approached. She pushed away her empty plate and glanced about the room. It was starting to fill with the evening's customers. 'I have a room upstairs,' she invited me. 'We can talk more privately there.'
This second meal had finally filled my belly. And I was warm. I should have felt wary, but the food and the warmth were making me sleepy. I tried to focus my thoughts. Whoever these smugglers were, they offered the hope of getting to the Mountains.
The only hope I'd had lately. I gave a small nod. She rose and I followed with my carry-basket.
The room upstairs was clean and warm. There was a feather bed on the bedframe, with clean wool blankets upon it. A pottery ewer of water and a washbasin rested on a small stand by the bed. Starling lit several candles in the room, driving the shadows back into the corners. Then she gestured me in. As she latched the door behind us, I sat down on the chair. Odd, how a simple, clean room could seem such a luxury to me now. Starling sat down on the bed.
'I thought you said you had no more coin than I did,' I commented.
'I didn't, back then. But since I came to Blue Lake, I've been in demand. Even more so since the guards' bodies were found.'
'How is that?' I asked her coldly.
'I'm a minstrel'' she retorted. 'And I was there when the Wit-Bastard was taken. Do you think I can't tell the story of that well enough to be worth a coin or two?'
'So. I see.' I mulled over what she had told me, then asked, 'So, do I owe my glowing red eyes and fangs to your telling?'
She gave a snort of disdain. 'Of course not. Some street corner ballad maker came up with that.' Then she halted, and smiled almost to herself 'But I'll admit to a bit of embroidery. As I tell it, Chivalry's Bastard was stoutly thewed and fought like a buck, a young man in the prime of his years, despite the fact that his right arm still bore the savage marks of King Regal's sword. And above his left eye, he'd a streak of white as wide as a man's hand in his hair. It took three guardsmen just to hold him, and he did not stop fighting, even when the leader of the guard struck him so hard it knocked the teeth from the front of his mouth.' She paused and waited. When I said nothing, she cleared her throat. 'You might thank me for making it a bit less likely that folk would recognize you on the street.'
'Thank you. I suppose. How did Creece and Tassin react to that?'
'They nodded all the while. My story only made theirs all the better, you see.'
'I see. But you still haven't told me how you know it was a trap.'
'They offered us money for you. If any of us had had word from you. Creece wanted to know how much. We had been taken up to the King's own sitting room for this questioning. To make us feel more important, I suppose. We were told the King himself felt ill after his long trip, and was resting right next door. While we were there, a servant came out, bringing the King's cloak and his boots to be cleaned of mud.' Starling gave me a small smile. 'The boots were immense.'
'And you know the size of the King's feet?' I knew she was correct. Regal had small hands and feet, and was more vain of them than many a court lady.
'I've never been to court. But a few of those better born at our keep had been up to Buckkeep for occasions. They spoke much of the handsome youngest prince, of his fine manners and dark curling hair. And his tiny feet, and how well he danced on them.' She shook her head. 'I knew it was not King Regal in that room. The rest was easy to deduce. They had come to Blue Lake too promptly following the killings of the guards. They came for you.'
'Perhaps,' I conceded. I was beginning to have a high opinion of Starling's wits. 'Tell me more of the smugglers. How did you come to hear of them?'
She shook her head, smiling. 'If you strike a bargain with them, it will be through me. And I shall be a part of it.'
'How are they getting to the Mountains?' I asked.
She looked at me. 'If you were a smuggler, would you tell others what route you used?' Then she shrugged. 'I've heard gossip that smugglers have a way to cross the river. An old way. I know there was once a trade route that went upriver and then across. It fell out of favor when the river became so unpredictable. Since the bad fires a few years back, the river floods every year. When it does, it shifts in its bed. So the regular traders have come to rely more on boats than on a bridge that may or may not be intact.' She paused to gnaw briefly at a thumbnail. 'I think that at one time there was a bridge a way upstream, but after the river washed it out for the fourth consecutive year, no one had the heart to rebuild it. Someone else told me that in summer there is a pulley ferry, and that they used to cross on the ice in winter. In the years when the river freezes. Maybe they are hoping the river will freeze this year. My own thought is, when trade is stopped in one place, it starts in another. There will be a way across.'
I frowned. 'No. There must be another way to the Mountains.'
Starling seemed mildly insulted that I'd doubt her. 'Ask about it yourself, if you choose. You might enjoy waiting with the King's Guard that strut all about the waterfront. But most folk will tell you to wait for spring. A few will tell you that if you want to get there in the winter, you don't start from here. You could go south, around Blue Lake entirely. From there, I gather there are several trade routes to the Mountains, even in winter.'
'By the time I did that, it would be spring. I could get to the Mountains just as quickly by waiting it out here.'
'That's another thing I've been told,' Starling agreed smugly.
I leaned forward and put my head in my hands. Come to me. 'Are there no close, easy ways across that damnable lake?'
'No. If there were an easy way to cross, there would not still be guardsmen infesting the entire waterfront.'
There seemed no other choice for me. 'Where would I find these smugglers?'
Starling grinned broadly. 'Tomorrow, I will take you to them,' she promised. She rose and stretched. 'But tonight I must take myself to the Gilded Pin. I have not sung my songs there yet, but yesterday I was invited. I've heard their clients can be quite generous to traveling minstrels.' She stooped to gather up her well-wrapped harp. I rose as she picked up her still-damp cloak.
'I must be on my way as well,' I said politely.
'Why not sleep here?' she offered. 'Less chance of being recognized and a lot fewer vermin in this room.' A smile twisted the corner of her mouth as she looked at my hesitant face. 'If I wanted to sell you to the King's Guard, I could have done it. As alone as you are, FitzChivalry, you had better decide to trust someone.'
When she called me by my name, it was as if something twisted inside me. And yet, 'Why?' I asked her softly. 'Why do you aid me? And don't tell me it's the hope of a song that may never be.'
'That shows how little you understand minstrels,' she said. 'There is no more powerful lure for one than that. But I suppose there is more. No. I know there is.' She looked up at me suddenly, her eyes meeting mine squarely. 'I had a little brother. Jay. He was a guard stationed at the Antler Island Tower. He saw you fight the day the Raiders came.' She gave a brief snort of laughter. 'Actually, you stepped over him. You sank your axe into the man who had just struck him down. And waded deeper into the battle without even a glance back at him.' She looked at me from the corner of her eye. 'That is why I sing `Antler Tower Raid' slightly differently from any other minstrel. He told me of it, and I sing you as he saw you. A hero. You saved his life.'
She looked abruptly aside from me. 'For a time, anyway. He died later, fighting for Buck. But for a time, he lived because of your axe.' She stopped speaking, and swung her cloak around her shoulders. 'Stay here,' she told me. 'Rest. I won't be back until late. You can have the bed until then, if you want.'
She whisked out the door without waiting for a reply. I stood for a time staring at the closed door. FitzChivalry. Hero. Just words. But it was as if she had lanced something inside me, drained away some poison, and now I could heal. It was the strangest feeling. Get some sleep, I advised myself. I actually felt as if I could.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Smugglers
THERE ARE FEW spirits so free as those of traveling minstrels, at least within the Six Duchies. If a minstrel is sufficiently talented, he can expect almost all rules of conduct to be suspended for him. They are permitted to ask
