“So when do we go in?” demanded ’Gren.
“Once the sun’s going down?” Sorgrad squinted up, the heat and glare still merciless.
I nodded my agreement. “Before they eat or change the guard, so we catch that sentry tired and not paying attention.”
“My arse is going numb.” ’Gren was surveying the bustling campground. “Let’s get a feel for what’s going on down here.”
Sorgrad and I exchanged a look; best to keep ’Gren amused. We began a leisurely circuit of the crowded valley. I kept behind the brothers, head down and shambling along.
“This is no time to play the village idiot,” Sorgrad warned me as we passed rough huts newly lashed up from green wood and untanned skins.
“Who’s going to take an interest if they think I’m simple-minded?” I objected.
I caught a sardonic sapphire glance. “They’ll be curious to know what happened when you were driven into the soke at midwinter of your ninth year, to face Maewelin’s judgment on whether you should live or die.”
I pulled myself a little straighter.
In the upper reach around the fess, the women were busy baking on griddles over their fires, making the hard, pale biscuits you take on journeys, either to guarantee you food to eat, or better yet to smash and use in a sling to fell anything more tasty. Their men must have slaughtered every animal with meat on its bones within a day’s travel. A gang of reluctant youths were spreading dust and gravel on a blood-soaked stretch of land to baffle iridescent flies and racks of meat were drying in the fierce sun.
A woman standing at the alert with her spray of green leaves offered us each a strip of dark, slightly sticky flesh. I tucked it in the broad pocket across the front of my smock. I could always use it to resole my boots if I wore this pair out.
’Gren chewed with appreciative noises. “There’ll be plenty of rations on the march, then.”
“Have you heard something?” The woman swatted at a few hopeful flies, the nails on her hand broken and chipped, dried blood stubbornly staining their edges. “Is there to be a real strike into the lowlands at last?”
“We don’t know,” Sorgrad shrugged apologetically. “We’ve only just arrived.”
“My husband could always use more swords at his side.” The woman’s shale-gray eyes turned calculating. “Why don’t you join up with us?”
“Shouldn’t we get our orders from the rekin?” queried Sorgrad.
“What rights have they over you? Just tell them you’re tying up with Yannal’s men,” she urged. “You’re Middle Rangers, aren’t you? We’ve not been at outs with any soke over the Gap since my foremother’s time.”
I could sympathize with her eagerness to put more swords between her husband and the enemy. That way she stood a better chance of not going back home a widow.
Sorgrad smiled at her. “I’ll go and suggest it to the others.”
We moved on down the valley. “This army’s holding together about as well as a madwoman’s knitting,” I commented to Sorgrad.
“Let’s hope yanking the enchanter out sets the whole thing unraveling.”
We continued our apparently aimless circuit of the valley, pausing here and there to admire the new arrivals showing off their spoils. Wooden trinkets and some gold and silver jewelry suggested they’d cleared Folk out of a stretch of woodland but the bulk of the loot was barrels of flour, bales of blankets, household goods of little value. A whiff of smoke suggested fire as well as blades had been used to good effect. These returning heroes had just gone on a rampage through defenseless upland villages.
No, the brave warriors had been driving off armed intruders, greedy interlopers, according to the fragments of gossip the three of us picked up along with bits of bread, meat and fruit kindly offered. Their appetite for fighting was undimmed and all the talk was of carrying the battle down into the lowlands proper, even of reclaiming the entire Ferring Gap, reuniting Easterlings and Westerlings. What they couldn’t understand was the reason for delay.
I found it increasingly hard to choke down the well-meant gifts as the day crawled sluggishly on. Apprehension was filling my belly and gnawing at my ribs. I just wanted to get things in play. I’d be able to name my own price to Messire, or Planir come to that, I reminded myself firmly. I could invite the other to match it and stand back while their rivalry made me rich. Coin gives choices the poor are denied and I wanted to explore my preferences with Ryshad. That did more to settle my stomach than any apothecary’s remedy as we worked our way back to keep watch on the gate of the fess.
“Sun’s sinking,” ’Gren observed finally.
Sorgrad nodded. “Let’s get you ready for your performance.”
“We should have brought Niello,” I joked feebly as we moved to a conveniently obscure hollow among the abandoned diggings.
Sorgrad lounged casually on the turf to keep watch and ’Gren and I started work. He opened his belt-pouch while I pulled seemingly endless folds of linen over my head, relishing the touch of the cooling air on my stifled skin. I bent and untied one garter, stuffing it in a pocket and letting my stocking droop.
“Let’s be having you.” ’Gren tipped a little water from his belt-bottle into a wooden dish. “Head back so I can make you beautiful.” He was mixing a nauseating palette from cosmetics we had begged from the Forest women.
I tilted my face obediently as he rubbed black, purple and yellow into my cheek with gentle hands. “It’s got to look a few days old,” I reminded him, “and make sure that bastard isn’t going to recognize me. If he sees me for who I am, it’s all over.” I swallowed hard to clear my throat of qualms.
“Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.” ’Gren smeared a convincing fakery of old, dried blood around one eyebrow and temple, drawing painful cuts across the corner of my eye.
“She hasn’t seen me for ten years or more,” I pointed out. “That’s no great achievement.”
“A bit of green as well, I think.” ’Gren applied judicious pigments to his fingers and laid them carefully around my neck to leave the prints of a strangle, grinning evilly at me. I stuck my tongue out and crossed my eyes.
My spirits were rising as I rolled back the sleeves of my shirt, warming my blood, as is generally the way, once a game’s in hand. ’Gren seized my forearms, drawing me close for a moment. “We’ll be right beside you, all the time.”
“You’d better be, pal.” I blew on the pigments to dry them before letting my cuffs fall loose and unlaced. “What do you think?” I turned to Sorgrad, who was gazing out over the valley, motionless as the mountains themselves. The long twilight was nearly upon us now and the peaks behind him were gilded by the sunset. Snowfields on one hand were fringed with lace against the buttery softness of the rock. The dark peak was warmed, severity muted by shadow, a fallacy of beauty in the deceptive light.
He drew his gaze back from distant illusions to the realities of the present. “Some dirt in your hair?”
I scooped up a handful of dust. ’Gren was about to stuff the grubby smock into his pack in place of the thin blanket Sorgrad pulled out. “Wait a moment.” I took the crudely dried meat out of the pocket. “A trace of scent is always the final touch, isn’t it?” I rubbed the sticky lump against the ripped neck of my blouse, the blackened residue of blood smelling both sweet and metallic at the same time. “Let’s get this masquerade on the boards.” I wrapped myself in the blanket, the bold pattern of blue chevrons against the yellow wool unmistakable and well worth the coin it had cost us down in the foothills. I wondered if that peaceable little village was just a burned-out ruin by now.