The Wise Man's Fear

“Is it the feeling you have when someone offers you a choice?” I tried again. “Someone offers you an apple or a plum?” I held up both hands in front of myself. “But you like both the same.” I pressed my fingers together and smoothed them over my eyebrow twice. “This feeling?”

Tempi shook his head. “No.” He stopped walking for a moment, then resumed. At his side, his left hand said: Dishonesty. “What is plum?” Attentive.

Confused, I looked at him. “What?”

“What does plum mean?” He gestured again: Profoundly serious. Attentive.

I turned my attention to the trees and immediately heard it: movement in the undergrowth.

The noise came from the south side of the road. The side we hadn’t searched yet. The bandits. Excitement and fear swelled in my chest. Would they attack us? In my tatty cloak I doubted I looked like much of a target, but I was carrying my lute in its dark, expensive case.

Tempi had changed back to his tight mercenary reds for the trip into town. Would that discourage a man with a longbow? Or would it seem I was a minstrel rich enough to hire an Adem bodyguard? We might look like fruit ripe for the picking.

I thought longingly of the arrowcatch I’d sold to Kilvin, and realized he’d been right. People would pay dearly for them. I’d give every penny in my pocket for one right now.

I gestured to Tempi: Acceptance. Dishonesty. Agreement. “A plum is a sweet fruit,” I said, straining my ears for telltale sounds from the surrounding trees.

Should we run to the trees for cover, or would it be better to pretend we were unaware of them? What could I do if they attacked? I had the knife I’d bought from the tinker on my belt, but I had no idea how to use it. I was suddenly aware of how terribly unprepared I was. What in God’s name was I doing out here? I didn’t belong in this situation. Why had the Maer sent me?

Just as I was starting to sweat in earnest, I heard a sudden snap and rustle in the underbrush. A horned hart burst from the trees and was across the road in three easy bounds. A moment later, two hinds followed. One paused in the center of the road and turned to look at us curiously, her long ear twitching. Then she was off and lost among the trees.

My heart was racing, and I let out a low, nervous laugh. I turned to look at Tempi, only to find him with his sword drawn. The fingers of his left hand curled into embarrassment, then made several quick gestures I couldn’t identify.

He sheathed the sword without a flourish of any sort. A gesture as casual as putting your hand in your pocket. Frustration.

I nodded. Glad as I was to not be sprouting arrows from my back, an ambush would at least have given us a clue as to where the bandits were. Agreement. Understatement.

We silently continued our walk toward Crosson.

Crosson wasn’t much as far as towns go. Twenty or thirty buildings with thick forest on every side. If it hadn’t been on the king’s highway, it probably wouldn’t even have warranted a name.

But since it was on the king’s highway, there was a reasonably stocked general goods store that supplied travelers and the scattering of nearby farms. There was a small post station that was also a livery and a farrier, and a small church that was also a brewery.

And an inn, of course. While the Laughing Moon was barely a third the size of the Pennysworth, it was still several steps above what you’d expect for a town like this. It was two stories tall, with three private rooms and a bathhouse. A large handpainted sign showed a gibbous moon wearing a waistcoat, holding its belly while it rocked with laughter.

I’d brought my lute that morning, hoping I might be able to play in exchange for a bit of lunch. But that was just an excuse. I was desperate for any excuse to play. My enforced silence was wearing on me as much as Dedan’s muttering. I hadn’t gone so long without my music since I’d been homeless on the streets of Tarbean.

Tempi and I dropped off our list of supplies with the elderly woman who ran the store. Four large loaves of trail bread, a half-pound of butter, quarterpound of salt, flour, dried apple, sausages, a side of bacon, a sack of turnips, six eggs, two buttons, feathers for refletching Marten’s hunting arrows, bootlaces, soap, and a new whetstone to replace one Dedan had broken. All told, it would come to eight silver bits from the Maer’s rapidly thinning purse.

Tempi and I made our way over to the inn for lunch, knowing it would be an hour or two before our order was ready. Surprisingly, I could hear noise from the taproom from across the street. Places like this were usually busy in the evening when travelers stopped for the night, not in the middle of the day when everyone was in the fields or on the road.

The room quieted when we opened the door. At first I hoped the customers were glad to see a musician, then I saw their eyes were all for Tempi in his tight mercenary reds.

There were fifteen or twenty people idling in the taproom. Some hunched at the bar, others clustered around tables. It wasn’t so crowded we couldn’t find a table to sit, but it did take a couple minutes before the single harassed-looking serving girl came to our table.

“What’ll it be then?” she asked, brushing a sweaty strand of hair away from her face. “We’ve got pea soup with bacon in, and a bread pudding.”

“Sounds lovely,” I said. “Can we get some apples and cheese too?”

“Drink?”

“Soft cider for me,” I said.

“Beer,” Tempi said, then made a gesture with two fingers on the tabletop. “Small whiskey. Good whiskey.”

She nodded. “I’ll need to see your money.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve had trouble lately?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

I handed her three halfpennies, and she hurried off. By then I was sure I wasn’t imagining it: the men in the room were giving Tempi dark looks.

I turned to a man at the table next to us, quietly eating his bowl of soup. “Is this a market day or something?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, and I saw he had a bruise going purple on his jaw. “There’s no market day in Crosson. There’s no market.”

“I came through here a while back and things were quiet. What’s everyone doing here?”

“Same thing as always,” he said. “Looking for work. Crosson is the last stop before the Eld gets good and thick. A smart caravan’ll pick up an extra guard or two.” He took a drink. “But too many folk been gettin’ feathered off in the trees lately. Caravans aren’t coming through so often.”

I looked around the room. They weren’t wearing any armor, but now that I was looking I could see the marks of mercenary life on most of them. They were rougher looking than ordinary townsfolk. More scars, more broken noses, more knives, more swagger.

The man dropped his spoon into his empty bowl and got to his feet. “You can have the place for all I care,” he said, “I’ve been here six days and only seen four wagons come through. Besides, only an idiot would head north as a pay-a-day.”

He picked up a large pack and slipped it over his shoulders. “And with all the folk gone missing, only an idiot would take on extra help in a place like this. I’ll tell you this for free, half of these reeking bastards would probably cut your throat the first night on the road.”

A broad-shouldered man with a wild black beard let loose a mocking laugh from where he stood at the bar. “Just because yeh can’t roll dice dinna make me a criminal, souee,” he said with a thick northern accent. “Yeh say sommat like that agin and I’ll give’e twice as much as yeh got last night. Plus intrest.”

The fellow I’d been talking to made a gesture you didn’t have to be Adem to understand and headed out the door. The bearded man laughed.

Our drinks showed up just then. Tempi drank off half his whiskey in a single swallow and let out a long, satisfied sigh, slouching down in his seat. I sipped my cider. I’d been hoping to play for an hour or two in exchange for our meal. But I wasn’t fool enough to play to a room composed entirely of frustrated mercenaries.

I could have done it, mind you. In an hour, I could have them laughing and singing. In two hours I could have