Jasha just stared at him, as if waiting for more. When at last he realized there was no more, he scowled. "That's it? A Mettai woman makes a poor deal for herself, and you think that explains all this?" He gestured back toward the settlement.
He hadn't the time to explain further, and even if he had, it wouldn't have done any good.
"You're right," Torgan said. "It makes no sense. The baskets probably had nothing to do with this. But in that case, I don't have any other explanations. It wasn't my doing. Other than that, I know nothing." He flicked the reins, and his horse started forward. "Good-bye, Jasha," he called, without bothering to look back. "Gods keep you safe."
Torgan had gone a fair distance before he realized that Jasha was following him in his cart. He slowed, allowing the younger man to catch up.
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.
Jasha didn't answer at first, and when he finally said something, it wasn't at all what Torgan had expected.
"Do you think she used magic of some sort?"
Torgan narrowed his eyes. "You mean the Mettai woman?"
"Yes. Do you think she did something to the baskets? Put a spell on them or something?"
"I suppose that's possible. I hadn't really thought it through. Until tonight, I'd simply assumed that the pestilence had come to the Neck, and that I was lucky to be alive. Now…" He shrugged. Torgan had never been one to crave company as he steered his cart throughout the land. But on this of all nights, he was glad to have someone with whom he could speak of what had happened, of what was still happening.
He glanced back and saw narrow beams of yellow fire reaching to the sky.
"Why would she?" Jasha asked.
Torgan shook his head. "I know nothing about her, save that she makes fine baskets." He looked sharply at the younger man. "You bought one from me. Do you still have it?"
Jasha tried to smile, failed, then shook his head. "I sold it to a Fal'Borna woman. I got three sovereigns for it."
"You should be glad to be rid of it. Even if they had nothing to do with this, I'd be just as happy never to see the woman or her baskets again."
The younger man's eyes widened. "No," he said.
"No, what?"
"We have to find her."
"You can't be serious."
"Of course I am," Jasha said. And indeed, he did look to be in earnest. "We have to find her and demand to know what she did to the baskets."
"What are you talking about? I'm not searching for some Mettai woman who might have done nothing wrong except take too little money for her wares. I'm heading to the Ofirean. I'm going to roll my cart into the marketplace in Thamia, or better still, Siraam, and I'm going to stay there until the Snows have ended in the north."
"Do you really think there's something wrong with those baskets?" Torgan hesitated.
"Right. In that case we have no choice. We have to find her." "You're welcome to try," the merchant said. "But I'm going to the sea."
"You'll be stopping in villages along the way, won't you?" "What of it?"
"We can look in those marketplaces."
Torgan found himself growing less and less pleased with his new traveling companion.
"I'm not doing this."
Jasha said nothing.
The merchant looked at him. "Did you hear me?"
"Yes, I heard you."
"If you want to follow me to the Ofirean that's fine, though if the Fal'Borna are after me, you probably ought to go your own way. But as for the rest, you can just forget about it."
Silence.
"Are you listening?"
"Yes, Torgan. I hear everything you're saying. You're going to the Ofirean, and you're not looking for the Mettai woman."
"That's right."
Torgan started to say more, but he realized that he'd just be repeating himself, and clearly the young peddler had heard him. He sensed, though, that Jasha was just as determined that they should search the plain for the woman.
"We should go our own ways," Torgan said, after a long silence. "You don't want to be with me-not if the Fal'Borna are hunting me. And I don't want you following me around, selling your cheap wares next to mine, taking gold out of my pocket."
"All right," Jasha said.
But he didn't stop, nor did he change directions. He kept his cart just beside Torgan's and together they drove southward, with the moons above them, and the fires of the Fal'Borna sept at their backs.
Chapter 15
How many villages is it now?"
Pyav's expression was grim as he regarded Tashya, as if he didn't wish even to answer her question. "At least three," he said at last. "We know of outbreaks in Runnelwick, Greenrill, and Tivston. There's no telling where else it's struck."
"And these are all Qirsi villages?"
"Runnelwick and Greenrill are Y'Qatt," Marivasse said. "As for Tivston…" She trailed off into a fit of coughing, and it seemed to Besh that the other elders leaned back in their chairs, afraid to breathe in the same air as the old woman. After a time, her spasm subsided and she wiped at her mouth with an old cloth. "I know nothing about Tivston," she said hoarsely.
For the fourth or fifth time this day, the eight of them lapsed into silence. Most of them watched Pyav, waiting for him to tell them what was to be done. Besh could hear voices in the marketplace. A baby cried. One of the dogs that sometimes wandered through the village began to bark, only to be hushed by a sharp word from someone in the lane outside the sanctuary. But inside, no one spoke.
Besh had been up much of the previous night, reading through Sylpa's daybook. He stifled a yawn now and shivered. The sun shone outside, but it had been a clear, cold night and chill air still lingered in the chamber.
He'd found nothing new for all the reading he'd done by candlelight in Lici's abandoned hut. After learning the previous day that Lici first came to Kirayde because her home village of Sentaya had been devastated by the pestilence, he'd hoped that Sylpa's journal would quickly reveal the remaining secrets of Lici's past. Instead, much to Besh's frustration, Sylpa had stopped pushing the girl for more information. It almost seemed that she was as reluctant to hear more about those dark events as the young girl was to speak of them.
And now that the pestilence had come to the plains, Besh could no longer afford the luxury of simply enjoying Sy1pa's narrative. For more than half a turn, he had been living in two times: his own, and Sy1pa's. Now, though, the exigencies of his own life were forcing him to step out of hers. He needed to know things that she had yet to learn.
"It may be that we have nothing to fear," said Korr, another of the elders. "Each of those villages is to the west of the wash."
Tashya shook her head. "That means nothing. The pestilence can't be held back by rivers or mountains or city walls. We may be safe now, but all it takes is a single stranger-a peddler, a bard, even a soldier."
"So, what would you have us do?" Pyav asked, drawing the woman's gaze.
"Close the village to all outsiders."
Several of the elders voiced their disapproval, but Tashya didn't pause. She merely raised her voice so that she could still be heard.
"Shut down the marketplace and have every peddler who doesn't live here escorted out of the village. And then post guards on all the roads leading into Kirayde. The only way to keep the pestilence out is to make an island of our home."
"Even that might not work," Besh said. "I don't necessarily disagree with what you're proposing, but you should know that it might not do any good."
"I know that," Tashya said. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."
"People have crops they want to sell," Korr said. He was one of the older members of the council, nearly as old as Marivasse, though like her, he remained spry and sharp of mind. He'd made his living as a miller before passing his business on to his son, Ojan. He was nearly bald, with a narrow band of white hair on the back of his head. He stood a full head taller than Besh, though with his stooped back and rounded shoulders, he didn't look nearly as imposing as he had as a younger man. "Ojan has flour to sell. What is he supposed to do? Where's their gold supposed to come from?"