Intent on her thoughts, the noise of the busy tavern startled her. It was full. Guards, she thought, judging by the number of weapons they carried. It wasn’t all that uncommon to see so many strangers here; this was the closest tavern to the trail. It made her glad she’d sent her pack with Lehr—books were valuable, and some of these guardsmen looked as though they sometimes might have held other, less savory occupations.
She could hear a lute intermingling with the sounds of men talking, but whoever it was played stiffly and a little off pitch. She wondered when Tier would tactfully help him out a little.
The crowd shifted, and she saw the lute player. Shock caught her breath. It was Tier. Even as she watched him, he shook his head and put the lute down.
“Seraph,” Regil, the tavern’s owner, reached out to steady her, but didn’t quite touch. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she said, composing herself. “Excuse me.”
Tier could play badly, she thought, but only if he wanted to. She’d spent the first two weeks after she’d gotten him back from the Path wizards surreptitiously checking to make certain that they had not damaged him, that they hadn’t begun to steal his Order already. But after those first weeks, as he began to recover from the hurt they had done, she’d quit worrying, quit looking.
Unto the Ravens it is given to see the Orders. She called the magic and looked. The fine fabric of Tier’s Order was wrapped around him as it always was, but there were holes in it.
She started toward Tier, but her exchange with the tavern owner had drawn several of the strange men’s attention to her.
A man on her right surged to this feet. “A Traveler bitch? I thought the animals had to stay outside.”
Seraph stopped and looked at him, waiting for him to do something else. Anything else. Rage surged through her veins and brought magic with it. Tier was home. He should have been safe. This guardsman had nothing to do with her anger.
Nothing and everything.
“Seraph Tieraganswife,” said the tavern owner, trying to distract her from her prey, brave man. “As you see, your husband has been keeping us busy with his tales.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the guardsman. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said.
“Seraph,” said Tier. “Let the poor man alone.”
If that “poor man” had tried his speech in a different place, with a different Traveler woman, one who was not Raven, he might have caused some harm. Benroln might have been right, maybe if the solsenti were more afraid of Travelers, they wouldn’t have destroyed so many of the clans.
The Path wouldn’t have begun taking Travelers, and Tier wouldn’t have rents in his Order. She’d never seen anything like it, but then, until the Path kidnaped Tier, she’d never heard of anyone being able to separate Order from Order Bearer.
“Sit down.” She told the guardsman.
Tier could put a compulsion in his words that made people obey him. Seraph’s magic forced his body to comply with her demand. Same result from different causes. The guardsman dropped to his seat as if he’d been a puppet whose strings were cut.
“Shut up.”
The spell would fade after an hour or so, she’d given it no extra push. The rest of the tavern had miraculously quieted, though she had been careful to direct the spell only onto the man who’d annoyed her.
She walked the rest of the way to Tier’s table with Regil’s anxious escort.
Willon stood as she approached the table. Her gaze locked on Tier, she hadn’t even noticed there was someone else sitting with him until Willon moved. He took her hand and kissed it. He’d never done such a thing before, and it distracted her for a moment. “Seraph, so nice to see you. Please excuse the words of my cousin’s guardsman. He won’t be here long.”
His words and his unusual gallantry were to let the guards know they were to leave her alone, she thought, and was dimly grateful.
“Willon.” She couldn’t manage to chat with the merchant, not when she was so worried about Tier.
She knew that Tier would have already thanked him for traveling all the way to Taela to help them, so she didn’t need to. She inclined her head to him, but her attention was on her husband. “Tier, the children have gone on home, are you ready to leave?”
He smiled, but there was something off about his smile. He knew, she thought. Of course he knew there was something wrong.
“I think it might be best.” He picked up a lute and gave it to the tavern owner. “Thanks for the lunch, Regil. I missed your sausage while I was gone.”
He put Seraph’s hand on his arm and led her back to where Hennea awaited him at the exit.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the tavern, Tier said, “Seraph, I was singing, and I couldn’t stay on pitch.” He shook his head. “I’ve never had that trouble before.”
“There’s something wrong with your Bardic Order,” she told him.
His strides broke rhythm, then resumed his usual pace, though slowed a bit by his limp. “Something the Path did?”
Seraph gave a frustrated huff and slid her hand down until she was clutching his. “It seems likely. I don’t know how to fix this. Until the Path’s wizards proved differently, it was my understanding that nothing could affect the Orders.”
“Coat it in sugar, why don’t you?” Tier’s voice was lightly amused, but his hand tightened almost brutally on hers. “If you can’t fix this, I’m not going to sing on key anymore?”
“I don’t know.”
Tier didn’t loosen his grip on her hand, but he quit talking.
They hadn’t been so long at the tavern that the children had beaten them home by much. Gura was still bouncing with excitement when he spied them on their way. He tore up the path, going so fast that he had to run by them once before he could slow enough to get a proper ear rubbing from Tier.
In the house Hennea had a map spread out on the table, and the boys and Rinnie were gathered around, engrossed in their examination.
“Hennea,” Seraph said. “We have a problem.”
“Can you do anything, Mother?” asked Rinnie.
Seraph glanced at Hennea, who shrugged and answered, “I don’t know. We’ll try. The Elder Wizards managed to work with the Orders, obviously, since they created them. But as far as the mermori libraries that Hennea, Brewydd, and I have managed to get through, they wrote nothing about it.”
“Brewydd might know something that could help,” said Lehr. “I can go and find the Librarian’s clan.”
Seraph hesitated. Benroln’s clan could be anywhere—and there was no guarantee that Brewydd could do anything for Tier.
“I’m Hunter, Mother. I can find them.”
“He’ll need a horse,” said Tier. It was the first thing that he’d said since they came home. “Skew’s not up to a fast trip.”
“All right.” Seraph got up to retrieve the purse the Emperor had given them from the loft. She scrambled back down the ladder and held the bag out to Lehr.
“Take this now, while there’s still daylight. Go see what kind of a mount you can purchase from Akavith.”
Lehr took the purse gingerly. “Akavith’s expensive, Mother.”
“He breeds horses for the nobility,” she agreed. “He’ll have something fast. Make certain he knows you want an animal for hunting, not farmwork.” She glanced at Tier, he knew the crusty old horseman better than she. “Can he tell Akavith that he’s riding for a Traveler healer?”
Tier nodded. “Tell him where the money comes from, too, though likely he knows already. After the verses Ciro sang the other night, likely the story of the farmer and the Emperor is all over the mountains by now. Akavith will be more likely to help if he knows the whole story. His mother’s aunt was a hedgewitch and healer round about when I was a boy, and he has no grudge against Travelers.”