The hills were thinning out now and farms were beginning to appear. They became more frequent as Herewiss and Dapple descended into the lowlands, and one very large farm with stone markers indicated that Herewiss was close to the town he had been expecting to reach that evening. The farm was the holding of a prominent Darthene house, the Lords Arian. He could have stopped there and received excellent hospitality, being after all the next thing to a prince; but attention drawn to himself was the last thing he wanted at this point.
He rode on down from the hills, crossing a rude stone bridge over the Kearint, a minor tributary of the river Darst, and came to the forty-house town of Havering Slides just as dusk was falling. Most of the people who lived there were hands on the big Arian farm. Herewiss rode up to the gate in the wooden palisade around the town, identified himself and was admitted without question.
The inn was as he had remembered it from earlier visits, a motley- looking place with a disjointed feeling to it; new buildings ran headlong into old ones, and afterthought second storeys sagged on their supports over uneasy-looking bay windows. It seemed that some of the artisans who had done carving work in the Woodward had also passed this way. The gutterspouts were fashioned into panting hound-faces and singing frogs; crows stealing cheese in their wooden beaks leered down from the cupolas.
Herewiss rode up to the stable door and handed Dapple over to the girl in charge. As he strode toward the doorway of the inn, his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, he was greeted by the sudden and beautiful odor of roast beef. After three days of nourishing but tasteless journey rations, the prospect of real food seemed almost an embarrassment of luxury. He paused at the door just long enough to admire the carving over it, a cross-grain bas-relief of a local Rodmistress casting the Shadow out of a possessed cow.
Herewiss pushed open the door and went in. It took his eyes a few minutes to get used to the dim interior of the place, though there were oil lamps all around. He was standing in a fairly large common room crowded with tables and chairs and long trestled benches. The room was not too full, it still being early in the evening. Several patrons sat about a table, dicing for coppers, and off in one corner a hulking farmer was devouring a steak pie in great mouthfuls.
The steak pie particularly interested Herewiss. Bags in hand, he went to the kitchen door, which was carved with dancing poultry, and knocked.
The door opened, and the innkeeper looked out at him cordially. She was a tall slender woman, grayhaired but pretty, in a brown robe and a long stained apron. 'Can I help you, sir?' she said, wiping her hands on a dirty gray towel.
'Madam,' Herewiss said, bowing slightly, 'food and lodging for the night for myself and my horse would do nicely.'
'Half an eagle,' the innkeeper said, looking at his clothes, which were in good repair.
'A quarter,' said Herewiss, smiling his best and most charming smile at her.
She smiled back at him. 'A quarter eagle and threepence.' 'Two.'
The innkeeper smiled more broadly. 'Two it is. Your horse is inside?'
'He is, madam.'
'Dinner?'
'Oh, yes,' Herewiss said. The good smells coming out of the kitchen were making his stomach talk. 'Some of what that gentleman is having, if there's another one . . .'
She nodded. 'Anything to drink? We have wine, red and white and Delann yellow; brown and black ale; and my husband made a fresh barrel of Knight's Downfall yesterday.'
'Ale sounds good: the black. Which room should I take?'
'Up the stairs, turn right, third door to your left.' The innkeeper disappeared back into the kitchen's steam.
Herewiss hurried up the creaking stairs and found the room in question. It was predictably musty, and the floor groaned under him. The shutters screeched in protest when he levered them open to let the sunset in, but he was so glad to have a hot meal in the offing that the place looked as good as any king's castle to him. He dropped his bag in the corner, under the window, and changed into another clean dark tunic; then headed for the door. Halfway through the doorway, an afterthought struck him. He raised his hands to draw the appropriate gestures in the air, and since no-one was near, spoke aloud the words of a very minor binding, erecting a lockshield around his bags. Then down the stairs he went.
He sat down at an empty table in a corner and spent a few moments admiring the window nearest him, which was a crazy amalgam of bottle-glass panes and stained vignettes. One of them, done in vivid shades of rose, cobalt, and emerald, showed the ending of the old story about the man who fooled the Goddess into lifting her skirts by confronting Her with an illusion-river. There he lay under the trees at Harvest festival, inextricably stuck to and into an illusionary lover, while the Goddess and the harvesters stood around and laughed themselves weak. The man looked understandably mortified, and very chastened. He had been very lucky in playing his trick on the Mother aspect of the Goddess — had She been manifesting as the Maiden at the time, She might not have been so kind. The Mother tends to be forgiving of Her children's pranks, but the Maiden is sometimes fatally jealous of Her modesty.
Someone blocked the light, and he looked up — a girl, maybe eighteen years old or so, with a droopy halo of frizzing black hair. She bent in front of Herewiss, putting his steak pie and ale on the old scarred table. Herewiss took brief notice of the view down her blouse, but he was more interested in the steak pie.
'Nice,' he said. 'A fork, please?'
'Hmm?' She in her turn was being very interested in Herewiss. 'A fork?'
'Oh. Yes, certainly—' She reached into her pocket and brought one out for him. Herewiss took it, wiped it off, and dove almost desperately into the pie.
'Ahh, listen,' she said, bending down again, and Herewiss began an intensive study of a piece of potato, 'are you busy this evening?'
Herewiss did his best to look at her with profound sorrow. She really wasn't his type, and there was a mercenary look in her eye that sent him hurriedly to the excuse box in the back of his head. 'If you're thinking what I think you are,' he said, 'I'm sorry, but I'm under vows of chastity.'
'You don't look like you're in an Order,' she said.
'Perpetual chastity,' Herewiss said. 'Or until the Eagle comes back. Sorry.'
The girl stood up. 'Well,' she said, 'if you change your mind, ask the lady in the kitchen where I am. I'm her daughter.'
Herewiss nodded, and she went away into the kitchen. He sagged a little as the door closed behind her, and settled back against the wall.
That was a bit panicky of me, Herewiss thought as he began to eat. I wonder what it is about her that bothers me so—
He put the thought aside and concentrated on the hot-spiced food and the heavy ale. The common room began slowly to fill up as he ate; the local clientele was coming in from the fields and houses to enjoy each other's company. The big table nearest him was occupied by a noisy, cheerful group of farmers from the Arian landholdings, nine or ten brawny men and lithe ladies, all deeply tanned and smelling strongly of honest work. They called loudly for food and drink, and hailed Herewiss like a brother when they spotted him in his corner. He smiled back at them, and before long they were exchanging crude jokes and bad puns, and laughing like a lot of fools.