robe over her chest, dragged her back up to her feet. Her anger had a focus now, and brought with it such strength that Ki knew she could kill this girl with her hands.
'I want them back,' she growled.
'Vintner!' Willow gasped out suddenly. 'Vintner took the wagon and team.'
'And Vandien?'
'I don't know! I swear I don't know, Ki! The others took him. It's how we are, no one person ever knows the whole plan. I swear, I haven't seen him!'
Ki shook her. 'But you can find out?'
'I ... maybe. I don't know, they won't want to tell me, but I'll try. I swear I'll try. Only you mustn't go to the Duke. It would ruin everything ... if the Duke found us out now, he'd kill Vandien as well. Please, Ki. Please.'
Ki believed her. There was no mistaking the genuine fear that filled her voice when she spoke of Ki going to the Duke. So, she had a handle on them where that was concerned. And what Willow said about no one person ever knowing the whole plan did fit in with what Goat had told her of the rebels. Kieased her grip on Willow's robe.
'This is what we're going to do,' Ki told her. 'First, we're going after my team and wagon. Then you're going to your friends, and you'll make them understand that I want Vandien turned loose, intact, just outside town, on the road going toward Villena. And that if he isn't, the Duke is going to know not only everything I know, but everything Goat knows about your rebellion. What do you want to bet that the Two Ducks would be a smoking ruin before nightfall?'
'Goat's ... alive, too?' Willow seemed suddenly baffled.
'Yes, Willow. He is. And Vandien had also better be alive, too. Or a lot of other people will be dead before tomorrow evening. Do you understand me?'
Willow's voice seemed steadier now. 'I'll take you to Vintner's farm now,' she said decisively. 'He and his sons are probably here in town still, at Festival. But that's just as well; I don't think he'd willingly part with that team.'
'Nor did I,' Ki reminded her acidly. She kept a grip on Willow's sleeve as they left the alley. Ki smiled and nodded to her as they walked, two women enjoying the evening together.
Vintner's farm turned out to be on the other side of Tekum, on a road rutted worse than any Ki had yet seen. His name had been his fortune once, but now they walked past vines that drooped brown and trailing from their frames. Scrubby grasses and thistles were dying between the vines and along the sides of the road. Even in the cool of the night, the place smelled dusty and dead. No lights showed in the windows of the house, and the lone watchdog came forth with its bony back arched and its moth-eaten tail tucked between its legs. Ki patted it absently.
'In back,' Willow whispered, as if the stillness of the place made talking sacrilegious.
She was right. The wagon was pulled up beside a shed that held wooden vats long bereft of fruit. Even in the darkness, a single glance inside was enough to tell Ki it had been plundered. She stepped back to the ground, rounded on Willow. 'Where are my things?' she demanded coldly.
Willow shrugged eloquently. 'Everywhere, by now. They were distributed to those in the most need.'
'And my need for them wasn't considered?' Ki asked acidly.
Willow shrugged again, and even in the darkness, her eyes were pale and without feeling. 'Soon-to-be- dead' folk needed nothing. Ki felt a sudden coldness up her back and in the base of her belly. 'What I'd really like to know,' she said conversationally, 'is how to tell the difference between the Brurjan road patrols and the rebel freedom fighters. They both seem to share a gift for despoiling travellers.'
Willow's eyes blazed suddenly. 'You can say such things, who have no idea of the deprivations we have suffered in recent years. When a blanket for your child's bed becomes a luxury, or a bit of meat to flavor the soup is a thing to look forward to, or your mule throwing a shoe is a family tragedy
'Those folk at Festival tonight didn't seem very deprived. Poor folk don't pack themselves into taverns and spend coins on holiday breads and skewers of meat.'
'Not usually. It isn't often like that. But it is tonight, because the rebellion has given them hope. Fortonight, they believe things may get better, and they remember how things were when the Duchess kept the Windsingers kind to us, and this valley was prosperous, when all of Loveran was a green place.'
Fervor filled her voice as she spoke. Pointless to argue, Ki decided. 'And my team?' she asked. She wondered if she could extract coin as well as Vandien with her threat of going to the Duke, but decided not to bring it up to Willow just yet.
'There's an old stable up the hill. He probably put them there.'
'Show me.'
Both horses whuffed a greeting to her. There was a scattering of dry grass in the manger they shared, a skimming of slimy water in a trough. Ki ran a hand over Sigurd's shoulder, felt dust spiked with sweat. She'd wager they hadn't been clean since they'd been taken from her. 'Vintner is so destitute, he could not even afford the time to groom them, I suppose.'
Willow didn't reply. Ki turned back to her in time to hear the heavy door of the stable thud into place. Her shoulder crashed into it a scant portion of a second after Willow wrestled the bar into place. The ancient boards gave with the impact of Ki's body but didn't yield.
'Damn it, Willow, let me out!'
There was no reply, but Ki could feel her on the other side of the door, listening silently.
'This place won't hold me for long. There's tools in here, and I'll be out of here by morning. And then the Duke's going to hear everything I know, Willow. Every damn thing!'
'He'll be dead by then,' Willow said calmly. She spoke in a conversational voice, as if she didn't really care if Ki could hear her or not. 'By morning the rebellion will have been served. Vandien will have killed the Duke. It has to be, Ki. Otherwise, Kellich's death is totally without meaning. I hope you can see that.'
'I'll see you in hell!' Ki roared, enraged beyond reason. But Willow was still talking, heedless of any noise Ki might make, and for the first time Ki noted the edge of madness in the girl's voice.
'... blade was poisoned. So he would die anyway, that would be inevitable. At least this way his death serves a purpose. Even Vandien came to see that. Death can have a meaning, if it is offered up in service to a higher cause. He killed two men today, cut another and mutilated a young woman, but they were not wasted. Those deaths were needed, to put him in position to kill the Duke for us.'
'I don't believe you!' Disgust filled Ki, and then a tickling fear that Willow might not be lying. 'Let me out of here!'
Willow's voice was soft. 'Vandien serves us now, filling Kellich's place. He came over readily enough, once he believed you were dead and accepted that he was dying. I think the knowledge of one's own death can bring out the higher nature in a man. Vandien will be remembered, Ki. Take comfort in that.'
Willow stopped talking, but Ki could think of nothing to say. She was babbling nonsense anyway. It was only when the silence had stretched thin to breaking that she asked of the darkness, 'Willow?' But there was no reply, not even the sound of breathing. She was gone.
Ki crouched down in the darkness and tried to think. But no matter how she put Willow's wordstogether, they made no sense. For whatever reason, the girl was lying. Vandien wouldn't kill in a tournament bout. And even if he had developed sudden fervor for this rebellion's cause, she couldn't see him in the role of assassin. None of it made sense. Willow had to be lying. The man she knew was incapable of such carnage. But the other men she had overheard in the tavern ... she suddenly felt quivery. It was true. Something inside her collapsed. She felt betrayed, not only by Vandien, but by herself. She'd loved a man, and never really known him at all. Anger warred with pain. She chose anger. She rose, and began to grope her way around the wall of the stable, searching for tools to pry the old boards loose.
EIGHTEEN
They had given him a room at the inn, and someone had sent him up a tub of bath water. Between the beaten metal tub of warm scented water, and the two Brurjans outside his door, he didn't know if he should
