“Frankly, my dear, he didn’t really give a d—” Rod glanced at the eager faces around him, and finished, “…darn.”
“Assuredly, Tudor doth lack in gallantry,” said a large man, walking into the inn with a companion.
“Aye; it doth pain me to say it, but our noble Earl hath ever been clutch-fisted,” answered his companion. “This sorcerer Alfar, now—all one doth hear of him, doth confirm his generosity.”
They passed on into the inn. Rod sat frozen, staring into space.
Magnus put it into words for him. “Do they speak against their own lord?”
“They do,” Gwen whispered, eyes huge.
“And in public!” Rod was flabbergasted. “I mean, peasants have spoken against their rulers before—but never out in the open, where a spy might overhear them. For all they know, we could be…” He ran out of words.
“Yet the lord would have to be greatly wicked, for his own folk to complain of him!” Cordelia cried. “Could they break faith with him so easily?”
“Not ordinarily,” Rod said grimly. “But we didn’t come up here because things were normal.”
A maid came ambling up to them, bearing a tray of food.
Her face was smudged, and her apron was greasy—from the scullery, Rod guessed. He braced himself for the contempt he’d grown used to from the peasants, and reminded himself that everybody had to have somebody they could look down on. Maybe that was what they really needed tinkers for.
But the maid only held the tray down where they could reach it, shaking her head and marvelling, “Tinkers! Why doth the master spare good food for tinkers?”
Rod took a plate warily, and sniffed at it. A delighted grin spread over his face. “Hey! It is good!”
“May I?” Magnus sat still, with his hands in his lap. So did the other children, but their eyes fairly devoured the tray.
“Why… certes.” The scullery maid seemed surprised by their politeness.
Magnus seized a bowl. “May I?” Cordelia cried, and the younger two chorused, “May I?” after her.
“Certes,” the wench said, blinking, and three little hands snatched at bowls.
Rod handed the plate to Gwen and lifted down a huge bowl of stew, then the pitchers. “Take your cups, children.” Gwen scooped up the remaining two flagons, and the spoons.
The kitchen wench straightened, letting one edge of the tray fall. A furrow wrinkled between her eyebrows. “Strange tinkers ye be.”
She was trying to think, Rod realized—and she’d have been trying very hard, if some mental lethargy hadn’t prevented her. “Still wondering why your master is serving us more than kitchen scraps?”
Enlightenment crept over her face. “Aye. That is what I be thinking.”
“Best of reasons,” Rod assured her. “We paid in silver.”
She lifted her head slowly, mouth opening into a round. “Oh. Aye, I see.” And she turned away, still nodding, as she began to amble back to the kitchen.
“Why doth she not ask how mere tinkers came by silver money, Papa?” Magnus watched her go.
“I expect she’ll think that one up just as she gets to the kitchen…”
“Why is she so slow, Papa?” Cordelia seemed concerned.
Rod shook his head. “Not just her, honey. That’s what the innkeeper was like, too.” He gazed after the scullery maid, frowning.
Two men in brocaded surcoats with grayed temples strolled past them toward the inn door. “Nay, but our Earl doth seek to rule all our trade,” the one protested. “Mark my words, ere long he will tell to us which goods we may not sell, for that he doth grant patents on them to those merchants who toady to him.”
“Aye, and will belike tax the half of our profit,” the other agreed, but he spoke without heat, almost without caring.
They passed on into the inn, leaving Rod rigid in their wake. “That is the most blatant lie I’ve heard since I came here! Earl Tudor is so laissez-faire-minded, you’d almost think he just doesn’t care!”
“Folk will believe any rumor,” Gwen offered.
“Yeah, but businessmen check them out—and those two were merchants. If they stray too far from the facts, they go bankrupt.”
A string of donkeys plodded into the innyard, heads hanging low, weary from their heavy packs. Their drovers bawled the last few orders at them, as the inn’s hostlers strolled past the Gallowglass family toward the donkeys, chatting. “They say the sorcerer Alfar is a fair-minded man.”
“Aye, and generous withal. Those who come under his sway, I hear, need never be anxious for food or drink.”
The first shook his head, sadly. “Our Earl Tudor doth care little for the poor folk.”
“Are they crazy?” Rod hissed. “Tudor is practically a welfare state!”
“ ‘Tis e’en as thou dost say,” the second mused. “Yet at the least, our Earl doth not tax his peasants into rags and naught for fare but bread and water, as Duke Romanov doth.”
“Oh, come on, now!” Rod fumed. “Nobody ever claimed Romanov was a walking charity—but at least he realizes the peasants can’t produce if they’re starving.”
But Gregory had a faraway look in his eyes. “Papa—I mislike the feel of their minds.”
Gwen stopped ladling stew and gazed off into space. She nodded, slowly. “There is summat there…” Then her eyes widened. “Husband—it doth press on me, within mine head!”
Instantly, the children all gazed off into space.
“Hey!” Rod barked in alarm. He clapped his hands and snapped, “Wake up! If there is something messing with people’s minds here, it could be dangerous!”
They all started, blinking, then focused on their father. “Tis as Mama doth say, Papa,” Magnus reported. “Something doth press upon the minds of all the people here—and at ours, too. Only, with us, it cannot enter.”
“Then it knows all it really needs to know about us, doesn’t it?” Rod growled. He frowned, and shrugged. “On the other hand, it already did. Here, I’ve got to have a feel of this.”
It wasn’t as easy for him as it was for Gwen and the kids. They’d grown up with extrasensory power; they could read minds as easily as they listened for birdsongs. But Rod’s dormant powers had just been unlocked three years ago. He had to close his eyes, concentrating on the image of a blank, gray wall, letting his thoughts die down, and cease. Then, when other people’s thoughts had begun to come into his mind, he could open his eyes again, and see while he mind read.
But he didn’t have to look about him this time. He could feel it, before he even heard another person’s thoughts. When he did, he realized that the thoughts resonated perfectly with the pressure-current. It was a flowing wave, rocking, soothing, lulling; but modulated on that lethargic mental massage was a feeling of vague unease and suspicion—and riding within that modulation, as a sort of harmonic, was the central conviction that the sorcerer Alfar could make all things right.
Rod opened his eyes, to find his whole family staring at him—and for the first time on this trip, fear shadowed the children’s faces.
Rage hit, hot and strong. Rod’s whole nervous system flamed with it, and his hands twitched, aching for the throat of whatever it was that had threatened his children.
“Nay, husband.” Gwen reached out and caught his hand. “We need thy wisdom now, not thy mayhem.”
He resented her touch; it pushed his anger higher. But he heeded her words, and concentrated on the feel of that beloved hand, whose caresses had brought him so much of comfort and delight. He let it anchor him, remembering how his rage had made him do foolhardy things, how his wrath had played into the hands of the enemy. He took slow, deep breaths, trying to remember that he was really more dangerous when he was calm, trying to regain the harmony of his emotions. He concentrated on his shoulders, relaxing them deliberately, then his back, then his upper arms, then his forearms, then his hands. Anger wouldn’t help anybody now; anger would only destroy—everything but the enemy. He shivered as he felt the rage loosen, and drain away; then he swallowed, and closed his eyes, nodding. “I’m… all right, now. Thanks, darling. Just… be careful about grabbing me when I’m like that, okay?”