“Sir.”
“Get me a horse, kid.”
“Sir?”
“A horse. Four legs? Bad tempers? Craps in the street? A horse.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh. And a wet rag. Need to clean up a bit.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Scoot.”
He scooted. I lay back and coughed.
I counted columns of smoke. Fourteen big ones. An hour ago, there’d been eighteen. Maybe the ruckus was winding down.
Or maybe the fires were just running out of fuel.
The kid returned. He led a big, black mare with a fancy black saddle. Her flanks weren’t sweaty and her eyes weren’t wild despite the smoke.
“Good choice. I’ll see she’s returned.”
A bowman came trotting up with a washbasin, a plain brown jacket, and a fresh pair of new leather boots.
“If those are for me I’m putting you in for a promotion, kid.”
He grinned. I washed, found the boots were a close enough fit for a trip across town, and left the barricade in charge of a lieutenant named Jeffrey who might be old enough to shave by spring.
On the whole, I think I prefer fighting Trolls.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Darla’s dress shop was empty, locked and shuttered. So were all the shops on the street. A band of wary shop keeps, whose average age veered perilously close to codger-hood, patrolled the sidewalks, gripping their collection of push brooms and fireplace-pokers with as much well fed menace as they could muster.
They asked about fires and looting. I told them what I’d seen, and shared my cautious optimism that Destride had been the turning point. I advised them to take to their heels if a real mob showed on their street.
They shook their brooms and vowed mayhem on miscreants far and wide.
I wished them luck and turned my mount for Darla’s house. I had the street mostly to myself. If cabs were still running they weren’t doing it in my part of town. I did meet little bands of pedestrians, cases and bags in their hands, who were determined to flee to somewhere even if they had no idea where that somewhere might be found.
I sent the ones that would listen home. Getting out of town was now far more dangerous than finding a sturdy door and placing oneself behind it.
Which is where I found Darla.
I charged onto her quiet little street. It still smelled of flowers and not smoke. Her neighbors had shuttered their windows and closed their doors, but no windows were broken, and no doors had been knocked open.
I tied the mare to Darla’s white picket fence and ran up the stairs.
Laughter sounded inside. Men’s laughter, and Mary’s voice and more laughter.
I tried the door. It was locked. At the sound of my rattling the knob, though, booted feet came running, and in an instant I was staring down the shaft of a well-maintained Army crossbow.
“Darling.”
Darla pushed the crossbow carefully aside and caught me up in a fierce hug.
“What the Hell are you three doing indoors?”
I was eyeing the soldiers I’d assigned to guard Darla. They responded with a trio of explanations, two of them hampered in their efforts by the copious amounts of apple pie in their guilty mouths.
“They been outside all night an’ all day,” snapped Mary, who appeared in the kitchen doorway, hands on her hips. “Ye never said anything about starving them to death, now did ye?”
“Outside.” I glared. “Now.”
They swallowed hard and left without a word.
Darla eyed me with that all-knowing gaze of hers.
“Mary, is there any cider left?”
Mary snorted an affirmative and vanished.
Darla kissed me. Why, I don’t know, because my swim in the Brown and subsequent street-brawl had left me less than kissable. But she did, and I’m a wise enough man not to argue.
“Carris?”
“Alive.” I was suddenly tired. No, not tired-exhausted. Beyond exhausted.
“Sit. Those aren’t your boots.”
“I left mine guarding the Regent,” I said. “My jacket is now Minister of Education.”
I sat. She pulled a chair up facing mine and sat, her hands in mine.
“Tell me.”
I told. Mary arrived with a cup of hot apple cider and a frown about the time I finished.
“I told that band of old fools to stay off the streets,” she muttered.
I sipped cider and nodded.
“So Mr. Fields lied, and Carris is heading south. I assume you’re going after him?”
I sighed.
“Maybe. Maybe not. If there’s a boat left in Rannit, I might just put Tamar on it. South’s be a good place to be, when the war starts.”
“Evis?”
“It’s ready, hon. Everything we talked about. Whether it’s going to work or not-Hell. I just don’t know.”
She just nodded. That’s one thing I love about her. She isn’t afraid of letting a silence have its say.
I finished my cider while Mary fussed about my damp shirt and insisted I change before I catch my death of cold. I reminded her that war and mayhem were the order of the day, and catching death by cold seemed an unlikely prospect, but then my traitor nose issued forth a great sneeze and I was ushered, cider and all, into the back room where I was instructed to bathe and change into dry, borrowed clothes forthwith.
I was damp, and I did smell of the nether reaches of the Brown, so bathe and change I did. When I emerged, splendid in my new garments and smelling unfortunately of Darla’s preferred lilac soap, I emerged into the company of Darla, who had changed into black pants, a sturdy black shirt and tall, black riding boots while maintaining a steady conversation with me through Mary’s back room door.
“Oh no,” I began. “You are staying right here. No argument. No negotiation. No sweet talk, my sweet.”
She pressed a sword in my hand. To this day, she won’t reveal where she came to own a custom-made Beget steel blade. The hilt of a dagger peeked up from the top of her right boot.
“For all we know, the walls will be down by midnight,” she said. “A mob could come swarming up my street any moment. Or soldiers. Or whatever horror those wand-wavers unleash.”
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
She smiled. “I know you’re not. Which is why I’m going with you.”
“You’ve got three soldiers and a good strong door here.”
“I’d rather have you. Where I can see you. If the walls come down, that’s where I want to be. With you.”
“Darla. It isn’t safe.”
“No. It isn’t.” She crossed her arms and did not smile.
There are moments, small moments, on which larger matters rest.
“Damn it all, anyway.” I shook my head. “We’re going to see Tamar. That part of town should be free of looters and fires. It might not be free of Lethway’s goons or Stricken’s killers. Anyone looks at you crossways, you duck, is that clear?”
