Horace was a different matter entirely. His reputation had obviously gone before them and people eyed him with the same edge of suspicion and uncertainty that Halt had become used to over the years.
The situation pleased Halt quite well. In the event of any trouble, it would give him and Horace a decided edge if people had already decided that the main danger came from the strapping young man in armor.
The fact of the matter was that the grizzled older man in the nondescript cloak was a far more dangerous potential enemy.
"Up ahead there," Horace said, rousing Halt from his musing. He followed the direction of the boy's pointing finger and there was a building, larger than the others, with a second story leaning precariously out over the street, rather uncertainly supported by uneven oak beams that jutted out at first-floor level. A weathered signboard swung gently in the breeze, with a crude depiction of a wineglass and a platter of food marked on it in peeling paint.
"Don't get your hopes too high about a nice soft bed for the night," Halt warned the apprentice. "We may well have slept softer in the forest." He didn't add that they would almost certainly have slept cleaner.
As it turned out, he had done the inn an injustice. It was small and the walls weren't quite true to the perpendicular. The ceiling was low and uneven and the stairs seemed to lean to one side as they made their way up to inspect the room they had been offered.
But at least the place was clean and the bedroom had a large, glazed window, which had been flung wide open to let in the fresh afternoon breeze. The smell of freshly plowed fields carried to them as they looked out over the higgledy-piggledy mass of steeply pitched roofs in the town.
The innkeeper and his wife were both elderly people, but at least they seemed welcoming and friendly to their two guests-particularly after they had seen the store of arms and armor piled on the riderless horses lined up outside the inn. The young knight was obviously a man of property, they decided. And a person of considerable importance as well, judging by the way he left all dealings to his manservant, the rather surly fellow in a gray-and-green cloak. It suited the innkeeper's sense of snobbery to assume that people of noble birth didn't deign to interest themselves in such commercial matters as the price of a room for the night.
Having ascertained that there was no market within the town where they might be able to convert their captured booty into money, Halt allowed the inn's stable boy to bed their horses down for the night.
All except Abelard and Tug, of course. He saw to them personally, and he was pleased to note that Horace did the same for Kicker.
Once the horses were settled, the two companions returned to their room. Supper wouldn't be ready for an hour or two, the innkeeper's wife had told them.
"We'll use the time to take a look at that arm of yours," Halt told Horace. The younger man sank gratefully onto the bed and sighed contentedly. Contrary to Halt's expectations, the beds were soft and comfortable, with thick, clean blankets and crisp white sheets. At a gesture from Halt, the apprentice stood up and pulled his mail shirt and tunic over his head, grunting slightly with pain as he had to raise his arm above shoulder height to do it. The bruising had spread across the entire upper arm, creating a patchwork of discolored flesh that ran from dark blue-black to an ugly yellow around the edges. Halt probed the bruised area critically, feeling to make sure there were no broken bones.
"Ow!" said Horace as the Ranger's fingers probed and poked around the bruise.
"Did that hurt?" Halt asked, and Horace looked at him with exasperation.
"Of course it did," he said sharply. "That's why I said 'ow!'"
"Hmm," Halt muttered thoughtfully, and seizing the arm, he turned it this way and that while Horace gritted his teeth against the pain.
Finally able to contain his annoyance no longer, he stepped back away from Halt's grasp.
"Are you actually hoping to accomplish anything there?" he asked in a peevish tone of voice. "Or are you just having fun causing me pain?"
"I'm trying to help," Halt said mildly. He reached for the arm once more, but Horace backed away.
"Keep your hands off," he said. "You're just poking and prodding.
I can't see how that's supposed to help."
"I'm just trying to make sure there's nothing broken," Halt explained. But Horace shook his head at the Ranger.
"Nothing's broken. I've got some bruising, that's all."
Halt made a helpless gesture of resignation. He opened his mouth to speak, planning to reassure Horace that he was really trying to help, when matters were taken out of his hands-literally.
There was a brief knock at the door; then, before the sound had died, the door was flung open and the innkeeper's wife bustled in with an armful of fresh pillows for the beds. She smiled at the two of them, then her gaze lit upon Horace's arm and the smile died, replaced instantly by a look of motherly concern.
She let go a torrent of Gallican that neither of them understood, and moved quickly to Horace's side, dumping the pillows on his bed. He watched her suspiciously as she reached out to touch the injured arm.
She stopped, pursed her lips and met his gaze with a reassuring look.
Satisfied, he allowed her to examine the injury.
She did so gently, with a light, almost imperceptible touch.
Horace, submitting to her ministrations, looked meaningfully at Halt.
The Ranger scowled and sat on the bed to watch. Finally, the woman stepped back and, taking Horace's arm, led him to sit on the edge of the bed. She turned to address the two of them, pointing to the discolored arm.
"No breaking bones," she said uncertainly. Halt nodded.
"I thought as much," he replied, and Horace sniffed disdainfully.
The woman nodded once or twice, then continued, choosing her words carefully. Her command of the Araluen tongue was inexact, to say the least.
"Bruisings," she said, "bad bruisings. Need:" She hesitated, seeking the word, then found it. "Herbs:" She made a rubbing gesture with her two hands, miming the act of rubbing herbs together to form a poultice. "Break herbs:put here." She touched the injured arm once more. Halt nodded agreement.
"Good," he told her. "Please go right ahead." He looked up at Horace. "We're in luck here," he said. "She seems to know her business."
"You mean I'm in luck," Horace said stiffly. "If I'd been left to your tender mercies, I probably wouldn't have an arm by now."
The woman, hearing the tone of the voice but not understanding the words, hurried to reassure him, making crooning sounds and touching the bruise with a feather-soft hand.
"Two days:three:no more bruisings. No more pain," she reassured him, and he smiled at her.
"Thank you, madam," he said, in the sort of courtly tone he imagined a gallant young knight should use. "I shall be forever in your debt."
She smiled at him and, in mime again, indicated that she was going to fetch her stock of herbs and medicines. Horace rose and executed a clumsy bow as she left the room, giggling to herself.
"Oh, puh-lease," said Halt, rolling his eyes to heaven.