'No,' she answered honestly.
This time his jaw clenched. He put his foot in the stirrup and swung into his saddle.
'I don't understand your people. You all claim to want these murders solved—the killer or killers caught—yet your project seems to mean more than two lives.'
'Perhaps you should stop blaming my guild for your shortcomings,' she answered. 'You are the captain of the Shyldfälches—the People's Shield—established by the monarchs of Malourné. Where were you when two of my people died?'
Rodian pulled his horse around, and his calm broke. 'Even with my full complement of guards, we cannot be everywhere at all times. Nor can the constabularies. We are few compared to the breadth of our responsibilities.'
'You know less than you presume concerning my guild,' Wynn countered. 'We have our own duties and limits, some dictated from the same sources as yours. We fulfill our responsibilities, but it's your duty to solve these murders—not ours.'
Rodian looked down upon her, and she watched his breaths deepen. He shifted uncomfortably, settling both hands upon the saddle's pommel with the reins still wrapped between them. Wynn was tired of this arrogant soldier.
'It's not always easy… what is asked of us,' he said quietly.
'Yes, remember that.' And she turned away down the street.
'Where are you going?' he called after her.
'Home.'
Wynn heard the clop of horseshoes. Rodian's mount appeared beside her, and she hopped aside in surprise. The captain flipped his cloak back and reached down an open hand.
In truth, the afternoon grew cold, and in her hurry she'd worn no cloak. The sun had been out earlier, but the sky was now hee sky w overcast and rain would likely come. Rodian's horse craned its head at her, a pretty white creature with round gentle eyes.
Without a word, Wynn grasped Rodian's hand.
He heaved her up behind himself. As the horse lurched forward, Wynn quickly wrapped her arms around the captain's waist. For a short way the ride was unnervingly quiet. Wynn tried to watch the people in the streets going about their daily lives.
'You are a journeyor, yes?' the captain suddenly asked.
Sitting behind him, she couldn't see his expression. 'I said as much,' she replied.
'And, as you said, I know little of the guild's ways,' he answered. 'I was merely curious.'
She said nothing to this.
'As such, you have… an assignment? Or so I've heard. Some duty you perform outside the guild, now that you've achieved journeyor status?'
'Yes—no… not anymore.'
'Yes, no, which is it?'
Wynn leaned sideways but couldn't quite see his face. What was he getting at?
'I had an assignment, as you call it. It ended about six moons ago.'
'So you finished, and now you will advance in rank?'
'It's not that simple… and I haven't finished anything. Not enough to petition and test for master's status, not by far.'
'I see,' Rodian replied. 'At times, in the military, we too must point out our accomplishments to our superiors.'
Wynn looked up at the back of his head. This captain had ambition if he was bold enough to do such a thing. That wasn't the way things were done in the guild. And she wondered just what he'd done to gain his post as head of the city's honored guard. Even in that, it seemed a strange place to be, if he was a career soldier.
'It's not like that with us,' she said. 'Our superior, a chosen mentor in our selected order—usually a domin—advises us when it's time to go before the premin council.'
'And you've not been so advised?'
'No.'
'But you have no assignment, as a journeyer?'
'Not anymore.' And it was her turn to sigh. 'I just sit about… waiting.'
'I don't understand,' Rodian said. 'For what?'
Wynn thought she saw him shake his head, and she had no answer for his question.
'What was this assignment you didn't finish?' he asked.
'I went with my mentor and others to help start a new branch of the guildsel of the.'
Rodian was silent for a long moment. 'That seems quite a venture, but I haven't heard of any new branch in the making.'
'It wasn't anywhere nearby.'
'Then abroad? I know the Lhoin'na, the elves to the far southeast, have a branch. Another is in the Suman Empire on its western coast. It seems there's no need for one more.'
'Not here… on the eastern continent.'
'A lengthy journey. You must've been gone a long while. Yet now you do nothing. So the endeavor failed, and you and your mentor returned?'
'No, just me. The others still strive to keep it going.'
'Is this a common pursuit… to establish further branches in far-off lands?'
'It's the only attempt I know of—in my lifetime.'
'I see,' Rodian said, and that was all.
They rode in silence until Wynn spotted remnants of the old outer bailey wall among shops and other buildings along Switchin Way. That wall had opened in many places over the centuries since the guild took over the first castle. The city had flowed in to fill the outer bailey, all the way to what was now called the Old Bailey Road. They turned onto it, looping around the still-present inner bailey wall of the guild's grounds.
'Wynn!'
The thunderous growl carried to her as the captain's horse neared the front gate. Beyond, just outside the gatehouse, Domin High-Tower stood with two apprentices in gray. He began striding down the path, and both apprentices scurried after in nervous steps.
'You'd better leave me here,' Wynn told the captain.
He reached back, bracing her as she slid off his horse. Before she could thank him for the ride, Domin High-Tower came at them.
'Get back inside!' he barked at her, but his outraged expression was aimed at the captain. 'And you were told no interrogation without supervision.'
Baffled, Wynn looked up, wondering what Captain Rodian had done to earn such ire. And what interrogation was the domin referring to?
'By the Trinity, I thank you for the tutelage, Journeyor Hygeorht,' the captain said. 'Knowledge is always a blessing, when it comes. Perhaps you would teach me more at a better time.'
Wynn cringed for more than one reason.
Firstly she knew his reference to one of several religions in the land—they called it the Blessed Trinity of Sentience. Though one of the most reasoned, it didn't sit well with her. Captain Rodian was an arrogant, controlling, ambitious man, but she hadn't figured him as a fanatic.
As he turned his horse down the street, Wynn tried to remember all she'd said to this complicated soldier. And the second reason…
He had played her, but she wasn't sure how well or for what.
At the first intersection along Old Procession Road, Rodian reined in and turned his horse in time to watch the dwarven sage herding Wynn Hygeorht into the guild's castle. He pulled his small journal from his belt and scanned his notes.
Whatever the sages had in their possession and hid from outside eyes under royal protection, he had little doubt where it had come from. Or at least, who had brought those texts to them.
Half a year, Sykion had said, since translations had begun—and six moons since a young journeyor returned
