Innowen crinkled his brow, puzzled by his friend's tone. But Mourn rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Neither of them said anything more. After a while, Mourn moved closer and put his head on Innowen's shoulder. Still, they didn't speak, but lay there in the solitude of the room while random sounds from outside flowed around them and mingled with the sound of breathing.
When Mourn finally got up, he appeared more tired than before. He bent to collect his apron, and slowly, with his back to Innowen, he tied it around his waist and went to the door. He paused there and turned around. "Would you like me to close the shutters?" he asked. "You'll sleep better."
Innowen shook his head. He could just hear the mumbling of the storyteller by the well, and maybe—just maybe if he listened long enough—the children would laugh again.
"Sleep as long as you want, Petroklos," Mourn told him. "Come down when you like." He started to pull the door closed as he went out.
"Wait," Innowen called, and Mourn opened the door wide enough to poke his head inside. "My name is Innowen, not Petroklos. That's just a name I've been using on this journey." He hesitated and chewed the inside of the corner of his lower lip. "Sometimes my friends call me Innocent."
Mourn regarded him blankly, then his face lit up, and he barked a short laugh. "I guess we all have to bear the burden of some nickname, eh?" He chuckled again as he turned away and eased the door shut.
Innowen listened to Mourn's footsteps on the stairs and, for some time after that, to the sounds of his labors in the tavern below. After a while, he turned on his side and drew the extra pillow up against his body and hugged it tightly, resting his chin on the top of it as he closed his eyes.
He didn't know when he fell asleep for the second time, but when he woke again it was truly dark. The first thing that entered his mind was that he could feel the weight of the blanket on his legs. The second thing was that he hadn't thought of the Witch all day.
He ran a finger over the inside of his left palm, feeling the splinter embedded under the skin. It didn't hurt him as sharply anymore, though there was a tenderness. It seemed to be working its way more deeply into his hand, though, and that disturbed him.
Mourn had apparently slipped back into the room while he'd slept. The short stub of a candle that hadn't been there before burned on a table on the room's far side. Its dim yellow glow provided enough light for Innowen to dress by. He glanced toward his two bundles still by the door where he'd left them, then went quietly down the stairs and into the kitchen.
The rich smells of warm bread and broth almost made him dizzy. There was no sign of Mourn, so he went to the hearthplace and bent over a large black pot to inhale the savory aroma arising from it.
"Careful," Mourn said as he came through the kitchen door. "There's no fire there, but those stones are hot. Brush a toe against them, and you'll lose skin."
Innowen backed up and looked at the five large, flat stones that lined the bottom of the hearthplace and on which the cook pot sat. He'd been too interested in the broth. Now he felt the considerable heat rising from the stones. Innowen had never seen the like before. "How do you do that?" he asked wonderingly.
Mourn set down the tray he was carrying and wiped his hands on his apron. "I like hot food," he said simply. "But it's been too warm, with this drought, to build a fire indoors. So a few years ago I dragged those up from the river. I heat them every afternoon in a fire out back, then drag them in here with those." He pointed to a pair of metal rods that hung on pegs by the rear door. One end of each rod was bent into the shape of a hook; the other ends were wrapped with heavy layers of cloth for grasping.
Innowen grinned with wide-eyed appreciation as he picked up one of the rods and turned it in his hands. "You know, if you drilled small holes in the rocks..." he suggested thoughtfully.
Mourn came and took the rod from him, and Innowen saw there was a hint of blush in his cheeks. "I tried that," he admitted with shy pride, "but the rocks broke. So I took a chisel and cut notches, instead. It works as well." He thrust the hook end of the rod under the edge of one of the rocks, prodded a bit until he found the notch, and lifted the rock just enough to show how it worked. When the pot started to tilt, he let it down again and steadied the vessel with his sandaled foot.
Innowen marveled as Mourn hung the rod back on its peg. "That's the cleverest thing I've ever seen," he said. "Hot food in summer!" He waved his hand to fan his face. "The kitchen's still hot, but not nearly as hot as it would be if you kept a fire going."
"And the stones cool quicker than coals would," Mourn pointed out. "When the cooking is done, I simply wet them with a little water."
Innowen went to the table where Mourn had set his tray. Several loaves of bread lay there, and he broke off a piece. "I'm starving," he admitted, shoving a crust into his mouth. "How did you come to own a tavern, anyway?" he asked, spraying crumbs.
Mourn frowned and cast his gaze downward. His hands began to work in his apron again. He crossed the kitchen, took a couple of mugs down from a shelf and began to ladle beer from an open keg into them. "Inherited it, I guess you might say," he confessed in a barely audible voice. "Several plagues swept Ispor in the first year of the drought. My mother took sick like a lot of people and died." He hesitated as he hung the ladle back in its place and leaned on the keg without looking at Innowen. "We burned her body a little way upriver where there were still a few flowers growing."
He paused thoughtfully and sipped his beer before continuing. "After her funeral, my father was never the same. One day, he threw a few things in a sack and went back to Mareibet."
"Just like that?" Innowen said, incredulous.
Mourn nodded. "Just like that." He picked up the mugs suddenly, turned around, and set them on the tray. "I've got to take these out to a couple of customers. You come on out, too, and sit down. I'll get you something to go with that bread."
Innowen followed him out into the tavern. While Mourn carried the mugs to a pair of men in a far corner—the only customers, it seemed—Innowen went to the table near the door where he had sat the previous night. Merit's stool was empty, he noted. The big man with the earring was nowhere to be seen.
Innowen leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head on folded hands. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the inn seemed full of shadows. His own shadow sat beside him on a shadow chair at a shadow table. Mourn's shadow jumped acrobatically from floor to wall to wall as he moved about the other end of the tavern, serving shadow drinks to shadow men.
The smoky oil lamps that hung from the rafters on leather thongs were responsible. Innowen gave them an evil look. He wished he could blow them all out. Then there would only be darkness. The darkness was beautiful. Senses quickened in the darkness. The stars burned in the darkness. Lovers touched in the darkness.
But shadows—sometimes he hated the shadows. They warped and exaggerated and misrepresented. Shadows were liars.
He leaned his head on his hands again and shaped a vision of Mourn's father turning his back on his son, walking away, walking down a river bank toward some half-remembered, love-forsaken land. But suddenly, it became a vision of himself, and it was his own unknown parent just walking away while the world darkened and a forest closed in and the branches filled with hungry, growling glares.
Innowen looked up with stinging eyes as Mourn set a mug of wine down before him, then a wooden bowl of steaming broth with a plate of bread and a few pieces of crumbly cheese. His new friend disappeared briefly, returning a few moments later with similar fare for himself. He took the seat across from Innowen, and they both began to eat in silence.
The broth was excellent and lifted Innowen's spirits. He sopped the last drop from the bowl with a bit of bread and swallowed it, leaned back, and patted his stomach while he waited for Mourn to finish his.
The door to the street opened, and Innowen heard an odd
tap-scrape
that he couldn't quite identify. Merit came in, leading the blind storyteller by the arm. The old man's gnarly cane had made that tapping sound. Merit took the cane from him as he guided the storyteller to an isolated table and sat him down. Leaning the cane against the wall close by the old man's hand, he then went into the kitchen.
The storyteller waited silently, hunched over the table, his hands in his lap. Long strands of wavy gray hair and a grizzled beard hid most of his face, and thick lids drooped over the sightless eyes. He displayed none of the animation now that he had shown earlier as he told tales by the well for the children. Now he seemed frail and tired and small inside the simple, ankle-length garment he wore. Innowen regarded him with curious interest. How still the old man sat!
Mourn reached across the table and tapped the rim of Innowen's empty bowl. "More?" he asked.
"Certainly," Innowen said absently, "but wait a while for this serving to settle."
Merit came back from the kitchen with broth and bread and a mug, which he set before the storyteller. With gruff tenderness, he guided the old man's hands to the food, showing him where bowl and plate and mug were placed, and sat down patiently beside him to help him eat. The storyteller reached for the bread first. His withered hands trembled ever so slightly, but noticeably, as he broke the bread and brought it to his lips.
Mourn said something that Innowen didn't understand. "What?" he muttered. But even as Mourn repeated himself, Innowen pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.
The old man reached for the mug, and Merit helped him find it. The weight of the vessel only intensified the trembling of the hand that held it.
Innowen moved away from his chair and crossed the floor, ignoring the warning look that Merit gave him. A strange sensation of intangibility floated over him, and the rest of the world disappeared. He leaned on the table and bent to peer at the old man's face.
Now it was he who trembled.
"Oh my gods," he whispered, feeling as if a hole had just opened in his chest. "Drushen?"
Chapter 19
Innowen waved a hand before Drushen's sightless eyes. Despite the old man's blindness and all the gray hair and the beard, there was no doubt it was his former guardian. But what had happened to his eyes? "Drushen!" he exclaimed, grasping the old man's shoulder. "It's Innowen!"
Drushen turned his face upward toward the voice, his jaw falling slack. A violent tremor suddenly seized the old body and shook it like a child's doll. A low moan escaped his lips, a sound that rose in pitch, becoming a frightened keening. The mug slipped from his hands, spilled its contents into the lap of his garment, and clattered to the floor. Drushen lunged away from Innowen's touch, tumbling sideways off his chair. One hand grasped for his gnarled cane, which leaned against the wall, while he waved the other frantically to ward off any who approached him. Merit caught his arm and tried to help him up, but Drushen batted him away and struggled to his feet.
"No!" Drushen moaned. It was the sound of a man staring into the face of terror. "No!" He swung his cane with both hands, carving a wide whooshing arc in the air before him as he staggered in the direction of the door. He collided with a table, nearly falling over it as Merit, Mourn, and Innowen tried to surround him. Quickly, though, he recovered, lifted a chair in one hand and flung it.
"What did you do to him?" Merit cried angrily as he ducked a swing of the cane and danced back out of range.
"Nothing!" Innowen cried. "He's my guardian!"
Merit froze, giving Innowen a look of utter dread. "Oh gods!" he muttered, before giving his attention once more to Drushen. "Oh gods!"
Innowen had never seen his oldest friend so terrified. It scared him, and he stood back in hurt confusion watching as Mourn and Merit, now joined by the tavern's two customers, managed to trap the old man and disarm him of the cane. Still, he struggled and fought in their grips. "No!" he keened. "No! No!" And almost as if there was still some vestige of sight in those ruined, fear-widened eyes, they sought out Innowen and locked on him.
All it had taken had been the sound of Innowen's voice. Drushen was like a canary caged with a hawk, fluttering wildly about in a desperate panic to get away. He kicked and scratched with only feeble effect until the others finally bore him back against the wall and pinned him there. Still, he moaned and cried, and tears streamed thickly down his face, until Merit gathered him in his huge arms, hugging him against his body and crooning to him like a mother with an injured child.
"Drushen," Innowen said softly, coming closer. "It's all right. It was my fault, not yours."
Merit scowled over his shoulder, warning Innowen away, and Mourn caught Innowen's arm. "Leave him alone," Mourn told him. "Merit will take care of him. He's taken care of him for years. You can explain to me what this is about."
Innowen let Mourn pull him back to their table while Merit led the sobbing Drushen out into the night. The two customers mumbled their goodnights, and
Mourn thanked them for their aid, offering free beers if they returned tomorrow. They readily agreed. Mourn closed the door after them.