seem like I was heading south, running. Hopefully they’d follow it.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Signs
I came suddenly awake early the next morning. I didn’t know exactly where I was, only that I wasn’t where I should be, and that something was wrong. I was hiding. Someone was after me.
I was curled up in the corner of a small room. I lay on a blanket and I was wrapped in my cloak. This was an inn ... it slowly came back to me. I had rented a room at an inn near Imre’s docks.
I came to my feet, stretching carefully so as not to aggravate my wound. I’d pushed the dresser against the room’s only door and tied the window shut with a length of rope despite the fact that it was too small for a grown man to fit through.
Seeing my precautions in the cool blue light of early morning, I was a little embarrassed. I couldn’t remember whether I’d slept on the floor out of fear of assassins or bedbugs. Either way, it was clear that I hadn’t been thinking too clearly toward the end of the night.
I gathered up my travelsack and lute and headed downstairs. I had some planning to do, but before that, I needed breakfast and a bath.
Despite my busy night, I’d barely slept past sunrise, so I had easy access to the bathhouse. After cleaning myself up and rewrapping the bandage around my side, I felt mostly human. A plate of eggs, a couple sausages, and some fried potatoes later, I felt I could begin to think rationally about my situation. It’s amazing how much easier it is to think productively when your belly is full. I sat in the far corner of the little dockside inn and sipped a mug of fresh-pressed apple cider. I was no longer worried that hired killers were going to leap out and assault me. Still, I was sitting with my back to the wall with a good view of the door.
Yesterday had left me shaken mostly because it had caught me so unprepared. In Tarbean I’d lived each day expecting people would try to kill me. The civilized atmosphere of the University had lulled me into a false sense of security. I never would have been caught off my guard a year ago. I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised by the attack itself.
My hard-won instincts from Tarbean were urging me to run. Leave this place. Leave Ambrose and his vendetta far behind. But that feral part of me cared only for safety. It had no plan.
I couldn’t leave. I had too much invested here. My studies. My vain hopes for gaining a patron and my stronger hopes of entry to the Archives. My precious few friends. Denna ...
Sailors and dockworkers began to filter into the inn to get the morning meal, and the room slowly filled with the gentle buzz of conversation. I heard a bell ringing dimly in the distance and it occurred to me that my shift in the Medica would be starting in an hour. Arwyl would notice if I was absent, and he was not forgiving of such things. I fought down the urge to run back to the University. It was well known that absent students were punished with higher tuitions the following term.
To give myself something to do while I was thinking through my situation, I brought out my cloak along with needle and thread. The knife from last night had made a straight cut about two handspan across. I began to sew it closed, using tiny stitches so the seam wouldn’t be obvious.
While my hands worked, my thoughts wandered. Could I confront Ambrose? Threaten him? Not likely. He knew I couldn’t successfully bring charges against him. But maybe I could persuade a few of the masters of what had really happened. Kilvin would be outraged at the thought of hired killers using a dowsing compass, and perhaps Arwyl ...
“... all blue fire. Every one of them dead, thrown around like rag dolls and the house falling to pieces around them. I was glad to see the end of the place. I can tell you that.”
I jabbed my finger with the needle as my eavesdropper’s ears picked the conversation out of the common room’s general din. A few tables over, two men were drinking beer. One was tall and balding, the other was fat with a red beard.
“Yer such an old woman,” the fat one laughed. “You’ll listen to any piece of gossip.”
The tall man shook his head somberly. “I was in the tavern when they came in with the news. They were gatherin’ folk with wagons so they could go get the bodies. The whole wedding party dead as leather. Over thirty folks gutted like pigs and the place burned down in a blue flame. And that weren’t the least oddness from what....” He dropped his voice and I lost what he was saying among the general noise of the room.
I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat. I slowly tied off the last stitch on my cloak and set it down. I noticed my bleeding finger and absently put it in my mouth. I took a deep breath. I took a drink.
Then I walked over to the table where the two men sat talking. “Did you gentlemen come downriver by any chance?”
They looked up, obviously irritated by the interruption.
“Did you come by way of Marrow?” I asked, picking a northern town at random.
“No,” the fat one said. “We’re down from Trebon.”
“Oh good.” I said, my mind racing for a plausible lie. “I have family up in those parts I was thinking of visiting.” My mind went blank as I tried to think of a way to ask him for the details of the story I’d overheard.
My palms were sweaty. “Are they getting ready for the harvest festival up that way, or have I already missed it?” I finished lamely.
“Still in the works,” the bald one said and pointedly turned his shoulder to me.
“I’d heard there was some problem with a wedding up in those parts___”
The bald one turned back to look at me. “Well I don’t know how you’d have heard that. As the news was fresh last night and we just docked down here ten minutes ago.” He gave me a hard look. “I don’t know what you’re sellin’, boy. But I ain’t buyin’. Piss off or I’ll thump you.”
I went back to my seat, knowing I’d made an irrecoverable mess of things. I sat, keeping my hands flat on the table to keep them from shaking. A group of people brutally killed. Blue fire. Oddness ...
Less than a day ago the Chandrian were in Trebon.
I finished my drink more out of reflex than anything else, then stood and made my way to the bar.
I was quickly coming to grips with the reality of the situation. After all these years I finally had the opportunity to learn something about the Chandrian. And not just a mention of them pressed flat between the pages of a book in the Archives. I had the chance to see their work firsthand. This was an opportunity that might never come again.
But I needed to get to Trebon soon, while things were still fresh in people’s memories. Before curious or superstitious townsfolk destroyed what evidence remained. I didn’t know what I hoped to find, but anything I learned about the Chandrian would be more than I knew now. And if I were to have a chance at anything useful, I had to be there as soon as possible. Today.
The morning crowd was keeping the innkeeper busy, so I had to lay an iron drab on the bar before she paid me any attention at all. After paying for a private room last night and breakfast and bath this morning, the drab represented a good portion of my worldly wealth, so I kept my finger on it.
“What’ll you have?” she asked, as she came up to me.
“How far is it to Trebon?” I asked.
“Upriver? A couple days.”
“I didn’t ask how long it was. I need to know how
“No need to get snippy,” she said, wiping her hands on her grubby apron. “By river it’s forty miles or so. Could take more than two days depending on if you’re on a barge or a billow-boat, and what the weather’s like.”
“How far by road?” I asked.
