‘Anyway, even if I was given the chance to announce myself, the mere mention of my name . . . well, let’s just say I didn’t leave there on the best of terms. Oh, they loved Inurian, of course. When he took his leave, it was all kind words, reluctant partings. When I went, it was arguments and ill wishes.’
‘You didn’t like Inurian very much, did you?’
‘Ha! There’s some precious youthful innocence. To imagine that it’s all as simple as like or dislike; love or hate. Inurian and I never did decide which side of the line we fell upon.’
Sudden noise from Hammarn’s hut had both of them rising sharply and turning. There was shouting, the pounding of a fist on wood. Orisian went first, around to the front of the shack. Three men stood in the roadway: two of them torchbearers, the third a red-faced man with a dented iron helm on his head and a spear in his hand. This third was facing Hammarn, who was struggling to block the doorway with his slight frame. The old na’kyrim was agitated, hopping from foot to foot.
‘Not a way to treat guests,’ Hammarn was spluttering, ‘not at all. Cracking at doors in the dark.’
His sideways glance in response to Orisian’s appearance made the red-faced man turn around. He had a patchy beard spread sparsely over a scabbed chin. The glare he fixed on Orisian was almost contemptuous.
‘This one?’ he demanded.
‘A guest,’ Hammarn said irritably before anyone else could reply. ‘This is Ame,’ he told Orisian.
The leaden glumness which he put into the phrase, as if he was announcing the arrival of an unpleasant affliction, might have made Orisian smile at another time, but he was tired and had a heavy heart.
‘Second Watchman,’ Ame said gravely. If he had hoped Orisian would be impressed he was disappointed.
‘What’s happening?’ Rothe snapped from over Hammarn’s shoulder. The shieldman’s abrupt, and bulky, emergence from the shadows within the hut had the two torchbearers taking a nervous step back. Even Ame looked momentarily alarmed before he snapped his attention back to Orisian. He jabbed at him with a stubby finger.
‘You’re wanted at the Tower,’ he said.
‘Tower?’
‘Where Tomas holds court,’ muttered Yvane.
‘He’s wanted, you’re not,’ Ame growled at her. ‘You’ll keep out of sight, unless you’re a fool.’
‘My pleasure,’ Yvane said acidly.
Rothe had pushed past Hammarn and stepped on to the road. He was a good head taller than Ame, and leaned uncomfortably close to the Second Watchman.
‘Not clever to throw orders around without knowing who you’re talking to,’ he said.
‘It’s all right, Rothe,’ Orisian said quickly. ‘There’s no point in starting arguments. Not now. You and I’ll go with them.’
He was worried for a moment that they would insist that Anyara came—they must know she was inside, as they’d been watching so closely—but Ame seemed satisfied. He was trying to stretch himself, Orisian noticed, to close the gap a little on Rothe’s height.
They went through the dark town in silence. There was nothing left of the day now; the only light was that seeping out between window shutters. Koldihrve was quiet. The air bore the faint smell of meat cooking over a fire.
Ame walked ahead of them, a hint of ungainly swagger in his stride. The First Watchman’s abode was the only stone-built structure in the whole town: an old, fragile-looking round tower that stood all of three storeys high. A wooden hall and house had been built around it at some time, leaving the tower like a stubby stone finger jabbed up through their midst.
Orisian and Rothe were left to wait in a small, musty room. Voices leaked through from the adjoining hall; Koldihrve’s Watch ate and drank well, from the sound of it. Rothe had the look of a man with only a small store of patience left.
‘I’ll talk to this Tomas and we’ll get back to the others,’ Orisian said. ‘It won’t take long.’
His shieldman gave his beard a distracted scratch. ‘It’s not right to have masterless men dragging us this way and that as they like,’ he muttered.
‘We only have to keep them happy until tomorrow. Nothing else matters but getting safely on that ship.’
Ame returned. He had shed his helmet and swapped his spear for a hunk of fat-soaked bread. He gestured at Orisian with it. ‘The First Watchman’ll see you.’
Rothe rose as well, but Ame waved him back. ‘The guard dog can stay here, I’d say.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Rothe.
‘I’ll talk to him,’ Orisian told him. He was surprised at the still calm he felt within. This all felt unimportant, a small detail in the journey to Delyne’s ship; just something that had to be shuffled aside to clear their path. ‘Wait for me here.’
Rothe looked doubtful, but settled back on to the bench.
The First Watchman’s chamber was simple and sparsely furnished. Tomas himself was a wiry, knotted man who sat low in his chair and regarded Orisian with a sharp eye. There was a wolf’s pelt stretched on the wall behind him. Tomas pointed at a stool.
‘Way I hear it, there’s trouble in the mountains,’ Tomas said as Orisian was sitting down. His breathing had an uneven edge to it, the air pushed out from his lungs through bubbling phlegm. ‘White Owl and Fox at each other like stoats. That’s no great surprise, but what I hear is it’s different this time. Humans up there, too. Now the Fox don’t know much about such things, but I’m First Watchman, and I know a thing or two. So when they tell me there’s Huanin out there, with women marching alongside men, I think Black Road to myself. Strange times, that the lords of Kan Dredar are wandering in the Car Criagar, seems to me.’
‘We fled from them,’ said Orisian, unwilling to say any more than he had to. ‘It’s only luck and chance have brought us here. Some Fox Kyrinin guided us. We would have been finished without them.’
He added the last as an afterthought, hoping that it might carry some weight here, where Huanin and Kyrinin lived with only a river between them. The First Watchman ignored it.
‘You’ve the voice of a Lannis boy.’
‘My name is Orisian. I’m from Kolglas.’
Tomas nodded slowly, as if he had already known as much. It was bluff, Orisian decided; a self-important gesture. It seemed very unlikely that Tomas would know the name of Croesan’s nephew.
‘Not just Kyrinin you travel with,’ the First Watchman continued. ‘Yvane, my Watch tells me.’
‘We met her in the mountains,’ Orisian said.
‘Poor company you keep. But I always say the oathbound’re short on judgement.’
Orisian started to reply, but Tomas ignored him and continued.
‘So who else? Fox, na’kyrim; what about the others? A girl, I heard, and a man big enough to be half bear.’
‘My sister,’ Orisian said. ‘And the man’s a woodcutter. He was working for my father.’ With each passing moment he was less inclined to tell Tomas exactly who he was; the worst of the man’s hostility was kept just out of sight, but Orisian could see more than enough of it to make him cautious.
‘Oh, yes? Well, if you say so. We keep out of other folk’s business here. No one’ll trouble you if you give us no cause.’
He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Each of your Thanes, when he’s fresh come into his rule, sends messengers trying to persuade us to take his oath. We pay them little heed, and they don’t stay long. One sent gifts a while ago; Tavan, if I remember right. I’ve still got the sword my great-uncle had from his men. Pretty enough on the wall, though I’d have more use for a good bear trap, truth be told. Man who brought it went away with a ringing in his ears. My great-uncle wasn’t a man to play pretty with words.’
Tomas chuckled, then hawked and spat into a battered tin pot at his feet. The mess accumulated there suggested it had never been cleaned.