubted they’d stand up to a long march. Neither would he, just now. He swallowed a yelp as she tied the rawhide strips on the right foot. “Aye, you’ve done yourself good, there.”
The scraping finished, the three women undid the hide from its clamps and folded it over. Beris rose to stow it away—in a wooden sledge, tucked up in the corner of the shelter. That was how they transported their high-country produce down to the valley, Inglis supposed. Curing a sledge-load of such hides would keep a village worker busy all winter. Could it also transport a half-crippled man?
They couldn’t want him to linger here, eating their reserves. It was late for losing him in a crevice. Foisting him on the charity of the village temple must surely seem a better plan.
Inglis wriggled his feet in his sheepskin slippers. “I would pay you, ladies, but I’m afraid someone took my purse.”
Beris looked surprised; the middle-aged woman disappointed; Laaxa Graybraid, displeased, but “Hm,” was all she said.
“I suspect he still has it, tucked away somewhere.” Inglis’s memories were too muddled to be sure of identifying the cutpurse by his voice alone, and anyway, whichever of his three rescuers had pocketed it, they had all watched him do so. But there was no way for the thief to spend coins up here, apart from losing them to his friends at dice. “There wasn’t much left in it, but enough, I think, to pay for a ride down to Linkbeck.” He lifted his hand to indicate the sledge. “With no questions asked.” And none answered.
A little silence, while they all took this in.
Laaxa vented a pained sigh. “Those boys. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Mother Laaxa.”
Arrow, who had stealthily acquired a belly full of hide scrapings, now proceeded to divert his watchers by vomiting them back up again, in a loud and rhythmic paroxysm.
“Eew,” said Beris.
“Dogs,” sighed the middle-aged woman.
“You going to take that dog?” Laaxa asked Inglis, with a twitch of her gray eyebrows.
“I expect… that will be up to the dog,” Inglis replied carefully.
They stared at Arrow, now sniffing his production with evident fascination. Beris hurried to shoo him off, and toss dirt and snow over the slimy pile before he could eat it again.
“Aye,” said Laaxa, biting her lip. “I expect so.”
VII
The day’s ride was slowed by several stops at likely places to inquire after their quarry, all frustratingly fruitless. But it brought Oswyl’s troop at length to the village where the local road split off to the valley of the Chillbeck. At the inn there, at last, Oswyl found report of a silent, dark-haired stranger who had spent the night and headed off into the hills, not four days ago. But also of a couple of parties making one final try for the main road north, and one whose destination was the last town within the hinterland’s borders.
After a brief debate with the sergeant and the sorcerer, Oswyl made the decision to send two men up the main road tomorrow with strict instructions, if they found the fugitive, not to approach the dangerous man, but to set one guard to follow him and the other to double back and collect their forces. It wasn’t a compromise that delighted him in any way, but no one could sensibly go farther this afternoon, with darkness impending and the horses due a rest. Oswyl gritted his teeth in endurance, and made plans to use the evening inquiring of everyone there on the nature of the country roundabout.