"Wash that too, idiot!" the wizard snarled. "Get your clothes off. We'll have to bury them."
Whandall said, "They reach. You remember what I told you going through the forest? It's the same stuff. It wants to kill you. You were smart not to go in very far."
"Lucky, too," Lurk said. "But I lost them." He sounded disgusted.
Sandry was back with a double handful of bell peppers. Morth went to work.
"They were carrying a big pile of stuff, that stack Morth was looking at in their gatehouse," Lurk said. "They loaded it in that wagon, and maybe ten of them went with it, like it was the most valuable thing they had."
"What did they do with it?" Whandall asked.
"Don't know. I told you. Got away." Lurk's voice was fading fast.
"What do you think they were doing, Clerk Sandry?" Whandall asked.
Sundry's face was a mask to match Whandall's trading face. "No idea, sir. None at all."
"I see." Whandall turned back to Lurk and said, softly, "Maybe I found them at the other end."
Lurk looked less puzzled than dizzy. But Whandall was making maps in his head. Do it on parchment later, check it out... .
No one had ever walked it, really, but it must be near two hours from Alferth's grape fields down the Deerpiss and across to Wolverine turf ... by the streets. Those streets curved around a knob of hill covered with chaparral thickening to dwarf forest. But as the crow flies-
How could he have seen Staxir's armor and Kreeg Miller's leathers and never made the connection? They go into the woods. Kinless woodsmen can do that, and so can I. The Toronexti have to, to move what they take!
"Which way did they go?" Whandall asked. "Show me on a map." He called for lamps and parchment.
While they waited, Morth wrapped paste-covered cloths around puffy red blotches on Nothing Was Seen's arm and lower belly. "And drink this."
Lurk sipped. He protested, "Man, that's coffee!"
"Sorry. If I had honey... oh, just drink it."
"I will send for honey," Sandry said.
And we were speaking Condigeo, which Sandry hasn't admitted knowing, Whandall thought. "Thank you."
With Stone and Morth and Sandry at his elbows, Whandall drew maps of Tep's Town. Whandall gave his attention to Wolverine turf and the Deerpiss, and the streets that curved around a peninsula of forest. Through the forest was much shorter, but slower too if a man didn't want to die horribly.
But Morth was concentrating his efforts from the Black Pit west toward the sea, sketching in detail on a path that evaded the Lordshills, otherwise following the lowlands.
When Sandry refused to help them work on Lord's Town, Morth protested. "These have to be accurate. I'll need them later. And at least twenty of your Lordkin, Whandall-"
"I tire of your hints. Maps won't help," Whandall said. "Morth, no Lordkin knows maps." He turned to the kinless boy huddled at the outer edge of the band. "Adz Weaver, do you understand maps?"
"No, sir; I never saw anything like that," the young kinless said. "But I've been watching; I think I have the idea. You're making a picture of where we are?"
Whandall was startled. "Yes! Come here; help us mark this."
They watched Adz draw detail into kinless territory.
And it was all filling in nicely. "If he can learn that quickly, so can others," Morth said.
Whandall nodded. It kinless could learn. Lordkin could learn. Lordkin were smarter than kinless. He said, "Nothing Was Seen."
Lurk stood with difficulty. He leaned on his arms above the map. "Is this the big stone gatehouse that blocks the way to the forest? They went along here, up the Deerpiss. About here they went off the road and uphill, and I last saw them here, bush getting thick-"
Whandall grinned. "Good."
"Good? I lost them!"
"Up and across!" Whandall's fingertip ran through the mapped forest to the suburb of Granite Knob.
"I'll go see."
"Wait for dawn."
"No," Lurk said.
Stone would have stopped him, but Whandall shook his head. It would be a matter of pride with Lurk. Let him go.... "Not into the forest, understand? I only want to know where they come out."
Lurk nodded, then faded.
They worked on maps all night.
Chapter 74
Master Peacevoice Waterman and two men came to Whandall's wagon when the sun was an hour high. "Message, sir!" Waterman said. "Lady Shanda wishes to see you, here, at the sixth hour today, sir."
Shanda. "Who is Lady Shanda, Master Peacevoice?"
Waterman's expression changed only slightly. "First lady of Lord's Town, sir."
"She's married to Quintana?" Whandall asked.
Waterman was shocked. "No sir. She is married to Lord Quintana's nephew, and Lord Quintana being a widower, she is the official hostess for his household, sir." His voice held reproach, as if Whandall should know better.
"You like her, don't you, Master Peacevoice?"
"Everybody likes Lady Shanda, sir. That right, Corporal Driver?"
"Yes, Master Peacevoice."
Interesting. Sixth hour. Five hours from now. She must be partway here already. "Please send word to Lady Shanda that we will be delighted to have her join us at the sixth hour," Whandall said. A conventional phrase, but he found that he meant it. Shanda.
They set up the market before noon. A tightrope, high the way Burning Tower liked it. Hammer Miller and a kinless boy stood under to catch. Neither Lordkin nor Lord would do that in Tep's Town, and for the moment it was better if Whandall Feathersnake kept his dignity, even if he didn't like it.
Nothing went wrong. Burning Tower's act was flawless. And Clerk Sandry stood, mouth open, watching her in fascination as she wheeled and spiraled hallway down the pole, then deftly climbed, feet on the pole, back up it again.
"Smitten," Whandall heard Green Stone say behind him. "With my sister."
"And well he might," Whandall said softly.
"With Blazes? But all right, she's good on that rope."
"That wasn't the entire reason I had in mind," Whandall said.
It was only after Burning Tower finished her act and went to the changing tent that Sandry went to negotiate for another wagonload of hay and another of water for the bison. As Whandall had guessed, no one in Tep's Town would have dreamed that animals could eat so much.
Or make so much waste for the kinless to clean up ...
Shanda arrived in a small wagon drawn by four Lord's horses. A
teenage girl rode with her. Two chariots, one in front and one behind, clattered along with her. Each chariot held an armored man. If they were trying to convince him that Shanda was important, they succeeded.
He knew she was younger than he was, but she looked Whandall's age. He would not have recognized her. The self-assurance he remembered was there, but the little girl had become regal, desirable, attractive rather than beautiful, but extremely so. She wore a short skirt of thin wool, belt with ornate silver buckle, a brooch with blue and amber stones. Her hair was coiled atop her head, and although she must have been traveling all day in a wagon, she looked cool and fresh.
The girl with Shanda carried a large pine cone. Shanda smiled faintly. "What's it like outside?" she asked.
It took Whandall a moment to remember. "Don't they let you go outside yet?" he asked.
She laughed. "You do remember." She pointed to the pine cone. "And keep your promises too."