Once more Tirtha’s tongue touched her lips. Service at the hearth or with the wash paddle along a stream-side was not for her. She wore men’s clothing; a sword hung at her belt, though its blade had been so nicked and thinned she feared any use of the weapon might break it. On its pommel was still the tracing she treasured—the head of a hawk, its bill a little open as if voicing a cry of defiance. That was all of her heritage unless…
Karsten—Karsten and a dream. Since the Witches of Estcarp had wrought their magic in the Turning, upheaving the mountains and making the land walk and so destroying the invading forces of the Pagar, who had risen to rule in the southern duchy of Karsten, no one knew what lay overmountain in these days.
The bits and pieces of knowledge Tirtha had gathered so avidly from any wayfarer (and most carefully, lest curiosity be aroused as to why this sun-browned, hard-featured female was interested in anything beyond the earning of her bread) made clear that the duchy had been split into many small holdings often at war with one another. No lord since Pagar had gained power enough to make the broken duchy whole again.
This present state of Karsten might well serve her purpose in one way, hinder it in another—she had no way yet of knowing. With the discovery of the hoard of gold discs, which she took as an omen, she had come to find out that one did not venture south without a guide. In the rending of the mountains by the Power of the Witches, all landmarks had disappeared and she could not wander alone.
Hence—the hiring fair.
Tirtha buckled on her sword belt and swept up a hooded cloak of stout weaving, lined with hareskin—an extravagance to one slim of purse. Yet the garment was a necessary protection against the weather, like the winds that howled outside now, as well as a sleeping nest for the night. There was her shoulder pack also and her bow and quiver of arrows. She had worked a whole season to learn the making of those, practicing thereafter with dogged patience. She had no dart gun. Those were for the wealthy, heads of households and their guards or for the Lord Marshal’s own forces, which kept such law as now ran in Estcarp.
Down in the stable there was a rough-coated but sure-footed mountain mare—used to living off scant grazing—a mount with a rolling eye and a wicked temper. However, that temper was also a good protection against her being stolen. She was as gaunt and ill-looking as her mistress, her rusty black coat matching the short-cropped hair that hung in scallops across Tirtha’s forehead.
With calloused fingers Tirtha pinched the wick of the lamp, before moving noiselessly out into a hall where the stink of too-close living made her nose wrinkle as she descended use-hollowed steps into the common room.
Early as it was the innkeeper, a woman with a sagging fat belly beneath a sack apron, sleeves rolled up over arms that were thick enough nearly to match Tirtha’s thighs, was at the hearthside, a long-handled iron spoon in one hand, the other rolled into a fist which she had just used to cuff a girl who had been watching the pot. A smell of scorching worked its way through the other odors, and Tirtha guessed at the sin of the younger cook.
Scorched perhaps, but it was food. She had long since learned not to be dainty—if food was hot and filling it would do. Also she had no money to waste by calling for any special dish. She scooped up an empty wooden bowl from the table, picked out a horn spoon, which looked as if it had been at least wiped clean after its last use, and advanced to the scene of conflict.
The serving wench scuttled away on hands and knees, snuffling, seeking a safe distance from her mistress who was stirring the pot with a vigor that sent bits of its contents slopping over the rim. Now her attention switched from what she was doing to Tirtha.
“Porridge—you can have a chop of beef—” Her small eyes had already valued and dismissed this visitor as not being worth urging to eat a more varied meal.
“Porridge,” Tirtha agreed, extending the bowl into which the inn-mistress ladled an even six spoonfuls with the ease of very long practice and an eye for profit.
The smell rising from it was not only of scorched meal, but musty as well—the end of the winter grinding. No lumps of chopped bacon, not even a shaving of onion, cut the dusty taste. Still it was food—energy to see her through the morning, and she was not about to add to her reckoning. There were supplies that she must buy. Game did exist in the mountains, yes, and she was adept with a snare—not even wasting an arrow unless she had the fortune to meet a pronghorn. Also, she was countrywise, and with the beginning of the growing season, there were a number of newly green sprouts that could be boiled, not only as food, but for their tonic.
There remained salt and some other things that she must reluctantly lay out money for, and she had the list ready.
The inn-mistress glanced Tirtha’s way now and then, as she methodically emptied her bowl, doubtless ready to answer with a quick tongue any complaint. That this woman was wary of her, Tirtha had known from the beginning. She was neither bird nor hare in this land. A woman who rode as a man might, who had no proper place. She was marked, yes, but there were other strangers, some as odd as she was. If they tattled among themselves about her for the space of a day or so, there would arrive some other to make them wonder and surmise. She had nothing to fear this side of the border. On the other side—well, even her face might condemn her there, if the old stories were true, and she was certain that none of their grimness was the matter of a songsmith’s imagining. Her own kind—the Old Race—had been thrice-horned, outlawed, hunted, slain—sometimes horribly—when Duke Yvian had ruled, and those days were still unforgotten.
Those who had escaped into Estcarp had formed the Borderers, to ride a blood-stained trail back and forth, providing the first wall of protection for the north. Men and women of the Old Race, who had seen their dead, did not forget. The sword at Tirtha’s side had been a part of that time, though the fighting was over when she was but a child not as tall as the table at which she now sat. Still, hatred was bred into her. The Old Race was long lived—unless death cut them down prematurely in war—and their memories were even longer.
Others were stirring in the inn now—tramping down into the common room. There were at least three, who, she decided, were bound for the same place as drew her—the hiring fair held here in the early spring. They were better dressed, fuller of face than she was, as if they did not know the gauntness of late winter. They were garth stewards, perhaps, sent to pick up a herdsman, a dairy maid, even a weaver, if they were lucky.
Her own seeking was different, and only rumor had brought her here. Though many of those who had served in the wars had been granted lands to the east, and others were still attached to lords to whom they had given shield oaths (and some were outlaws because raid and rapine were all they knew), a trained fighting man down on his luck could still be hired. With the better sort, who still had their pride and kept to the old customs, sword oath might be given in return for hire.
She needed a man who knew the mountains, was not an outlaw, yet might be a guide into Karsten. For such she was willing to give a good weight of what now lay snug about the upper curve of her hips.
Tirtha scraped the last unappetizing morsel from her bowl, dropped the licked spoon into it, and rose. The hiring lines would be gathering now where the long-ago guild merchants had had their principal market. With the wind still shrieking, those seeking employment might shelter in the pillared and roofed alcoves, which had held stalls in the old days.
She fastened her cloak throat buckle, jerked the hood well up over her head, and pushed out into the courtyard, to the street beyond. It took only a few moments’ quick walk to reach her goal, but the wind cut and pulled, leaving her gasping when the full strength of it hit against her face. There were few to be seen on the street. It was a foul day, and by a new lowering of clouds overhead, like to be fouler. She turned into the square and saw that she was right—those who waited huddled in the alcoves.