I owed the J’Ettanne nothing, but Aeren was a sorcerer and Darzid was hunting him. I would kill Aeren myself before I allowed Evard to burn another man.
* * *
Though Aeren was clearly unhappy about my decision to leave the valley, and Jacopo grumbled endlessly about my decision to venture my mission alone, I bade farewell to the two of them early the next morning. Grenatte was five leagues to the south, but I had walked it before. I followed a narrow track across the meadow, and when I reached the intersection with the main road just south of Dunfarrie, I found a surprise—a skinny, grimy figure perched on a pile of boulders waiting for me.
“Paulo! What are you doing here?”
“Not my idea.”
“I wondered why Jacopo found it so urgent to go down to the village last night. How much did he pay you to tag along?”
“Secret. Promised.”
“And what are you supposed to do? Protect me from highwaymen?”
The boy straightened his back. “Might. I know a bit.”
“Of course you do, but it’s a very long way.” I didn’t want to shame the boy, but I failed to see how he could walk so far with his twisted leg.
“Done it before. Faster’n you.”
I grinned. “Think so? Well, we’ll see then.” I started briskly down the road, Paulo scampering along beside. Jacopo was no fool. Having an extra hand, a pair of youthful eyes, and a trustworthy messenger was not a bad notion.
“So Paulo, does your gram know where you are?”
“She’s down drunk again.”
“Oh.”
His father had been hanged for thievery when Paulo was small, and his mother had disappeared only months after, leaving Paulo to be raised by his grandmother when she was sober and the rest of the village when she was drunk. He had no trouble keeping up. I thought it would be exhausting to twist with each step as Paulo had to do, but he seemed tireless, and though his body was far from perfect, his hearing was excellent. After an hour of good progress, he halted abruptly. “Horses. Wagon. Behind.” He cocked an eye at me. “Jaco says maybe you want to be private.”
“That’s true,” said I, “but I don’t hear anything.”
“Four or five of ‘em. I’ll swear on horseflesh.”
He was so sure of himself that, despite feeling a bit foolish, I motioned him over behind the sprawling blackberry bushes that lined the roadway. He promptly began stuffing berries in his mouth while I crouched itching and sweating in the prickly thicket. About the time I was convinced that his warning was only a ploy to get a rest, the boy put a purple-stained finger to his mouth, and I heard the jangle of harness.
Two heavily armed men rode and two equally tough-looking women walked beside a wagon driven by a hard-faced boy about Paulo’s age. Their cargo was barrels of the type commonly used for sugar—a valuable load. Dangerous. I allowed the party to take a substantial lead before setting out on the road again.
“I’m glad you’re here, Paulo.”
The boy trotted ahead of me. “Best keep up!”
The road stayed close to the river for a while, then angled southwest, passing through a trailing remnant of the great northern forests before breaking out into the rolling grasslands of southern Leire. I disliked the few-league passage through During Forest. The giant oaks and ashes grew together so thickly that they blocked the sunlight, leaving their lower branches bare and brittle. Little grew on the forest floor to disturb the ancient piles of rotting leaves and tangles of fallen trees. We had been walking beneath the grim forest canopy for almost an hour when Paulo stopped again.
“Riders. Three of ‘em close behind. And there’s men in the woods up ahead. Quiet.”
My skin crept. Highwaymen. Paulo and I quickly retreated into the shelter of a lightning-split oak, settling ourselves carefully so that no breaking twig could betray our presence, and so that we could not be seen from the road. Then we watched.
The three horsemen wore priests’ robes, two of them in gray, one in black with a heavy gold chain about his neck. Their horses were richly caparisoned with red and gold, blazoned with the rising sun of Annadis. Intricate decorative goldwork hung from the bridles, jingling softly as they passed.
I had little use for the priests of Leire, resenting all the years I had listened to their drivel. They taught that the Holy Twins had no interest in the daily trials of mortals, only in deeds of honor and glory that reflected their own. Priests of Annadis had sanctioned what was done to Karon and my son. I was not interested in gods who found honor or glory in such doings. And for the common folk, honor and glory meant working themselves to exhaustion, paying the exorbitant temple fees and royal taxes without complaint, and dying cheerfully in the king’s everlasting wars. No surprise that village shrines all over Leire were neglected, and the great temples deserted except on high feast days when the priests gave out alms.
The highwaymen slipped out of the trees and blocked the way of the hooded travelers just as the riders passed our position. “Hold!” commanded a short, stocky man. He wore a yellow rag tied around his head and carried a long knife. His four companions were variously armed with a cudgel, a spear, a dagger, and a crossbow, cocked and ready. “Dismount.” The priests obeyed in silence. Two of the outlaws caught the reins of the horses, while their companions stood guard on the hooded priests.
The stocky man examined the horses carefully, running his hand down the withers of a well-formed bay. “Such fine beasts are not the usual for traveling holy men. And such trappings…” He jingled the gold link work dangling from the bridle, and then strolled up to his victims and ran his eyes up and down the still figures. “Turned out quite grand for priests, are we not?” With a swift movement of his knife he snatched the gold chain about the neck of the priest in black and deftly twisted it about the long knife blade, leaving the point of his blade at the man’s throat. The three priests stood perfectly still and perfectly silent.
“Quiet lot, you are. Never met a holy man could keep from telling me how wicked are my ways, and how the Twins want my blood and my coin. Tiresome. Perhaps you’re not born to it.” He took another twist in the gold chain. “But you’ve prospered, nonetheless. Mayhap it’s time you shared a bit with the poor.”
I was prepared to see murder done—highwaymen had nothing to lose, being already condemned—but not in the way it happened. With breathtaking suddenness, the three horses screamed and reared, crushing one of the outlaws and entangling another in hooves and reins. In the ensuing confusion, the two gray-robed priests whirled about with blinding speed and precision, overpowering their guards. The one in black pinned the leader of the outlaws to the ground under the point of his own knife. With simple ease and no hesitation, the priest drove the knife home in the bandit’s chest, and then jumped up to join the larger fray.
It was over in moments. Three outlaws lay on the road unmoving. The two gray-clad priests held the two remaining highwaymen, pinning their arms behind them so cruelly that I expected to hear a bone snap in the sudden quiet. The priest in black approached the defiant captives. His hood had fallen back to reveal thin, light-colored hair and an angular face with jutting nose and brow. “You should have been more selective as to your prey, my little wolves,” he said evenly, his voice the more unsettling for its complete lack of emotion. And before the outlaws had a chance to savor a last breath, he whipped his knife across each throat. The two bleeding bodies were released and slumped to the ground.
The priest in black jerked his head around and stared into the trees, exactly in our direction. I dared not breathe until he pulled up his hood, turned, and clucked at his horse. A fallen highwayman moaned. The black-robed priest snapped his fingers. One of his fellows picked up the dropped spear and plunged it through the injured outlaw, pinning him to the road. The spear shaft was still quivering when the three priests disappeared down the road south.