hay and a trough of fresh water.
The pilgrims had got out of the wagon, and I was helping Kettle down when the barn door opened again. A lithe young woman with a mass of red hair piled on her head came storming in. Fists on her hips, she confronted Nik. 'Who are all these people and why have you brought them here? What good is a bolthole if half the countryside knows of it?''
Nik handed his horse to one of his men and turned to her. Without a word, he swept her into his arms and kissed her. But a moment later, she pushed him away. 'What are you …'
'They paid well. They've their own food, and can make do in here for the night. Then they'll be on their way to the Mountains tomorrow. Up there, no one cares what we do. There's no danger, Tel, you worry too much.'
'I have to worry for two, for you haven't the sense to. I've food ready, but not enough for all this lot. Why didn't you send a bird to warn me?'
'I did. Didn't it get here? Maybe the storm delayed it.'
'That's what you always say when you don't think to do it.'
'Let it go, woman. I've good tidings for you. Let's go back to your house and talk.' Nik's arm rested easily about her waist as they left. It was up to his men to settle us. There was straw to sleep in and plenty of space to spread it. There was a dug well with a bucket outside for water. There was a small hearth at one end of the barn. The chimney smoked badly, but it sufficed to cook on. The barn was not warm, save in comparison to the weather outside. But no one complained. Nighteyes had stayed outside.
They've a coop full of chickens, he told me. And a pigeon coop, too.
Leave them alone, I warned him.
Starling started to leave with Nik's men when they went up to the house, but they stopped her at the door. 'Nik says all of you are to stay inside tonight, in one place.' The man shot a meaningful glance at me. In a louder voice, he called, 'Get your water now, for we'll be bolting the door when we leave. It keeps the wind out better.'
No one was fooled by his comment, but no one challenged it. Obviously the smuggler felt the less we knew of his bolthole, the better. That was understandable. Instead of complaining we fetched water. Out of habit, I replenished the animals' trough. As I hauled the fifth bucket, I wondered if I would ever lose the reflex of seeing to the beasts first. The pilgrims had devoted themselves to seeing to their own comfort. Soon I could smell food cooking on the hearth. Well, I had dried meat and hard bread. It would suffice.
You could be hunting with me. There's game here. They had a garden this summer and the rabbits are still coming for the stalks.
He sprawled in the lee of the chicken house, the bloody remnants of a rabbit across his forepaws. Even as he ate, he kept one eye on the snow-covered garden patch, watching for other game. I chewed a stick of dry meat glumly while I heaped up straw for Kettle's bed in the stall next to her horse. I was spreading her blanket over it when she returned from the fire carrying her teapot.
'Who put you in charge of my bedding?' she demanded. As I took a breath to reply, she added, 'Here's tea if you've a cup to your name. Mine's in my bag on the cart. There's some cheese and dried apples there as well. Fetch it for us, there's a good lad.'
As I did so, I heard Starling's voice and harp take up a tune. Singing for her supper, I didn't doubt. Well, it was what minstrels did, and I doubted she'd go hungry. I brought Kettle's bag back to her, and she portioned me out a generous share while eating lightly herself. We sat on our blankets and ate. During the meal, she kept glancing at me, and finally declared, 'You've a familiar cast to your features, Tom. What part of Buck did you say you were from?'
'Buckkeep Town,' I replied without thinking.
'Ah. And who was your mother?'
I hesitated, then declared, 'Sal Flatfish.' She had so many children running about Buckkeep Town, there was probably one named Tom.
'Fisherfolk? How did a fisherwoman's son end up a shepherd?'
'My father herded,' I extemporized. 'Between the two trades, we did well enough.'
'I see. And they taught you courtly courtesies to old women. And you've an uncle in the Mountains. Quite a family.'
'He took to wandering at an early age, and settled there.' The badgering was beginning to make me sweat a little. I could tell she knew it, too. 'What part of Buck did you say your family came from?' I asked suddenly.
'I didn't say,' she replied with a small smile.
Starling suddenly appeared at the door of the stall. She perched on the edge of it and leaned over. 'Nik said we'd cross the river in two days,' she offered. I nodded, but said nothing. She came around the end of the stall and casually tossed her pack down beside mine. She followed it to sit leaning against it, her harp on her lap. 'There are two couples down by the hearth, squabbling and bickering. Some water got into their travel bread, and all they can think to do is spit about whose fault it is. And one of the children is sick and puking. Poor little thing. The man who is so angry about the wet bread keeps going on about it's just a waste of food to feed the boy until he stops being sick.'
'That would be Rally. A more conniving, tightfisted man I never met,' Kettle observed genially. 'And the boy, Selk. He's been sick on and off since we left Chalced. And before, like as not. I think his mother thinks Eda's shrine can cure him. She's grasping at straws, but she has the gold to do so. Or did.'
It started off around of gossiping between the two. I leaned in the corner and listened with half an ear and dozed. Two days to the river, I promised myself. And how much longer to the Mountains? I broke in to ask Starling if she knew.
'Nik says there's no way to tell that, it all depends on weather. But he told me not to worry about it.' Her fingers wandered idly over the strings of her harp. Almost instantly, two children appeared in the door of the stall.
'Are you going to sing again?' asked the girl. She was a spindly little child of about six, her dress much worn. There were bits of straw in her hair.
'Would you like me to?'
For answer, they came bounding in to sit on either side of her. I had expected Kettle to complain at this invasion, but she said nothing, even when the girl settled comfortably against her. Kettle began to pick the straw from the child's hair with her twisted old fingers. The little girl had dark eyes and clutched a puppet with an embroidered face. When she smiled up at Kettle, I could see they were not strangers.
'Sing the one about the old woman and her pig,' the boy begged Starling.
I stood up and gathered my pack. 'I need to get some sleep,' I excused myself. I suddenly could not bear to be around the children.
I found an empty stall nearer the door of the barn and bedded down there. I could hear the mutter of the pilgrims' voices at their hearth. Some quarreling still seemed to be going on. Starling sang the song about the woman, the stile, and the pig, and then a song about an apple tree. I heard the footsteps of a few others as they came to sit and listen to the music. I told myself they'd be wiser to sleep, and closed my own eyes.
All was dark and still when she came to find me in the night. She stepped on my hand in the dark, and then near dropped her pack on my head. I said nothing, even when she stretched out beside me. She spread her blankets out to cover me as well, then wiggled in under the edge of mine. I didn't move. Suddenly I felt her hand touch my face questioningly. 'Fitz?' she asked softly in the darkness.
'What?'
'How much do you trust Nik?'
'I told you. Not at all. But I think he'll get us to the Mountains, For his own pride, if nothing else.' I smiled in the dark. 'A smuggler's reputation must be perfect, among those who know of it. He'll get us there.'
'Were you angry at me, earlier today?' When I said nothing, she added, 'You gave me such a serious look this morning.'
'Does the wolf bother you?' I asked her as bluntly.
She spoke quietly. 'It's true then?'
'Did you doubt it before?'
'The Witted part … yes. I thought it an evil lie they had told about you. That the son of a prince could be Witted … You did not seem a man who would share his life with an animal.' The tone of her voice left me no
