Someone cursed the weight of the great oaken beams that made the bars and shouted to others to “get over here and put yer backs into it!”
Usha lifted her face hoping to catch a breeze off the river, but the morning air was still. She was hungry, and she longed for a bath to soothe the aches of the journey.
The trip from Solace to Haven had seemed like a good idea last week. “Come with me,” Dez had said. “Haven is a fine place to be this time of year. Kern the baker and his wife are going down, the miller’s boys too, going to fetch two new wagons for their father. For the company of me and my sword, they’ll carry back what I buy for the inn. And I don’t think we’ll have any trouble convincing old Dog to take his sword down from the wall and come along for a chance to tour the wine shops and taverns. We’ll go get the inn’s supplies for this year, a fine little party of convenience—and have some fun.”
She had not said Usha looked like a woman who needed some time away, even a little fun. Around the Inn of the Last Home no one actually said that, though they all thought so, from Dez herself, to her sister Laura, to their father, dear old Caramon. Saying so would have meant talking about Palin, Usha’s husband long gone from their home. No one liked to talk about that, certainly not Usha whose fears for Palin’s safety mirrored those of his family.
About her private fears, Usha gave not the least indication—that her husband’s prolonged absence, the latest of several, each parting made after bitter quarrels, meant a more personal trouble between them.
And so Usha had been glad to go to Haven with Dez and their friendly little “party of convenience”—or she had been when it seemed they would accomplish the journey quickly. Now, after days of delay caused by the broken bridges and blocked roadways of a road fallen into disrepair, after nights listening to the sounds of the forest and hoping they were not hearing the sounds of bandits or dark knights roaming, the idea of a trip to Haven had lost its luster.
“Ho!” a rough voice called. “Beware the gates!”
Usha backed her little mare, Dezra did the same, and those behind them moved off the road as the broad oaken gates swung outward. One of the gate wardens waved the riders in, and the others surged ahead, leaving Usha and Dez behind as they went to search for inns. The baker and his wife bade them warm farewell, and the sound of their horses faded into the voice of the city as it rushed to meet them. The shrill calls of children mixed with the groan of wagon wheels, the snarling of yellow dogs, and housewives emptying slops out the windows of the shabby little houses huddled inside the walls. Beyond that was a deeper murmuring, like the rise and fall of the sea too distant to make its voice heard here.
Rinn Gallan, freckled face burnished by the sun, red hair thickly curling, greeted Dezra gladly. “Sorry about all the hollering, Dez. It’s hard times on the wall these days, what with them dark knights slinking along the roads and sniffing around Haven itself. Let ’em stay in Qualinesti, I say. Let ’em leave us honest folk alone.”
“Honest elves might have wished as much before the dragon came, Rinn, my friend. But I hear you. Too many strangers on the road. We worried, too, coming down from Solace.”
The boy shrugged. “Everyone’s worrying. But it’s good to see you, Dez. There’s a place at the High Hand Tavern fer ya, same as always and—” He stopped, round blue eyes growing rounder when Usha turned back the hood of her jade cloak. “Lady Usha,” he said, his voice hushed with awe.
Usha knew the hush would be followed by the small intake of breath. Sometimes it was for her, the golden-eyed woman whose hair curled in silver locks around her face and neck—not the silver of age, but an ageless silver even the fair elves had been known to envy. There, with the daylight still new in the sky, she glowed like a fresh-faced maiden and not a woman who had been long years married and the mother of grown children. Sometimes the hush was for her beauty, and sometimes because the person knew of her husband.
Rinn stammered, “It’s ... it’s been a while since we’ve seen you here.”
Usha didn’t remember the boy, not his name or his face. It had been longer than “a while” since she’d been to Haven. Perhaps five years or more, and this youngster, with hardly sixteen years to him, would have been an urchin scrambling in the streets then. Still, she smiled and greeted him, bracing for the next question.
“How is Lord Palin?” Rinn asked. “We don’t much hear about him in Haven these days. Is he well?”
Lord Palin. The son of an innkeeper, Palin Majere had been ennobled for his deeds of courage and magic thirty years before during the Chaos War and for his subsequent leadership of the order of White Mages. His wife had been ennobled by her marriage to the great mage. That same great mage who had not graced hearth and home in many months, nor spoken or delivered the merest word to explain his absence.
Dezra stepped briskly into the answer Usha couldn’t give. “My brother’s been away, Rinn. We think he’s working to heal the broken magic, but... well, we don’t know more than that.” She glanced at Usha, who added nothing to the time-worn family justification. “Well, these years after the gods leaving haven’t been an easy time for mages. Or any of us.”
“That’s truth, Dez. Ain’t but a mage or two left in Haven with the will or the way to work magic anymore. It’s all like a lamp run too low, flickerin’ and spittin’ and doing hardly anyone any good. Poor fellers. Must be hard to fly so high in the hands of the gods, then fall so far when gods up and walk away.”
Then, realizing that he was speaking pityingly of the great mage to Palin’s own wife, Rinn cleared his throat, his cheeks flushing as his young voice betrayed him only a little by breaking.
“But since bad news travels fastest, I guess you can say no news is good news.” Rinn shrugged. “Welcome to Haven, Lady Usha. And I’ll tell ya, it won’t be no easy goin’ in the city this morning.”
Curious, Usha would have asked why, but beyond the boy’s shoulder she saw the answer. A thick crowd clogged the winding road into the city proper, at their head came two rows of riders, six mounted men in the blue and silver livery of Haven’s lord mayor, and after them the same number of soldiers in like colors, their chain-mail burnished, their weapons gleaming.
“A good showing,” Dez murmured. “Who do you think it is?”
“No idea,” Usha said.
The two watched as several carriages came into view—gleaming harness, proud horses, a footman or two to show the folk coming to watch how the wealthy attended a funeral. Usha looked back along the line of the procession and saw people standing on either side of the road, the lines extending far back into the city proper. Humans and dwarves, a few elves, and a minotaur, head and shoulders over the rest. Here, then, was the source of that sea-like murmur they’d heard when the gate opened.
“Who has died?” Usha asked, but Rinn was already scrambling up the nearest ladder in answer to a sharp order from above to return to his watch.
Dezra shrugged. “Someone important enough to bring out the city.” She jerked her head at the procession. “All this is going to keep us here a while.”
The wealthy passed, and the coffin came into view. It was richly carved, covered with a many-colored tapestry, and carried on a broad bier by four stout servants. The woman riding the widow’s darkly-dressed horse came closer. The horse shook its head, disturbing the rider. She moved for balance and her veil slipped aside, displaying her face to the crowds come to honor grief or gather gossip. The parted veil showed a long bony face, like a horse’s someone once said, with teeth which, while white and even, were quite prominent. The skin of her face and neck was as red as though it had been flayed by a sea-wind, and thickly freckled.
“Aline!” Usha breathed.
“Who?”
“Aline Caroel.”
Dezra’s frown still said, “Who?”