I stood, shivered, and brushed cold water from my body. “A troublesome neighbor,” I repeated. “Will he even let me go, do you think? Or is he so lonely for conversation—for speech with an educated man rather than another brigand—that he will keep me here forever, half servant, half buffoon?”
I reached for my doublet and turned it inside out. I took up a coil of slow-match I’d found in the camp and lit the match on a piece of punk I’d set alight in the kitchen as I left, then kept alive in a bowl covered with a lid. I blew the match to ruby brilliance, then began using the match to burn the lice running freely in my clothing.
“He has sent the ransom demand to Kevin,” I continued. “But the letter must first find Kevin, who may be away, or at sea on a trading voyage. Kevin must find or borrow five royals in a city that has been looted of most of his money. And then the money must find its way here, to the Toppings, to Sir Basil’s rude little treasury with its guard of wyverns.” The scent of burning insects tainted the air. I looked up at the goddess. “Is it likely, do you suppose? And how long will it be before this happens? For Sir Basil plans to leave this place as soon as the two lords’ ransoms arrive, and find shelter in another wild place before an angry Lord Stayne raises an army to wipe him out. And if I leave this camp before my ransom arrives, the money may take some time to find him. . . .” I sighed. “If I am not murdered beforehand, by some arbitrary caprice of Sir Basil, or some other wanton brute in the camp who may shoot me for his own amusement.”
Water chuckled pleasantly from the trough. Wind sighed gently in the osiers. Golden leaves flashed in the air as they fell.
“I must escape,” I said to the little goddess. “That is all I can think. For it is intolerable in this camp, and I do not trust Sir Basil to keep his word, and I do not wish to be slaughtered.”
I pulled louse eggs from the seams of my doublet, then cast the doublet on the ground and picked up my shirt.
“Yet,” I said, “I cannot escape in the day, for the bandits are ever on guard. I need the fall of night to avoid the guards and make as many miles as I can before dawn, and for this I must somehow avoid being locked up at night. But the bandits are alert to this possibility, and make a head count as they send us down the stair. And therefore, I must go forth at night with permission. Which brings us to the figure of Dorinda.”
I let the name hang in the air for a moment as I burned a fat crab-louse. “She is rare in being a solitary woman in the camp,” I resumed. “Most of the women here are married or otherwise attached to one of the men, and the rest are public women bought for the price of silver or a trinket or a fine silk shirt. I cannot speak to the first for fear of angering their menfolk, and the latter despise me for having no money. But Dorinda—”
I looked up at the goddess, as if I sensed an interruption. “You laugh at me, mistress,” I said. “And truly, I laugh at myself. Dorinda, indeed!”
I cocked my head, as if listening to a reply, and then went on. “For you see, we eat well in the camp. The bandits no longer haunt the roads for fear of encountering armed parties searching for Lord Stayne, and so they amuse themselves with hunting. And since Sir Basil plans to shift his post, he plans to eat all the domestic animals we may not take with us. And I have become Butcher to the robber band, and daily prepare their meat. Because I have proved good at carving, I am even privileged to cut the collops that feed their lordships Utterback and Stayne. There is no apron, and the work can bespatter a man, so I work near naked.
“Now, I have seen Dorinda look at me as I dismember a deer or a hog, and despite the bruises she daily inflicts upon me with her ladle, I flatter myself that she thinks well of what she sees. And so, if I encourage her, and if she takes me for her paramour, and if I survive the encounter with my back unbroken—for she is a strong woman, and I have seen her hoist a side of beef with no more effort than Lord Stayne might employ to lift a box of comfits—if I survive, as I say, and if I please her well enough to send her into a sound slumber, and if I can then sneak from her lodging and away from the camp . . .” I laughed. “A long, pretty list of ifs! If I can run through the Toppings without falling and breaking my neck, and if I can avoid the dogs and hunting parties sent after me—I believe I am to run in a stream to lose my scent, am I not? So, another if presents itself—if I do not drown, and then if I can somehow escape the Toppings and beg my way to Selford, then I shall be a free man.” I laughed. “And if not, a corpse. Or the concubine of a savage, half-mad cook. Or a captive, growing ever more crepuscular, like Higgs.” I looked at the goddess and smiled. “Do you like crepuscular, by the way? I made it up. From the old Aekoi, crepusculum.”
I finished my shirt, put it on the grass, and picked up my riding breeches. As I searched the seams for lice, I gave the statue a wistful look. “But it is not Dorinda to whom I wish to address my attentions. Nor to you, mistress, begging your pardon. But rather another—a woman I have seen only twice.”
I looked up as a gust of wind rattled the autumn leaves over my head, and a golden whirlwind of leaves clattered through the grove. The tip of the slow-match flared brighter, then faded. I lifted my brows and looked at the goddess.
“Are you jealous, mistress?” I asked. “Do not fear; she is beyond my reach.
“Two days ago,” I continued, “I saw her walking on the sward, across the lake, while the camp was having its dinner. And last night, at twilight I saw her standing not fifty feet away, but I was being harangued by Sir Basil about some point of law, and could not get away. And again she stood looking at me, her green eyes gazing at me, and I felt that in her eyes I might be the only man in the world. . . .” My voice drifted away as I relived the memory. And then I shook myself, and laughed as I looked at the rose-pink goddess. “You laugh at me, mistress! And yet, and yet . . .” I touched myself just above the heart. “The gaze of those green eyes stirred me to my bones. A poet would compare her skin to ivory, and call her eyes ‘smaragds,’ I suppose, and then have to find a rhyme for the word!” I gave a bitter laugh. “And I—a prisoner, penniless, without smaragds or anything but the clothes on my back!” My tone turned wistful. “Yet I would dare, if I could.”
I had finished my task with the slow-match, ground the burnt end underfoot, and coiled the rest. I hastened to put on my clothes, and rubbed warmth into my arms and shoulders. “As your sole worshiper,” I told the statue, “may I beg a favor? Will you provide a little hot water tomorrow? My baths are too cold for the season.”
I offered the goddess a bow. “With your permission, I shall come again tomorrow to worship at your feet.” I threw the overcoat over my shoulder, and made my way into the grove, through a rain of slender golden leaves.
I walked beside the stream, my eyes on the ground, my mind occupied by memories of the ghostly red-headed woman. And then, from somewhere above me, I heard a sonorous chord.
I looked up in deep surprise, and saw the mysterious woman above me, perched on a limb of one of the largest osiers, her feet dangling just above my head. She was dressed simply, in a deep blue velvet skirt, a blouse of the dark red called cramoisie, and a long woolen shawl of deep greens and blues draped over her head, one end stylishly thrown over her shoulder. She wore soft boots of dark suede. Behind her, the bright gold of the leaves shimmered and surged like a sun-struck sea. She held a mandola in her lap, and strummed more chords while her green eyes glittered with amusement.