The smoke was coming from several huge pyres that had been built down by the river, and now that the wind had shifted a bit, he knew what they were burning.
He kicked Ogre into a gallop.
More than a few heads turned toward Aspar as Ogre brought him up to the crowd, but he ignored the shouts demanding that he identify himself, swinging himself down instead and striding toward the fire.
It was difficult to count the corpses, heaped as they were, but he reckoned there were more than fifty. Two of the blazes were already so hot that white bone was beginning to pop and fall into the coals, but in the third he could see faces beginning to blister. His heart labored as he searched for Winna’s sweet features, smoke stinging his eyes. The heat forced him to step back.
“Here,” a burly fellow shouted. “Watch yourself. What are you doing?”
Aspar turned on him.
“How did these people die?” he demanded.
“They died because the saints hate us,” the man replied angrily. “And I’ll know who you are.”
About six men had gathered behind the fellow. A couple of them had held pitchforks or long poles for working the fire, but other than that they didn’t seem to be armed. They looked like tradesmen and farmers.
“I’m Aspar White,” he grunted. “The king’s holter.”
“Holter? The only forest within six days of here is the Sarnwood, and it don’t have a holter.”
“I’m the holter of the King’s Forest,” Aspar informed him. “I’m looking for two strangers: a young woman with blond hair and a dark young man. They would’ve come in with two cowherds.”
“Don’t have much time to look for strangers,” the man said. “Seems like all we have time for these days is grief. And for all I know, you might be bringing us more of that grief.”
“I mean you no harm,” Aspar responded. “I only want to find my friends.”
“You work for the king, then?” a third man put in. Aspar glanced at him from the corner of his eye, unwilling to take his gaze completely off the more threatening fellow. The new speaker was sunburned, with close-cropped hair, half gray and half black, and was missing an upper right tooth.
“The way I hear it, their aens’t no king.”
“True, but there’s a queen,” Aspar said. “And I’m her deputy, with full power to enforce her laws.”
“A queen, eh?” the thin fellow said. “Well, we could use a good word with her. You see what’s happening to us here.”
“They don’t care in Eslen what’s become of us,” the first man exploded. “You’re being fools. They didn’t send this man here to help us. He’s just come for his friends, like he said. As far as he’s concerned, the rest of us can rot.”
“What’s your name?” Aspar said, lowering his voice.
“Raud Achenson, if it’s anything to you.”
“I reckon you’ve got somebody on the pyre there.”
“Mighing right I do. My wife. My father. My youngest boy.”
“So you’re angry. You’d like someone to blame. But I didn’t put ’em there, you understand? And Grim hear me, I’ll put you there if you say one more word.”
Raud purpled, and his shoulders bunched.
“We’re with you, Raud,” said a fellow behind him.
That released the big man like a catapult, and he sprang at Aspar.
Aspar punched him in the throat, hard, and he went down.
Without stopping, Aspar leapt forward and caught the man who had cheered him on, grabbing him by the hair. He yanked out his dirk and put the tip under the man’s chin.
“Now, why would you try to kill your friend?” he asked.
“Didn’t—sorry,” the man gasped. “Please—”
Aspar released him with a hard push that sent him tumbling. Raud was on the ground, gasping for air and getting little, but Aspar hadn’t crushed his windpipe. He gave the rest of the crowd a hard look but didn’t see anyone who looked like a taker.
“Now,” he demanded, “what happened here?”
The gray-and-black-haired man studied his feet.
“You won’t believe it,” he said. “I saw it myself, and I don’t.”
“I maunt I’ll try it, anyway.”
“It was a thing like a snake, but so big. It crossed upstream. We reckon it poisoned the water. The greft sent his knights after it, but it killed most of em.”
“I’ve seen it, too,” Aspar said, “so I’ve no trouble believing you. Now, I’m going to ask you again, and this time someone answer me. Two strangers, a man and a woman, the woman with wheat-colored hair. They would have come with two children, cowherds named Aethlaud and Aohsli. Where would I find them?”
A woman of middle years cleared her throat at that. “They might be at the Billhook and Bail,” she offered uncertainly.
“You there!”
The shout came from uphill, and Aspar turned to find a man riding down from the city gate. He was dressed in lord’s plate and mounted on a black stallion with a white blaze.
“Yah?” he answered.
“You’re Aspar White?”
“Yah.”
“You’ll want to talk to me, then.”
The man reached down and clasped Aspar’s hand, then introduced himself as Sir Peren, servant of the Greft of Faurstrem, whose seat was Haemeth. The holter mounted Ogre, and together they started up the hill.
“Your friends spoke of you,” Peren said once the crowd was behind them. “Winna and Ehawk.”
“You know them? Where are they?”
“I will not lie to you,” Peren said. “I saw them last this morning. They were dying. They might be dead by now.”
“Take me to them, then,” Aspar said, knowing his voice was harsh, unable to do anything about it.
Peren glanced at him. “You’ve found it, then?” he asked. “The cure?”
Aspar looked downhill to the pyres. A whole town infected by the woorm’s poison, and him with a bagful of the fruit.
“Is the greft infected?” he asked rather than answering directly.
“No, but his son led us against the waurm,” Sir Peren replied. “He, too, lies on his deathbed.” The man seemed nervous, Aspar thought.
Aspar relaxed his shoulders with a deep breath. They had been waiting for him. Either Ehawk or Winna had told someone he’d gone to find a cure, and word had gotten around.
Was he a prisoner? It was starting to feel that way. He probably could kill Peren and escape, but that meant Winna and Ehawk would surely die if they weren’t already dead.
“I’ll see my friends,” he said. “Then we’ll see about the greftson.”
By the time they reached the tower, two more armed and armored men had joined Peren in escorting him. Once they passed the outer keep, a servant took Ogre, his only ally, and by the time they entered the bailey and came into the audience of the greft, he had seven guards following him.
The Greffy of Faurstrem wasn’t a large or prosperous one, and the audience chamber reflected that fact in its modesty. An ancient throne of oak sat on a small stone dais, with a banner draped behind it depicting a hawk gripping a scepter and an arrow in its claws. The man on the throne was ancient, too, with a silver beard that nearly piled in his lap and rheumy gray eyes.
Peren dropped to his knee.
“Greft Ensil,” he said. “This is Aspar White, the king’s holter.”
The old man shook, every part of him, as he raised his head to regard his visitor. He stared at Aspar for a long, wasted moment before speaking.
“I thought I would never have a son,” he said at last. “The saints seemed to be denying me. I was almost resigned to it, and then, when I was sixty, the saints made a miracle and gave me Emfrith. Emfrith, my lovely boy.” He leaned forward, eyes blazing.
“Can you understand that, holter? Have you any children?”
“No,” Aspar replied.
“No,” Ensil repeated. “Then you cannot understand.” He sat back and closed his eyes. “Three days ago he rode out against a thing I believed only existed in legend. He went out like a hero, and fell like one. He is dying. Can you save him?”