Lord Samorty was sitting at a table talking to two guardsmen. Miss Bertrana brought Shanda to the table. Samorty eyed Shanda's leather leggings. "Where did you sleep?" he asked.
"In a clearing."
"Do you itch?"
"No, sir."
He turned to Whandall. "So you know the chaparral." He got up to inspect Whandall's earlobes. "Interesting. Who did you learn from?" "Woodsmen."
"They taught you?" Disbelieving. "No, Lord; we lurked."
Samorty nodded. "I've seen you before. Sit down. Miss Bertrana, I'll thank you to take Miss Shanda to your rooms and discover her condition."
"Sir?"
"You know very well what I mean."
"Oh. Yes sir," Miss Bertrana said.
Shanda started to protest. "Father-"
" Just go," Samorty said. He sounded weary and resigned to problems, and his voice was enough to cut Shanda's next protest off before it began.
She followed Miss Bertrana out.
"Where have I seen you, boy?" Samorty demanded. He didn't seem angry, just annoyed by the distractions, and very weary.
Whandall didn't know what to say, so he stared at the table and said
nothing. There was something carved into the table, lines, some curved, a big square shape with smaller square shapes in it...
"You like maps?" Samorty asked.
"I don't know," Whandall said.
"No, I guess you wouldn't," Samorty said. "Look. Think of this as a picture of the way the city would look if you were high above it. This is the Lord's Town wall." He indicated the square. "This is this house, and right here is where you two went over the wall."
Whandall's terror warred with curiosity. He bent over the carving to study it. "Is it magic, Lord?"
"Not now."
Whandall stared again. "Then-that's the sea?" he asked. "Right. Now, how far from the wall before the chaparral gets really nasty?"
"Two hundred paces?" Whandall said. "Two hundred and it will hurt you. Five hundred and it kills."
"How far did you take my daughter?"
Whandall's voice caught in his throat.
"We know it was a long way because we saw you coming back," Samorty said. "And you were a lot more than five hundred paces out. Far enough that nobody would go out after you. Where did you take her? Show me on this map."
"We had to go around a lot of... bail places," Whandall said. "So I'm not sure. Are these the trees?"
"Yes."
He put his finger into the forest. "About that far."
Samorty looked at him with new respect. "Is there hemp out there?"
"Yes, Lord, but it's dangerous."
"How?"
Kreeg Miller had told him a tale. "We heard the woodsmen say that once they found four men dead with smiles on their faces. They'd let one of the hemp plants catch them. They went to sleep and it strangled them."
Miss Bertrana came in without Shanda. "She's fine," she said.
"You're certain."
"Oh, yes sir, intact-no question about it. And there's no rash either."
"Good. Thank you. You may go."
"Yes, sir." Miss Bertrana escaped happily.
"Let me see your hands," Samorty said. He recoiled from the dirt and clapped his hands. "Washbasin," he said to the kinless who came in answer. "Now. Wash up," he told Whandall. His voice was almost friendly now.
Whandall washed his hands carefully. Whatever Miss Bertrana had said seemed to have calmed Samorty and given him some new energy, as if one of his problems didn't matter anymore. When Whandall was done washing, Samorty inspected his tattoo.
"Serpent's Walk," he said almost to himself. "I remember you. You brought Pelzed to see me."
"Yes, sir-"
"For which I thank you. What's your name?"
Whandall was too afraid to lie. "Whandall Placehold."
"Well, Whandall Placehold, there's no harm done here. You want those leathers? Keep them. And here." He went to a box on a table in the corner, and came back with a dozen shells. "Take these."
"Thank you, sir-"
"Now don't come back," Samorty said.
Whandall had never had a dream ripped out of him. It hurt more than he thought anything could.
Samorty clapped his hands and told the kinless servant, "Bring me Peacevoice Waterman. He should be just outside."
Peacevoice Waterman was big and almost certainly Lordkin.
"Peacevoice, this is Whandall Placehold. Take Whandall Placehold to the gate. Show him to the watch, and tell them he's not welcome here any longer."
"Sir."
"Tell him too," Samorty said.
When they reached the gate. Waterman took out his sword. "Easy or hard way, boy?" he demanded.
"I don't know what you mean-"
"Don't you? It's simple. Bend over, or I'll bend you over."
Whandall bent. Waterman raised the sword ...
The flat of the sword made a loud whack as it hit Whandall's buttocks, but he was still wearing the leathers and it didn't really hurt at all. Not compared to the loss he felt. Waterman hit him five times more.
"All right. Get," Waterman said. "Go gather somewhere else."
"This was all given to me!"
"Good thing too," Waterman said. "Boy, you don't know how lucky you are. Now get out of here. Don't come back."
Chapter 11
Tras Preetror was both disappointed and intrigued. "For what that soap cost me," he said, "I could have got a dozen stories from that wizard. From you it's all hints at something bigger."
Whandall had not spoken of the map. He had to keep something back. He asked, "Wizard, Tras?"
"Morth of Atlantis. You must know him."
"Yes." Whandall didn't say that it was Morth of Atlantis he had seen at Lord Samorty's dinner.
"You have to go back, you know," Tras said.
Whandall felt his buttocks. He wasn't hurt this time. The leathers hadn't been interesting enough to attract attention from the Bull Fizzles, so he'd gotten home safely with the shells Lord Samorty had given him. Would woodsman's leathers help him win a fight or only hamper his swordplay?
But he remembered the sound of that sword hitting him. It was sharp, and if it hadn't been turned to hit him flat, he'd have lost a leg. Whandall was sure that even the flat would hurt dreadfully without the leathers. "No."
"Think of the stories," Tras said.
"They know me. They won't let me in."
"The tree-"
"They know about the tree, Tras," Whandall said.
"There has to be a way," Tras said. "Nobody talks about the Lords-
hills. Not the Lords, nut the people who live there. There have to be stories."
"Morth has been to Lordshills, and he knows things he's never told the Lords. He brought water to Tep's Town," Whandall said. Maybe he could interest Tras in Morth and then he'd leave Whandall alone.
Whandall had forgotten Pelzed.
Ten days later he was summoned to the Serpent's Walk meetinghouse.
Pelzed was all smiles. He poured from a teapot and slid hot hemp tea over to Whandall. His eyes commanded. Whandall drank.
They drank hemp tea at Serpent's Walk meetings, but it was never as strong as this. Whandall was sweating and hungry before he drank half of it. His head-he heard things, pleasant sounds.
"The teller says you won't go back to Lord's Town," Pelzed said.