Kerian kept her eye on the tavern as they walked. Her heart rose with hope and filled with memories of her brother as he was the last time she saw him. Iydahar, tall, lean, and brown, lounging against the long oak bar, talking to the barman or flirting with the barman’s pretty daughter, Bueren Rose. She would see her brother soon! She would see him soon and know at last that he was well.
Weary, tired of this dwarfs company, Kerian squared her shoulders and pushed on ahead. She was not going to go hobbling into the Hare and Hound behind this stranger.
As it happened, she didn’t have to.
Stanach left her in the doorway of the tavern, where she had paused to adjust her eyes to the sudden dimness within. He did not say goodbye or even look over his shoulder. They might have been two strangers who’d never met.
Kerian lost all thought of the dwarf as she became aware of a creeping uneasiness. All the tavern had fallen still when the door opened. Near the fire, two hounds of indiscriminate parentage lounged. One pricked up its ears, the other snored loudly. That sleeping hound seemed to be the only creature in the place unaware of her. Everyone else’s eyes narrowed, mouths in tight closed lines, staring at Kerian. Two plates of steaming food in her hands, even the barmaid, Bueren Rose, looked at her old friend as though at a dangerous stranger.
Chapter Six
Kerian’s eyes met the barmaid’s. She drew breath to speak, and felt Bueren Rose’s unspoken warning like the jump of lightning across a summer sky. She looked around and saw that but for Stanach, all in the tavern were elves. Except for her, all were Qualinesti, farmers, hunters or folk from the city.
As though the silence were nothing to concern him, Stanach crossed the common room without looking back, making for a table near the fire where two rustically dressed elves, a man and a woman, greeted him with scant nods. At first glance, they looked like hunters, dressed in leathers and boots, each with a quiver fat with arrows slung across the back of a chair, a strung bow near to hand. Draped across a chair beside each hung a cloak of thick green wool. Beneath each cloak lay something hunter’s don’t carry: a sheathed short sword.
The woman gestured Stanach to sit Her companion filled a tankard with foaming ale and pushed it toward him. In the moment she did, her eyes met Kerian’s, and Kerian’s mouth dried up.
She and the woman had encountered each other more than once in the fine district that included the house where she lived as a senator’s servant and the king’s royal residence. She was Nayla Firethorn, and in the years before the coming of the dragon Beryl, her father and her brothers had been Forest Keepers, members of the king’s royal army. Her father and brothers had fought in the cause of Prince Porthios, and all had died during that short, bloody revolution. When Nayla’s companion turned to speak to one of the hounds, Kerian recognized this one as well. No matter the costume of the day, Haugh Dagger-hart was a carter, a provisioner for one of the finer taverns in Qualinost whose routes ran on every road between the eastern border and the capital city.
Their eyes met. Haugh’s expression never changed, and when he looked away no one could imagine he had a thought for anything but what Nayla was saying to Stanach. Kerian took her cue and walked past the table without another glance.
These three knew her and pretended not to, while the rest of those in the tavern kept their sharp-eyed interest in her. It seemed that a mountain dwarf in the Hare and Hound was less remarkable than a Kagonesti woman. An elf by the far window stared at her narrowly. Two women at the next table put their heads together and whispered. In the center of the room a well-dressed elf, sitting at supper with his wife and two little girls glanced at her and then away.
One of the girls, her long golden braids hanging over her shoulders, pointed to Kerian. “Mama, what is a servant doing so far from home?”
Kerian flushed. By her imperious tone she knew the child to be the privileged daughter of a wealthy family of Qualinost. Stanach had his back to the room, but Kerian saw him lift his head to listen. So did others in the room, the old man, the village women, three elves at the bar.
The child’s mother shushed her. She glanced at Kerian, then away, pushing a plate of untouched food closer to the girl.
The child began a pouting protest, her sister kicked her under the table, and her father glared. Objections fell to grumbling, then silence, as the girl tucked into the plate of venison and steamed carrots and potatoes.
Kerian glanced warily at Bueren Rose. The barmaid gestured slightly, only the barest tilt of the head, then called an order into the kitchen. From within, someone shouted back something that she couldn’t hear; that was Jale, Bueren’s father. Bueren opened the door to shout her order again, and out from the kitchen came a steamy warmth rich with the fragrance of roasting venison and steaming vegetables, of soup and stew and newly baked bread. Kerian’s stomach clenched with hunger. That more than anything else propelled her forward.
One of the hounds at the hearth lifted its head and wagged a lazy greeting as she passed. Nayla and Haugh were careful to pay close attention to the food in front of them. Stanach had his nose in a mug of beer.
The three elves at the bar gave her sideways glances and edged away. These were, indeed, hunters with the spattered blood of recent kills on their leathers. One dropped some coins onto the bar and made a point of leaving. He headed for the side door that led to the privy. Kerian’s cheek flushed now with anger. These two at the bar also knew her! Not well, surely, but in times past they’d greeted her in this very room fairly and passed the time with news of weather, crops and hunting. Now they treated her coldly.
“Hello Bueren,” she said, low. “What’s going on? If I were a kender I couldn’t have gotten a less cheerful welcome here.”
Bueren nodded. “If you were the lightest of light-fingered kender, Keri, people might have been happier. Are you here looking for Iydahar?”
Kerian nodded.
“I figured.” She wiped her perspiring face with the back of her hand, pushing rosy gold hair back into the red kerchief meant to keep it from her face. She drew a mug of ale and put it on the bar. “Look,” she said, her voice dropping low. “People are getting strange around here lately. Things are getting strange. The forest is … unsettled.There’ve been Knights all over the road today. How have you managed to miss them?”
Ale froth on her lips, the rich taste warm in her mouth, Kerian chose her words carefully. “I saw some earlier, but it was only a patrol.”
“There’ve been others, riding up and down the Quali-nost road.”
Near the hearth, the sleeping hound woke, sniffed his companion, and stood to stretch and bow. The second growled. Nayla Firethorn snapped her fingers. Instantly, the two settled. Bueren left the bar and came back with a laden tray, three plates piled high. Kerian’s stomach growled again, painfully, as Bueren passed her to set the plates before Nayla, Haugh Daggerhart and Stanach.
“What are you doing here anyway, alone and dressed like that?”
Ignoring her question, Kerian took from her pocket the polished bronze coin Stanach had given her. She set it on the bar and nodded toward the three just fallen silent over their meals. “I’ll have what they’re having, all right?”
Bueren winked. “Put it back in your pocket, Keri. I’ll fix you up.”
“But-”
“Never mind. Sit.” She ducked into the kitchen again and returned with another tray, this one host to a deep bowl of creamy dill and carrot soup, a plate of venison smothered in spicy gravy, a crock of butter and a fat hunk of brown oat bread. She unloaded the tray and whisked utensils from behind the bar. “Eat. We’ll talk later.”