“No, no! Not now! I mean, if they have been listening to us, they’ll have heard us, and just wiped their minds and started thinking disguise thoughts! You’ve got to catch them when they’re not ready, take them by surprise. Listen and probe for them whenever you just happen to think of it, at odd moments.”
“But will they not always be masked to us, Papa?” Cordelia protested.
“Not when they’re trying to listen to your thoughts,” Rod explained. “They can’t do both at the same time—mask and listen. You’ve tried it yourselves—you know.”
This time, the glance the kids exchanged was startled—and worried. Just how much did Daddy know, that they didn’t know he knew?
“Try to catch them unaware,” Rod urged.
The children sighed philosophically.
“I know, I know,” Rod growled, “this unpredictable Daddy! First he tells you to do it, then he tells you not to! So balance it—sometimes you do it, and sometimes you don’t.” He looked up. “Gee, that’s a nice looking horse, up there. I think I’ll steal it.”
The children gasped with shock, and looked—and gave their father a look of disgust. “Thou canst not steal him, Papa,” Gregory said sternly. “He is already thine.”
“Makes it more convenient that way, doesn’t it?” Under his breath, Rod muttered, “Nice of you to come ahead to meet us, Old Iron. How about I ride you, on the next leg of the trip?”
“Motion sickness, Rod?”
But it was Gwen and Cordelia who rode, at least as far as the inn, and the innkeeper was very obliging—once Rod caught his attention.
It wasn’t easy. Rod left the family at the door and stepped inside, bracing himself for an unpleasant scene. He saw a tall, wiry man with a stained apron tied around his waist, setting a double handful of mugs on a table and collecting coppers from the diners. As he turned away from the table, his gaze fell on Rod. “Be off with you,” he ordered, but he didn’t even stop turning. “We’ve no alms to give.” By the time he finished the sentence, he was facing the kitchen again, and had started walking.
“I’ve got money!” Rod called.
The man kept on walking.
Rod dodged around him and leaped into his path, shoving his purse under the innkeeper’s nose and yanking it open. The man stopped, frowning. Slowly, his eyes focused on the purse.
Rod shook a few coins out onto his palm. “See? Silver. The real thing.”
The innkeeper scowled at the coins as though they were vermin. Then his expression lightened to musing, and he pinched up one of the coins, held it in front of his nose to stare at it as though it were some new variety of bug, then methodically set it between his teeth and bit.
Rod couldn’t resist. “Hors d’oeuvres?”
“ ‘Tis silver.” The innkeeper seemed puzzled.
“Genuine,” Rod agreed.
The man focused on Rod. “What of it?”
Rod just stared at him for a second. “We’d like something to eat.”
“We?” The innkeeper turned his head from side to side, inspecting the walls and corners.
“My wife and children,” Rod explained. “I didn’t think you’d want us inside.”
The innkeeper thought that one over for a while, then nodded, frowning. Rod wondered how the man ever managed to make a profit. Finally, the innkeeper spoke. “Wise.” He kept nodding. “Wise.” Then he focused on Rod again. “And what food dost thou wish?”
“Oh, we’re not choosy. A big bowl of stew, a plateful of sausage, a couple of loaves of bread, a pitcher of milk, and a pitcher of ale should do us. Oh, and of course, six empty bowls. And six spoons.”
The innkeeper nodded judiciously. “Stew, sausage, bread, milk, and ale.” He turned away, still nodding. “Stew, sausage, bread, milk, and ale.” He headed for the kitchens, repeating the formula again and again.
Rod watched him go, shaking his head. Then he turned away to find Gwen and the kids.
He found them sitting under an old, wide oak tree with a huge spread of leaves. “Will they have us, husband?” Gwen didn’t really sound as though she cared.
“Oh, yeah.” Rod folded a leg under him and sat down beside her, leaning back against the trunk. “He was very obliging, once he tasted our silver and found out it wasn’t pewter.”
“What troubles thee, then?”
“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.