A heavy stride hammered along the porch. A man's voice raised in the shop next door.
'You promised me eight new halters, but here are only four. I'll need coin to make up for the ones I'll have to purchase elsewhere.'
A murmured reply answered him. Mark could not hear the exact words, but terror drifted like a miasma. Beside her face, dust smeared the lowest shelf and its discarded goods, and dust stirred in an unsettled swirl of air as the man stomped into the shop where she hid.
'Heya! What about it!' he shouted, although there was something insincere about the way he bellowed. 'Where are those lead lines you promised us?' In a lower, more natural voice, he added, 'What news, you cursed worm?'
The shopkeeper replied in a rapid whisper. 'There's little to tell, Captain. The leatherworker is hiding the rest of his stock in the grain house in his courtyard. The woman who makes banners is hiding stock down by the mulberry orchard, in the old tomb of the Mothers, plenty of good cloth for tents and other such things. This is the third week the farmers have refused to come to market.'
'We've taken care of the farmers.' His voice had a snarl in it. Marit's skin prickled; it was like being close to a lightning strike, wondering where the next bolt would burst free.
The shopkeeper groveled. 'The blacksmith left town. Thought he'd walk to Toskala. Hoped to be safe there.'
'He didn't get far.'
'Eh, hah, sure it is you'd not let such a valuable man walk out on you in your year of need.'
'He's working where he can't argue so much, it's true. You've told me nothing I don't already know, excepting for the bit about the leatherworker hiding goods from us. I know you have a daughter as well as the lad. I need more than this in payment, ver.' His tone was sly and nasty, drunk as much with the power he held as with the wine he'd been drinking.
Marit wanted to grab the slimy weasel and slam him against the
counter until he begged for mercy and returned all that had been stolen, but of course this village had clearly lost far more than could ever be restored now. Anyway she had no weapon except the old knife, whose wooden handle was coming loose, and her walking staff, hard to use effectively in a crowded shop. She hated herself for what she could not do.
'A reeve came through,' said the man reluctantly.
'Sheh! You know it's forbidden for you folk to talk or tithe to reeves.'
'I know it, I know it,' he gabbled. 'But the reeve wore the Star of Life, like you folk do. He said he was flying down to Argent Hall, where a marshal was to be elected or murdered or some such. That's what he said. How can we stop a reeve from flying in, when all's said and done? Eh? Eh?' He was whining. 'There's nothing we can do when folk do walk into town on their own feet. We can't stop them.'
'Maybe so.' The news had distracted the captain. Mark heard him scratching in the stubble at his chin. 'Argent Hall, eh? Wish they'd made their move at Gold Hall, to get those cursed reeves up there off our backs, but there it is. The lord knows his business, just like you know yours, eh? The reeve halls will topple soon enough. What else? You've got that look about you, ver, like you're hiding somewhat from me.'
'Neh, neh, nothing at all. Just a word I overheard the other day, a passing comment, you can't trust chance- heard conversation, can you? Anyone can talk and say anything they please, can't they? How can a poor soul know what's true and what is just sky-spinning?'
The captain's silence made the shop seem abruptly warmer, stuffy and hard to breathe. From the street came calls and cries, so remote they might as well have been meaningless: a woman sobbing, a man's triumphant giggling as with a fit of cruelty, a spasm of coughing and spewing. Mark heard, from the back of the shop, a murmuring like mice rustling below the floorboards, words exchanged between two people in hiding:
'He'd not betray her, would he?'
'Hush, girl. He'll do what he must to save us. Hush.'
The words, sounding so clearly in her own ears, evidently did not reach the captain, who rapped a metal blade on the counter. 'I
haven't all day to wait! We gave you this chance to work with us rather than be cleaned out like the rest. I can burn down this shop if I've a wish to do so. Or take your daughter, like I did your son.'
'Peace! Peace! Just a cricket in my throat got me choked.' He made a business of clearing his throat. 'There, it's gone now.' Once started, the shopkeeper flowed like a stream at spring tide. 'A merchant come through, a stout fellow headed southwest on the Lesser Walk and meaning to head onwards down the Rice Walk to Olo'osson. This was a few weeks after the new year's festival. He was still wearing his fox ribbons, all silver, very fine quality and embroidered to show how rich he was.'
'I'm surprised a rich man chooses to strut his wealth these days. The roads aren't safe.'
'Heh. Heh. You'd say so, ver, wouldn't you? Eh, he wasn't afraid. He was a cocky fellow, even if he did have that cursed sloppy borderlands way of speaking. He would sneer at our humble town, though he'd no reason to do so. He ordered me about when he could just have asked politely for the items he needed.'
'What does this have to do with anything?'
'Oh, eh, it's just I notice such things, being a shopkeeper. We have to size up our customers. So when I went into the back to fetch out another lead line, I heard him saying to his companion that he had powerful allies in the north. That they were going to march on Olossi later this year. He did like to hear himself talk. He was indignant, said it wasn't his fault he'd had to make outside alliances. It was just that there were troublemakers in Olossi trying to elbow their way into power and push out those who had been good stewards for these many years, and he had to protect his clan.'
It was a common saying among the reeve halls that some came into service possessed of good instincts while some learned good instincts during service, and that those who neither possessed nor learned did not survive. Mark had good instincts, and had learned better ones in her ten years as a reeve, although not enough to save herself from a knife to the heart.
But ever since she'd woken, she heard and tasted and smelled with cleaner senses, as if the Four Mothers — the earth, water, fire, and wind that shapes the land — had lent her a measure of their own essence.
The captain said, 'Who else did you tell?'
He's going to kill him. The air told her because of the way his sour scent sharpened. The earth told her because of the way his feet shifted on the floorboards, bracing for the thrust.
The shopkeeper scratched his head, nails scraping scalp. She could smell his fear, but he wasn't afraid enough. He didn't see it coming.
'None but my wife, as a curiosity'
Because he thinks he can sell the information later. Because if no one else knows, then he can hoard harness and the used traveling gear he accumulates in the hope of making a greater profit off it later by selling to a mass of men on the move — an army — who need goods immediately and can't wait. The fate of the folk of Olossi concerns him not at all.
'If the troubles down south settle out,' he added, 'then maybe more folk will be on the roads, we'll see more trade. Trade's been scarce these past few seasons. Folk don't want to be out on the roads because they fear-'
She stood in the moment the captain drew his sword.
In the lineaments of a face shine the spirit; in the posture of the body speaks the soul. The tight set of a jaw reveals anger. A hand clenched around the hilt of a sword shows resolve.
Fear settles where a man leans back.
Shoulders hunching, a hand raised helplessly, the shopkeeper glanced toward Marit.
J am dead now, but at least I kept the secret. At least my sister will have escaped them. The shopkeeper's thoughts might as well have been words spoken aloud, they were cast like seeds in a broad spray, everything about him caught between his small, fatal victory and his simple fear that the blade, striking him, would hurt terribly as it cut and smashed his flesh.
We all live in terror of pain.
'You not least,' she said to the captain. 'You are one of those who will die in pain. You have sown with cruel seeds, and the bloody harvest will devour you.'
His sword point dropped. She studied his face so she would remember it no matter how much time passed before they met again: a broken nose; a scar under his left eye.
