The clerk jerked his head to a sleek young guard with a thin mustache. As the clerk read the manifest the soldier proceeded down the row, running his hands over the flanks and legs of the well-groomed chestnut at the head of the string and then giving a cursory examination to the rest of the beasts. “Decent stock,” he said, returning to his post at the clerk’s side.
“What’s your name and how many in your party?” said the clerk, pulling out a fresh sheet of paper and beginning to write.
“Just me. Name’s Paulo… ”
As Paulo took the pass and mounted his horse, the vintner’s wagon rolled forward, squeezing into the tight space before the gates, the drover shouting, “We can’t get left out here. A baron’s waiting for our barrels. Why are the gates closing early?”
Murmurs swept through the crowd. Other travelers bulled their way to the front, waving their hands and shouting. “I just heard those not inside the gates before sunset wouldn’t be allowed in at all,” cried a woman. Those in the queue behind me surged forward, yelling, panicked.
Paulo’s knees nudged his horse’s flank, and he led his string through the gates without looking back. The clerk, one cheek twitching and his gaze flicking nervously over my shoulder, motioned the guardsmen to draw close and hold the shouting travelers back.
“Here,” he said, scribbling a pass and shoving it at me. “Take this matter up with the master-at-arms. Secure your son a place with these noble friends of yours within two days or get yourself out of this city. We don’t want strangers here nowatimes. Now move on. Next!”
“Tell me, sir,” I said, “what’s going on - ?” But the harried clerk waved me away and motioned the vintner’s man forward.
Gerick had already drawn the cart up beside the clerk’s table. We didn’t take the time to climb up, but led the pony through the shadowed archway after Paulo.
We had arrived one day early for my meeting with Evard. The timing was perfect, for it gave us a full night to rest and a full day to get news, yet would not keep us long in the uneasy city. We were stopped three times on our way to the street where we were to meet Paulo, our pass examined by soldiers whose hands stayed close to their weapons. The men required us to show our full faces, hands, and even our legs. “Don’t want no more cripples in the city,” they said, snickering at my indignant protest at lifting the hem of my riding skirt.
“Insolent vermin… degrading… ” Radele handed me back into the pony cart with such vigor I thought I might spill out the other side. His disgust and annoyance had grown with every step past the walls. Perhaps he was bothered that Paulo was the one who had gotten us through the gates. I had grown up around “men of action” and their tender pride.
“None of this makes sense,” I said as Radele threw himself onto his horse. Gerick clucked to the pony, and we drove on through the winding streets. In truth I was more puzzled than upset. Such searches had never been common in Leire, nor had I ever heard such concern expressed over the number of crippled bodies. Unfortunately our turbulent history had kept us well supplied with mutilated citizens.
“It’s the vanishings,” said the buxom, heavy-jowled woman who rented us rooms, shaking her gray braids and wheezing noisily as she hefted her bulk up a narrow stair. “Folks stolen from their beds. First it was only cripples disappearin‘, as if them as wished all the beggars would go away all these years had their prayers answered.” She opened a scratched door into the tight little garret room, leaned close enough that I could smell her bad teeth, and dropped her voice. “But I’ve heard that some as are not cripples have gone now, too, nobles even. That’s put a stick up everyone’s backside.”
“But if crippled beggars are the ones disappearing, then why treat such people like thieves?”
“I don’t talk about it,” she said, spitting in her left palm and slapping it with her right thumb, as jonglers do to ward off evil. “I’m just telling you this city is an ill-luck place. You’d best go back where you come from.”
I wished I could do exactly that. I felt as if I were being rushed along by the strong currents of a river when I’d only expected to stick my toes in a stream.
While Radele and Gerick took care of the cart and pony and waited for Paulo, I washed my face, combed my hair, put on a fresh tunic, and set out through the dark streets for Evard’s palace, intending to use my pass from the clerk at the city gates to get into the palace grounds. If I could find Racine, a friend who had once worked for Karon at the Royal Antiquities Commission, he might be able to give me reliable news. But after being sent from one of the heavily guarded palace gates to the next, waiting interminably for unhelpful clerks to be summoned, while standing in the blaze of torchlight and watch fire and begging favors from leering soldiers - all to no result - I returned to the inn.
“Six years ago I was able to talk my way into the palace with the flimsiest of stories,” I said, gulping a mug of ale that Paulo had poured for me as soon as I returned to the garret. “Now you can’t step beneath the portcullis without a signed and sealed document from the person you’re supposed to meet.”
The night was well on, and Gerick, Paulo, and I were seated at a small table in the cramped chamber as I reported on my futile venture. Radele sat on the scuffed plank floor beside the door.
“I told my story to three different officials, but they said the master-at-arms won’t see me unless I bring a letter from a family willing to foster Gerick.”
“I could likely get into the palace grounds if you wanted.” Paulo chewed thoughtfully on a strip of jack, the tough, dried meat he favored over every possible sustenance. “Done it before out at Lord Marchant’s castle at Dunfarrie… as a lark. Hopped on a wagon loaded with hides. Rode it through a service gate. Looked real grumbly, like I was hating the idea of unloading the stuff. Jumped off, looked about, helped unload, then walked out. Look stupid enough, and no one asks questions.”
“Appropriate to look stupid, if you’re doing such a stupid thing,” said Radele, still in a brittle humor. “I saw five clever fellows dangling from gallows a few streets from here. Evidently they’d done nothing but walk someplace they’d no cause to be. Madam, for your safety, I recommend we abandon this absurd venture and leave this stinkhole immediately.”
Gerick, who had remained silent throughout my tale, lifted his head and glared at Radele. “What would an arrogant Dar’Nethi peep-thief know of - ?”
“Gerick, mind your tongue!” I disliked rebuking him in front of Radele, but his constant edginess was driving me to distraction. The tension between my son and his bodyguard had become an open sore since the fight with the bandits. No use to let him get caught up in defending Paulo’s honor.
Gerick leaped to his feet, knocking over his chair. He kicked it out of his way and threw open the shutters, letting the steamy air and the noise and stench of the streets into the close room.
“What has everyone so terrified, Radele? Have you learned any more about these vanishings?”
His movements ever graceful and efficient, Radele rose and poured himself a mug of ale from a pitcher he’d brought upstairs, coolly ignoring Gerick’s flushed complexion and hard mouth. “Everyone’s in a lather, prattling about monsters and apparitions being responsible. That’s why they’re after these deformed sorts.” He glanced at each of us in turn, as if asking if his own report could possibly be true. “The innkeeper says a sorcerer was burned to death last week.”
The color drained from Gerick’s cheeks. My stomach tied itself into a knot.
“A mob did the burning, so they said.” Radele shuddered slightly as he leaned his back against the door and took a long pull at his ale. “Just imagine what they’d do if they had the slightest inkling of real evil. They’d all go bury themselves in caves.”