He raised his hands, palms up. 'Since the arrival of that fool, 'Master' Karden, and his plague-blotch, I find it all the more important to set the proper example.' He rucked his hands back in the sleeves of his robe, as if they were cold. Tarma read the carefully suppressed anger in his voice, and wondered if the real reason was to hide the fact that his hands were trembling with that same anger. 'I was not always a Tanner, ladies, I was once a herder. I love this land, and I will not poison it, nor will I poison the waters beneath it nor the air above. There has been enough of that already.' He turned his penetrating brown eyes on Tarma. 'Has there not, Swordlady Tarma? It is Tarma, is it not? And this is Kethry, and the valiant Warrl?'
Warrl's tail fanned the air, betraying his pleasure at being recognized, as he nodded graciously. Tarma spared him a glance of amusement. 'It is,' she replied. 'Though I'm at a loss to know how you recognized us.'
'Reputation, ladies. Songs and tales have reached even here. I know of no other partnering of Shin'a'in and sorceress.' The Master chuckled at Tarma's ill-concealed wince. 'Fear not, we have no women to rescue, or monsters to slay. Only a meal by a quiet hearth and a bed. If you would be seated, I would appreciate it, however. I'm afraid I am something less than well.'
The four of them took seats by the fire; something about the Master's 'illness' nagged at Tarma. What hair he had was glossy and healthy; at odds with the rest of his appearance. Short of breath, with pallid and oily skin, and weight that looked to have been put on since he first fell ill -- his symptoms were annoyingly familiar -- but of what?
It escaped her; she simply listened while Master Lenne and Kethry discussed the rivalry between the Guild and the interloper outside of the village.
'Oh, he couldn't get villagers to work there,' the Master said, in answer to Kethry's question. 'At least, not after the first couple of weeks. The man's methods are dangerous to his workers, as well as poisonous to the land. He doesn't do anything new, he simply takes shortcuts in the tanning processes that compromise quality and safety. That's all right, if all you want are cheaply tanned hides and don't care that they have bad spots or may crack in a few months -- and you don't give a hang about sick workers.'
'Well, he must be getting business,' Kethry said cautiously.
Master Lenne sagged in his chair and sighed. 'He is,' the man said unhappily. 'There are more than enough people in this world who only want cheaper goods, and don't care how they're made, or what the hidden costs are. And -- much as I hate to admit it, there are those in my own Guild who would agree with him and his methods. There were some who thought he should take over all the trade here. I only hold this Hall because I've been here so long and no one wants to disturb me.' He smiled wanly. 'I know too many secrets, you see. But if I were gone -- well, the nearest Master is the same man who erected that disaster outside of town, and no doubt that those others would have their wish.'
'So who is doing the work for him?' the sorceress persisted.
'Cityfolk, I presume,' Master Lenne said, with an inflection that made the word a curse. 'All men, a mixture of young ones and old men, and he works them all, from youngest to eldest. And work is all they seem to do. They never put their noses in town, and my people are stopped at the gate, so more I can't tell you.' At that moment, the young man who had brought them here poked his head into the hall. 'Master, can we schedule in Trout twenty horsehides?'
'What, now?' Master Lenne exclaimed. 'This close to the slaughtering season? Whose?'
The young man ducked his head, uncomfortable with something about the request. 'Well ... my father's. Ye know all those handsome young horses he bought without looking at their teeth? Twas like you warned him, within a week, they went from fat and glossy to lank and bony. Within two, they was dead.'
Master Lenne shook his head. 'I told him not to trust that sharper. He obviously sold your father a lot of sick horses.' He heaved himself to his feet. 'I'd best get myself down to the tannery, and see what we can do. At least we can see that it isn't a total loss for him. By your leave, ladies?'
Glossy and fat ... glossy and fat ... Tarma nodded absently and the Master hurried out, puffing a little. There was something about those words....
Then she had it; the answer. A common horse-sharper's trick-but this time it had taken a potentially deadly turn. Horses weren't the only things dying here.
'Keth,' she whispered, looking around to make sure there was no one lurking within earshot. 'I think Master Lenne's being poisoned.'
But to her surprise, Kethry looked skeptical. 'He doesn't look at all well, but what makes you think that he's being poisoned?'
'Those horses reminded me -- there's a common sharper's trick, to make old horses look really young, if you don't look too closely at their mouths. You feed them arsenic; not enough to kill them, just a little at a time, a little more each time you feed them. They become quiet and eat their heads off, their coats get oily, and they put on weight, which makes them look really fat and glossy. When you get to the point where you're giving them enough to cover the blade of a knife, you sell them. They lose their appetites without the poison, drop weight immediately, and they die as the poison stored in their fat gets back into their blood. If you didn't know better, you'd think they
