He wasn't sure how long it had taken them to get from the park where he'd found her to the Way Station where they stopped, but it took them most of the morning to get back to Haven. The Guards on the walls paid absolutely no attention to him, although they had to have seen him careening down the road yesterday. Cymry didn't volunteer any information as he craned his neck up to look at them, then bestowed a measuring glance at the two on either side of the passage beneath the wall. He wondered what they were thinking, and what they might have said or done yesterday.
They sure didn't try to stop us, anyway. Not that it was likely that they'd have had much luck — not with only two Guards on the ground and Cymry able to leap a farm wagon without thinking about it. Maybe it was just as well they hadn't tried. He might have ended up with both eyes blackened.
Once they got inside the city walls, though, people stopped paying as much attention to them. Well, that wasn't such a surprise, people saw Heralds coming and going all the time in Haven. On the whole, he felt a bit more comfortable without so many eyes on him.
Their progress took him through some areas he wasn't at all familiar with as they wound their way toward the Palace and the Collegia. He didn't exactly have a lot to do with craftsmen and shopkeepers — his forte was roof walking and the liftin' lay, not taking things from shops. That had always seemed vaguely wrong to him anyway; those people worked hard to make or get their goods, and taking anything from them was taking bread off their tables. Helping himself to the property of those who already had so much they couldn't keep track of it, now, that was one thing — but taking a pair of shoes from a cobbler who'd worked hard to make them just because he took a fancy to them was something else again.
Once they got in among the homes of the wealthy, though, it was a different story. He eyed some of those places, all close-kept behind their shuttered windows, with a knowing gaze. At one point or another he had checked out a great many of them, and he knew some of them very, very well indeed. The owner of that one had not one, but two mistresses that his wife knew nothing about — and they didn't know about each other. He treated them all well, though, so to Skif's mind none of them should have much to complain about. Sometimes he wondered, however, where the man was getting all the money he spent on them…
He furrowed his brow and concentrated on thinking what he wanted to say instead of saying it out loud.
But they were soon past the second wall, out of the homes of the merely wealthy, and in among the manses of the great. And Skif had to snicker a little as they passed Lord Orthallen's imposing estate. It was the first time he'd come at it from the front, but he couldn't mistake those pale stone walls for any other. How many times had he feasted at m'lord's table, and him all unaware?
They passed Lord Orthallen's home, passed others that Skif had not dared approach, so guarded around were they by the owner's own retainers. And finally there was nothing on his right but the final wall, blank and forbidding, that marked the Palace itself.
His apprehension returned, and he unconsciously hunched his head down, trying to appear inconspicuous, even though there was no one to see him.
No — there was someone.
The next turning brought them within sight of a single Guardsman in dark blue, who manned a small gate. Cymry trotted up to him quite as if she passed in and out of that gate all the time, and the man nodded as if he recognized her.
“This would be Cymry,” he said aloud, casting a jaundiced eye up at Skif, who shrank within himself. “They're expecting you,” he continued, opening the gate for them to pass through, although he didn't say who they were.
Cymry walked through, all dignity, and began to climb the graveled road that led toward an entire complex of buildings. Skif tensed. Now I'm in for it, he thought, and felt his heart drop down into his boots.
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HE sat in Cymry's saddle like a sack of grain, and waited for doom to fall on him. She had taken him up the path, through what looked like a heavily-wooded park, past one enormous wing of a building so huge it had to be the Palace. Eventually they came to a long wooden building beside the river in the middle of a huge fenced field — he'd have called it a stable, except that there weren't any doors on the stalls…
Then again, if this was where Companions stayed, there wouldn't be any need for doors on the stalls, would there?
It had a pounded-dirt floor covered ankle-deep in clean straw, and there was a second door on the opposite side, also open. These gave the only light. Cymry walked inside, quite at home.
The building was oddly deserted except —
