“My shodo once told me it’s better to keep potential enemies close, rather than distant. So you know what they may be planning.”
“Ah. My an-kaidin just told us to kill them.”
Mahmood once again offered us his wagon for the night, but this time I politely declined. He’d done quite a bit for us already, and he was certainly entitled to sleep in his own bed. Del took her sword and harness out of Mahmood’s wagon, while I put tack back on the stud, loosed his tie-rope and the rope around his nose, and led him away from the tree. I suggested to Del we ride double through all the muck so as not to wade through it.
She shook her head. “I don’t think we should be seen together. You ride, I’ll walk.”
I wanted to object, but she had a point. “All right. Where am I going?”
She provided directions and description for the inn; the small livery in which she’d stabled her gelding was in the same row of buildings. It was nowhere near the main street through town, nor where many men drank, she explained. Spirits were not allowed in the inn.
“Not allowed?” I asked.
“Not allowed,” she confirmed.
“Well, no wonder you chose that one!”
Del merely smiled in satisfaction.
“I hardly ever drink anymore,” I protested. “I don’t even know the last time I was drunk.”
“Approximately five days ago, when you and Alric sat by the stream sucking down ale.”
Oh. Yes. We had sucked down ale. And yes, I’d felt it. Time to change the subject. I asked if she’d learned anything about the raiders while visiting taverns. She said she would tell me at the inn.
I watched her go, then gathered up the tack and gear resting on my raincoat, which now would be even muddier than before. Once the stud was ready I worked my way back into the mud-coated oilcloth, mounted, and rode away in a direction different from the route Del took.
The sun, hidden above dark clouds for much of the day, began its journey down the ladder of the sky. Now was the time the taverns would fill up. Marketday would draw from miles around. The end of the day signaled time for food, spirits, even wine-girls, were a man not married. Caravaners who brought wives with them could avail themselves only of food and drink.
Hoolies, I couldn’t avail myself of drink, thanks to Del finding what likely was the one inn in all of Istamir that neither sold nor tolerated spirits.
The mud on my face had dried and now itched, caught in beard scruff. It took great effort not to scratch all of it off. I remained barefoot, riding with sandals tied together and draped across the pommel, wearing the bedraggled coat in hopes of looking nothing like a sword-dancer, despite my sword jutting up over my shoulder. I’d covered it with the flap of oilcloth, but mostly it made me look like a hunchback. A very oddly shaped hunchback. So after consideration I took my mud-caked sandals off the pommel and tossed them over my shoulder, one dangling in front, the other in back, attempting to disguise the hilt.
So. A hunchback with a very muddy face and muddier coat. Well, it might work.
I drew a few idle glances as I made my way around the wagons, looked for a way into the town that wasn’t part of the paved main street. Nothing about me looked particularly prepossessing. And no one commented or called out to me.
Eventually I found my way to the small, extremely narrow street Del had described. It was indeed well away from the main part of town and its paving stones. Here, dirt ruled, which, of course, had transformed itself into serious mud. Livery stables and smithies often were built adjoining one another; I followed the sound of a blacksmith ringing down a hammer upon an anvil. As I rode closer, I saw the shower of sparks, smelled the acrid tang of coals burning in the forge. And there was, indeed, an adjoining livery.
The blacksmith glanced up as I reined in the stud. He nodded his head toward the open double doors of the livery. “Wanting stabling, then?”
I nodded, untangled myself from sandals and coat, and stepped down into mud. The black-eyed smith, arms and shoulders overdeveloped from years of pounding iron, smiled through his dark beard. “A soft day, wasn’t it?”
I shot him a morose glance. “If that’s what you call unremitting downpours up here in the North, then yes, it was ‘soft.’”
“Not a Borderer, then?”
I decided the better part of safety lay in saying nothing about me being a Southroner. I wanted to give no one the puzzle pieces of my presence and appearance. “Borderer,” I said. “Just not from this area.”
“You’ve got the look.” He used tongs to pick up the horse shoe from the anvil, inspected it, dumped it back into the coals. “How long are you wanting to keep your horse here?”
“A few days. Is there an hostler here?”
“Oh, that’d be me,” he said comfortably. “Both places, you see. I’ll see to your mount. By the looks of that crest on his neck, he’s a stallion.”
“He is.”
“Stallions cost extra.”
“He’s a very well-behaved stallion.”
The smith looked at him again. He grunted. “Doubting that. Extra, like I said.”
I sighed and agreed. Then a thought struck me. A smith would know more about what horses came through town than anyone. Even if they hadn’t seen them in the flesh, smiths undoubtedly spoke of their trade and customers—human and equine—in taverns.
“I’m here for the horse fair,” I said. “Harith—you know Harith? East of here?—asked me to pick up two head, if I found any good ones. Mares, of course.”
The smith pulled the horseshoe out of the coals, set it on edge on the anvil, gripped the tongs tightly closed, and began banging away to shape the shoe properly. He nodded, watching his work, not me. When he paused for a moment to examine the shoe, he spoke. “I know Harith. Good horseman. Hasn’t been running so many head now that his son’s away. Gone two years, I think it is. No matter. Young men wanting travel. Though I don’t know as how being a sword-dancer is an honest day’s work compared to raising horses.” He cast a knowing glance at me. “But no offense. You’re either that, or a hunchback. And I don’t think you’re a hunchback.”
I ignored the unsolicited comments. “Harith just hired me on. Said his son was gone, and he needed the help.” I paused a moment, watching him; made the question idle. “Have you seen any horses with shorn manes? Wildcat got into a corral, broke one of the poles down. A few horses got out. Someone might have picked them up.”
“Someone might have. I haven’t seen any.” He once again stuck the shoe under the coals and laid down his tongs. “Well, shall I be taking this brute, then, or will you put him in a stall yourself?”
I assumed a blank expression, just held out the reins. He was a big, stout man who likely took no guff from recalcitrant horses. He might be a match for the stud.
He indicated a table piled with bridles, straps, bits of iron, horse shoes and nails, a rasp. “Be putting it there.” And he told me how much I was to be putting there. He grinned, displaying a missing front tooth, as my eyebrows shot up. “Extra for a stallion.”
I glowered at him, then pulled the saddle pouches down, dug through one, and came up with a modest leather pouch. From it I took his price, laid coin on the table. I decided I preferred that the stud be difficult, successfully difficult, just to show the smith he was right not to make exceptions.
Grinning again, he took the reins from my hand. “Extra if he’s mean.”
“More ‘extra?’ Hoolies, you’re not a smith or an hostler. You’re a thief!”
“Others have claimed the same,” he said agreeably. “But there’ll be no other liveries with room so close to Marketday.”