Tilja nodded. The man lowered his voice.
“There was something happened inside the city that night, big enough to make ’em close the gates all next day. Some of the racket you could’ve heard back here in Ramram. And now there’s all this loose magic blowing around. Devil of a time I had of it, bringing my beasts up north, though every one of them’s got an amulet in its mane. And now you’ve got into the city and out again. . . . So what’s up, supposing you know?”
Tilja hesitated. To tell anyone anything about what they’d done might be dangerous. To refuse to tell might be just as bad. She glanced at Tahl.
“Yes,” he said easily. “We sneaked in with the slave children. We found our grandparents in one of the big barns. Somebody’d brought something magical in—”
“But it’s warded to hell, the city!”
“Yes, I know. But they managed it somehow. And a couple of magicians came to get it for themselves and fought over it and there was an explosion and lots of screaming and running about, so we managed to get out. That’s all I know. I’ve no idea what it was all about. You haven’t heard anything else, have you? Nothing from Talagh, for instance? I’d have thought they’d send somebody down to sort things out.”
“If they did, it’s not the sort of stuff folk like us get to hear about. Nor anything else. Better off that way, like as not.”
He shrugged and spread his hands, accepting the appalling whims of the Empire.
“What about Calico?” said Tilja.
“Well, young lady, seeing you’re set on it, we’ll call it six days and leave it at that. Here she is, then. Looks pleased to see you, too.”
“That’ll make a change,” said Tilja, but for a moment it seemed almost true. As the dealer led her out of the line Calico sidled up to Tilja like any normal horse greeting its owner, but as soon as Tilja reached to pat her she flattened her ears and turned away. Forgiveness was no part of her scheme of things.
Meena laughed when she saw Calico, but Alnor was furious. He couldn’t complain of the waste of money, when a single gold coin from Faheel’s purse would have bought them at least two decent horses. And Calico could carry their packs, and Tilja would deal with her moods. But in his own mind he was in command, and buying Calico back was something he hadn’t had a say in. So both he and Calico sulked all afternoon.
Next morning Tilja was walking with Tahl when he said, “This fellow who’s supposed to find us somewhere, and make it snow properly in the Valley again and so on—did Faheel say anything else to you about that?”
Tilja shook her head. She’d been expecting the question and had decided that was the best she could do—not quite lying because she might have meant only that she couldn’t answer, which was true.
Tahl looked at her with his bright-eyed stare, making her very uncomfortable. He started to say something, changed his mind and began again.
“It sounded as if he’d forgotten about it, but he’d thought of everything else. Tiny things. That purse . . . and he must have asked you why we’d all come to his island in the first place. Didn’t he?”
“Well, yes, but . . . I told him we’d come from the Valley, because he wanted to know about Axtrig, but then I said he’d better wait for Meena and Alnor to wake up, because they were the ones who wanted to talk to him.”
“You mean he knew what Meena wanted before she told him, but he’d just forgotten about it? He didn’t forget anything else, though. He remembered about the way-leaves, for instance.”
“He was very tired by the end.”
Again the look of doubt.
“I suppose so,” Tahl said discontentedly. Tilja walked on with shame in her heart and a chill in the pit of her stomach—shame for her half-truths told to someone who trusted her, and the chill of dread about what else Tahl’s bright and restless intelligence might tease out. Oh, she thought, let the Ropemaker come and claim the ring soon, soon, so that this can be over!
15
The Road North
It was curious how slowly the news seeped through of what had happened at Talagh. The Emperor was dead and the power of the Watchers broken, but the body of that strange great beast, the Empire, still twitched with a kind of life, like a headless chicken running round the yard at Woodbourne. In the evenings at the way stations Tilja heard people talking in anxious voices about the amount of loose magic gusting around, and complaining in guarded tones about the Watchers falling down on their job. It was clear that something had gone wrong with the system that had always ruled their lives, but no one knew what. It was nine days before any other signs came through.
Then there was a flurry of grander travelers on the road, horsemen at a rapid canter carrying the message staff of their Landholder with a bell at its top clanging to clear a path; and once or twice the Landholder himself with only half a dozen outriders for retinue because he too was in a hurry. All this could only mean that something important was happening high in the upper reaches of the Empire.
The news, when it seeped down to the lowest levels, where those who made the journey to Goloroth and back had their existence, was still only rumors. Some said the Watchers had killed the Emperor and were fighting among themselves, others that he had dismissed them and they were revolting against him, others yet that one of his regiments had mutinied and killed him—a regiment of women, according to one version.
“Women soldiers!” Tilja heard a man saying. “It’ll be a long time before anyone tries that again!”
“Let’s hope he’s right,” said Tahl later. “There’s going to be a new Emperor one day. We don’t want him getting the same idea.”
Despite these upheavals, for a while nothing much seemed to change for the ordinary travelers. The same laws ruled their lives that had always ruled them. The same bribes had to be paid. And so far Tilja and the others had had no trouble. They had no fees to pay, they were just children going north from Goloroth, like tens of thousands of children before them. Meena was the first to notice the oddity.
The Grand Trunk Road was as busy as ever, with travelers of all kinds moving at different speeds. With their strong young legs and their longing to be home the four of them went faster than most, and kept going later, so they often passed others who had already settled down by the road to rest out the worst of the heat. Tahl, typically, insisted on greeting these as they went by, though the conversation seldom got further than an agreement that it was hot.
They were walking along, four abreast for once, when another such group came in sight, two women and a man. One of the women had peeled an orange and was passing the segments to the other two, who were gazing blankly at the road.
“Just keep an eye on their faces when Tahl says hello to them,” Meena whispered. “Don’t stare. You don’t want them to notice.”
“Hello,” said Tahl as they came up. “Hot, isn’t it?”
The man started slightly. The woman with the orange looked up. The other one’s eyes widened and her mouth half opened. The expressions lasted only a moment, then the women smiled emptily and the man said, “You can say that again,” and reached for another segment of orange.
“See,” said Meena, as soon as they were out of earshot. “It’s like they’d never seen us coming. There we were, out in the middle of the road, no one else in sight, and they hadn’t so much as noticed us till Tahl said something to them. You remember the story, how Dirna and Reyel never had any trouble after they’d talked to Asarta and she’d sent them off to look for Faheel, because she’d worked it so that people didn’t seem to notice they were there? Old Faheel’s done the same for us now.”
“He can’t have done it for Til,” said Tahl. “Magic just runs off her.”