Paetur, Winna’s younger brother, was busy with Angel and Ogre. Paet was tall, blond, and gangly. He was—what?— thirteen?
“Morning, sir,” Paet said, when he saw Aspar.
“I’m not a knight, boy.”
“Yah, but you’re the closest we have hereabouts, except old Sir Symen.”
“A knight’s a knight. Sir Symen is one; I’m not.” He nodded at his mounts. “They ready to go?”
“Ogre says yah, Angel says ney. I think you ought to leave Angel with me.” He patted the roan on the neck.
“She said that, did she?” Aspar grunted. “Could be she’s tired from the running you gave her yesterday?”
“I never—”
“Lie to me and I’ll whip you good, and your father will thank me for it.”
Paet reddened and studied his shoes. “Well … she needed a stretch.”
“Next time ask, you hear? And for pity’s sake, don’t try to ride Ogre.”
The barred bay chose that moment to snort, as if in agreement. Paet laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“Tom tried, yesterday. To ride Ogre.”
“When do they bury him?”
“He lost two front teeth, is all.”
“Lucky. The boy’s lucky.”
“Yes, Master White.”
Aspar patted Ogre’s muzzle. “Looks like you packed them well. You want to arrange my quiver and bow?”
“Could I?” The boy’s eyes sparkled eagerly.
“I reckon.” He handed the weapon over.
“Is it true you’ve killed six uttins with this?”
“There’s no such thing as uttins, boy. Nor greffyns, nor alvs, nor basil-nix, nor tax-counters with hearts.”
“That’s what I told my friths. But Rink says his uncle saw an uttin himself—”
“Got drunk and saw his own reflection, more likely.”
“But you did kill the Black Wargh and his bandits, didn’t you? All ten of them.”
“Yah,” Aspar said curtly.
“I’m going to do something like that someday.”
“It’s not all it’s made out to be,” Aspar replied. With that, he mounted up on Ogre and started off. Angel followed obediently. So did Paet.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Aspar demanded.
“Down by the Warlock. A Sefry caravan came in last night. I want to get my fortune told.”
“You’d be better off staying away from them,” Aspar advised.
“Weren’t you raised Sefry, Master White? Didn’t Dirty Jesp raise you?”
“Yah. So I know what I’m talking about.”
The Sefry had chosen a nice spot, a violet-embroidered meadow overlooking the river and embraced on all sides by thick-limbed wateroaks. They were still setting their tents. A big one of faded crimson and gold was fully erected, the clan crest—three eyes and a crescent moon—waving in a diffident zephyr. Hobbled horses grazed in the meadow, where ten men and twice that many children hammered stakes, uncoiled lines, and unrolled canvas. Most were stripped to the waist, for the sun wasn’t yet high enough to sear their milk-white skin. Unlike most folk, the Sefry never darkened from the sun. In full light, they went swaddled head to toe.
“Hallo, there,” one of the men called, a narrow-shouldered fellow with features that suggested thirty years but that Aspar knew were lying by at least fifteen. He had known Afas when they were both children, and Afas was the older. “Do I see Dirt’s Bastard, there?”The Sefry straightened, hammer swinging at his side.
Aspar dismounted. Dirt’s Bastard. Not a nickname he’d ever cared for.
“Hallo, Afas,” he replied, refusing to let his annoyance show. “Nice to see you, too.”
“Come to run us off ?”
“What’s the point? I’d just be wishing you on a different town, probably another in or around my jurisdiction. Besides, I’m on my way out.”
“Well, that’s generous.” The Sefry tilted his head. “She said you’d be here. She was almost wrong, ney?”
“Who’s ‘she’?”
“Mother Cilth.”
“Grim! She still alive?”
“They rarely die, these old women.”
Aspar stopped a few paces from Afas. The two men were of a height, but there the resemblance stopped. Aspar had weight to go with his altitude, an oak to Afas’ willow. Close up, Afas’ skin was a map, the blue rivers, streams, rills, and rinns of his veins plainly visible. He had six pale nipples, set like a cat’s on his lithe, wiry torso. His hair was midnight dark, tied back with a gold ribbon.
“Where’d you just come from?” Aspar asked.
“South.”
“Come through the forest?”
Afas’ indigo eyes went wide and guileless. “You know better than that, Holter. We wouldn’t travel in King Randolf’s forest without permission.”
“King Randolf died thirteen years ago. It’s William, now.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Well. I’m going to Taff Creek. A boy came in last night saying his kin were murdered down there. I’d be grateful if you’ve heard anything worth repeating. I wouldn’t ask too close where you heard it.”
“Decent of you. But I wat nothing about that. But I’ll tell you this—if I had been in the forest, I’d be out of there now. I’d be going far away from it.”
“Where are you going?”
“We’ll tinker here for a few days, to earn for supplies. After that? Far away. Tero Gallé, maybe, or Virgenya.”
“Why?”
Afas jerked his head toward the largest tent, the one already set up. “Because she says so. I don’t know more than that, nor do I want to. But you can ask her. In fact, she said you’d want to ask her.”
“Hmm. Well. I suppose I ought to, then.”
“Might be healthiest.”
“Right. Stay out of trouble, hey? I’ve got enough to worry about without having to track you down later.”
“Sure. Anything for you, Dirt.”
Mother Cilth had been old when Aspar was a boy. Now she might have been a ghost looking across the chasm of death. She sat on a pile of cushions, robed in black, coifed in black. Only her face was visible, an ivory mask spidered with sapphire. Her eyes, palest gold, watched his every movement. Jesp’s eyes had been that color. And Qerla’s.
“There you are,” Mother Cilth rasped. “Jesperedh said you would be here.”
Aspar bit back telling her how long Jesp had been dead. It wouldn’t matter. Whether it was all pretense or whether the Sefry had come to believe their own lies, he had never really known. It didn’t matter, because either way their constant talk of speaking with the dead was so much annoying sceat. The dead were dead; they did not speak.
“You wanted to see me?” He made a small attempt to keep the irritation from his voice, but it wasn’t something he was good at.
“I see you already. I want to talk to you.”
“I’m here, Mother. I’m listening.”
“Still rude. Still impatient. I thought my sister taught you better.”
“Maybe her lessons would have taken better if she had had a little help from the rest of you,” Aspar replied, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Take me as you find me or not at all. It wasn’t me wanted to talk to you.”
“Yes, it was.”
That was true, sort of, but he didn’t have to like it. He turned on his heel to leave.
“The Briar King is waking,” Cilth whispered.
Aspar paused, a bright tickle like a centipede crawling on his backbone. He turned very slowly to face the old woman again.
“What?”
“The Briar King. He wakes.”
“That’s sceat,” Aspar said harshly, though a part of him felt as if the earth had opened beneath his feet. “I’ve traveled the King’s Forest all my life. I’ve been in the deepest, black heart of it, and I’ve been places in the Mountains of the Hare that even the deer never saw. There is no Briar King. That’s just more of your Sefry nonsense.”
“You know better. He slept, and was unseen. Now he wakes. It is the first sign. Surely Jesp taught you.”