The Dreamtrails (59 page)

“I hope Aro knows what he is doing,” she sighed, wiping the suds from her hands and arms and drying them. Undoing her apron, she bade a young girl to stir the bleach until she returned. Then she led me out the back door into a crooked lane hung with washing. A little way along it, she stopped and pointed to a narrow passage between two buildings, saying I would find Erit there.

I peered into the weed-clogged opening, which seemed no more than a gap between buildings, wondering if she was joking. But when I glanced back, she only nodded encouragement at me, so there was nothing but to push into the opening. Aside from the first part, the narrow passage had been cleared. It led me to a large angular space at the back of several buildings mounded high with weed-embroidered rubble, but beyond the rubble was a small clearing where a rough lean-to had been cobbled together. Some small, very dirty boys were squatting near the entrance playing a dice game. I hesitated, then went over to them to ask if they knew a man called Erit.

“Who wants to know?” asked the smallest of the boys truculently, a filthy urchin with a gap between his front teeth
that made him whistle comically as he spoke.

“Ro … Aro sent me to speak with him. I am to collect a favor.”

“Aro, eh?” said the whistling boy, looking owlishly around at his ragged companions. Then he looked back at me, his expression suddenly serious. “All right, I’m Erit. You can talk in front of them. What do you need?”

I stared at him, touching his mind to confirm that he was indeed Erit. Then, suppressing my misgivings, I told him that I needed to find a man in Herder robes who had been brought ashore from the
Raider
two nights past by a handsome, fair-haired young man. I described what Rolf had seen.

“Sounds as if the Herder was sick,” Erit said. “No doubt his friend took him to the healing house.”

“He wouldn’t have taken him to the healing house,” said one of the other urchins. “Herders have their own healers in the cloister.”

“True,” Erit said. “On the other hand, something tells me the man she wants is no true Herder, else she would have named him so rather than saying he wore Herder robes.” He was looking at me as he spoke, a question in his eyes.

“He is not a Herder,” I agreed, my confidence in the urchin rising at this evidence of his sharp wits. “His name is Domick, and he is … a friend.”

Erit nodded in a slightly absentminded way. “All right. Bally, you go nose about the city healing house. Gof, you and Grim go out to the main gate and see if this pair went out toward the cloister. Might as well make sure they are not in the obvious places first.”

I interrupted his instructions to say that I was almost certain that the fair man would have left the city, having taken Domick somewhere safe but innocuous. Erit asked for a description
of Domick, and I gave it as best I could from what I had seen in Rolf’s mind, adding, “Do not approach him. The Herders may have tampered with his mind, and there is no telling what he will do. Just locate him and come and tell me where he is.”

Erit nodded and turned back to his companions to give further directions as to where they might search. At last he gave a decisive nod, and all the boys departed purposefully save for their diminutive leader. Erit turned back to me, an assessing look on his face. “If this man is in Halfmoon Bay, we will find him, but this better not set the Raider upon us or Aro.”

“It will not,” I promised.

“If Aro trusts you, well and good,” Erit finally said. “What will you do once you find your friend?”

I swallowed sorrow. “I must get him out of Halfmoon Bay as soon as possible. I have a horse waiting outside the city, which reminds me I will need some water and fodder for her.”

He nodded. “Time enough for that later. Wait here now. There’s food and water in the hut. Help yourself.”

He was gone in a flash, and after a brief surge of frustration at having to wait while others acted, I relaxed, guessing that my presence would only have hindered the urchins if I had insisted on accompanying them. I ate some of the apples and bread, and I tried again to farseek Domick. When I failed, I paced for a time before spreading out my cloak. It was most sensible to rest in readiness for whatever the night would demand.

Later that day, Erit explained that the famous and ancient masked moon fair lasted three days instead of the customary
single day. It had been held in Halfmoon Bay for more than a hundred years and still drew visitors from all along the coast. The fair’s fame was not just that it lasted three days and involved an elaborate game of masks, but the Councilman of Halfmoon Bay always presented a real solid gold crown to the wearer of the finest mask, who would become the fair’s king or queen.

Erit also told me that although the merriment was now focused on the wealthy area and the better markets, when the fair proper began at midday the next day, the town’s entire population would be involved, for anyone seen unmasked thereafter during the fair must serve his or her finder as a slave for a day or forfeit a gold coin. Erit added wickedly that the fair was a great occasion for pickpocketing and gulling fools.

I was unable to smile. His explanation told me exactly why Ariel had brought Domick to Halfmoon Bay. He had known of the masked moon fair, known that people would come from all over the west coast. He had chosen this city and this occasion as the swiftest means of spreading the plague. Domick would probably become infectious on the morrow or the day after, and because the people he infected would not become contagious for some days, they would have time to return to their own cities. Once the deaths began, it would be too late to close any city, for there would be plague carriers in all of them.

In order to allow a margin for safety, I had to get Domick out of the town before midday the next day.

Erit and his friends had not found it difficult to track the coercer. Within an hour of leaving me, the leader of the little band of urchins had returned to say that a strikingly handsome blond man and a sickly-looking Herder had gone to a
Faction house at the edge of a prosperous district not five streets from the sea market. Erit’s informant was a maid who worked in a private house opposite the Faction house; the same girl had seen Ariel leave, alone, several hours later.

Erit explained to me that the house was used primarily by priests awaiting a ship to Herder Isle and was operated and guarded by Hedra, those warrior priests whose numbers had grown so alarmingly in recent times. It was strange to think that although we had defeated the Hedra on Herder Island, I must face them here again. Ironically, they were in as much danger as the poorest beggar, for the plague Domick carried would take all who dwelled in the west, no mother their allegiance.

Erit began to describe the interior of the Faction house, saying that there were several sleeping chambers on the ground floor, as well as subterranean cells for prisoners destined for Herder Isle, but I was sure Ariel would not have allowed Domick to be locked up as a prisoner. He needed to be free to roam if he was to spread the plague, and Ariel would have wanted to ensure it without exciting too much curiosity in the Hedra guardians, given that they were also to die. Most likely, Ariel would have suggested that Domick had a specific mission to perform at the behest of the One, which required him to move about freely.

Erit took me to a lane that ended in the street of the Faction house. He pointed out a soldierguard barracks at the end of the street. Its entrance faced away from the Faction house street, but the soldierguards who marched up and down the street in guard duty came every few minutes to the corner, and they glanced at the Faction house regularly enough to see anyone approaching or leaving it. They would also hear any commotion and come to investigate.

“The best thing is to wait till your friend comes out and then speak to him,” Erit suggested quietly.

“He may not come out alone, and I need to see him as soon as possible,” I said. I tried to farseek the coercer, but not unexpectedly, the walls were tainted. A message-taker entered the street. As we watched, he went to the Faction house and rapped on the door. A Hedra answered and, after looking at some paper proffered by the message-taker, ushered the man inside. When he came out a few minutes later and marched away, I probed him. Unfortunately, he had only stood in the foyer, so I was unable to get any sense of where Domick might be.

“Are you thinking of sending him a message to draw him out?” Erit asked, misunderstanding my interest in the message-taker.

“I do not know if Domick will be capable of responding to a message,” I told him. “The message ought to go to the person in charge of the Faction house. And who would it be from?”

“The fair-haired man who brought him here?” Erit suggested. Then he asked if Domick would come willingly with me, once outside the Faction house. I had to admit that I did not know.

“Are you saying that you will have to capture, bind, and gag him?”

“I fear it will come to that,” I admitted.

A group of people emerged, laughing and chattering, from one of the fine houses between the accommodation and the barracks at the end of the street. Erit watched silently until they had gone out of sight, then he said that his gang would keep watch on the Faction house to learn its routines and gather information about its denizens and about Domick. “It will be best if you return to the hut to wait,” he concluded.

I shook my head, saying I would help keep watch, but Erit said it was not a good idea, for although the moon fair would not begin officially until midday the next day, there was a long tradition of boisterous prefair celebrations that would continue deep into the night. During this time, almost every soldierguard in the city would be patrolling the streets. Erit shot me a glance as he added that one of his boys had heard a rumor of a young woman fitting my description who had stolen a valuable horse in Morganna and had been seen riding toward Halfmoon Bay.

“By evening, every soldierguard in the city will be looking for the thief, for a reward has been offered,” Erit said. “It would be a great pity if you were taken for her.”

“True,” I conceded. “All right, what if I leave the city for the day and return after dark? I need to tend to my horse anyway. If you can get me some suitable clothes, I could pretend to be a boy.”

Erit approved the plan, suggesting that, since I had some hours to spare, I might ride Rawen to Stonehill, where there was good grazing and a well besides. I had never heard of Stonehill, but Erit said it was a one-hour ride along the coast, and I could not miss it. Since I was leaving the city, he also suggested that I remain outside until the tide was low enough for me to enter by the sea gate, for it had no permanent guard. It would also be well after midnight, so there would be little danger of encountering fair revelers.

I fretted at this, for it left mere hours before the start of the fair, but Erit pointed out that the safest time to rescue my friend would be early the following morning when the fair revelers, and most of the soldierguards, would be snoring abed. In the meantime, he would speak to Aro and see if he could suggest any plan to wrest Domick from the Herders’
clutches without bringing them down on our heads.

Thus it was that I left the city attired as a lad with a small bag of food for myself and directions to Rolf’s house, just in case Erit was unable to meet me at the sea gate as we had arranged. I left by a section gap opposite the one I had entered, passing a great chattering crowd of people lined up and waiting to enter the city. By their clothes and fine horses, most were festival-goers, like those I had seen at the sea market. The rest were the usual sort of sellers, wheeling their carts or shouldering great bundles of goods, all waiting to sell their wares in Halfmoon Bay.

As Erit had promised, the soldierguards were intent on incoming visitors and traders, so my exit from the city among a group of lads set on collecting shellfish to hawk was swift and smooth.

I trailed after them to the water’s edge, noting many other poorly dressed people fishing or picking through the sand. I noted, too, that the tide was washing so high against the wall’s end section that it was hard to imagine it would later withdraw enough to open up the space between the wall and the waves, known as a sea gate.

I set off slowly along the water’s edge, shying the occasional pebble into the waves as if I were a lad. The heavy boots that Erit had given me to match my boy’s attire were several sizes too big and already rubbing my heels.

“Was there anyone ever with worse luck when it comes to shoes?” I muttered, exasperated that I had forgotten the sandals I had bought in Morganna. Then I thought with a pang of the beautiful handmade and dyed slippers that Maryon had gifted me, sitting at the foot of my bed in my turret room in Obernewtyn, and indulged myself in a moment of passionate longing for that small, well-loved room and its comforts.
Then I thought of Rushton and knew that Obernewtyn could never again be the beloved refuge it had once been for me. However should I tell him that he had been on Herder Isle at Ariel’s mercy? No wonder he did not wish to remember what had happened to him.

This dark thought distracted me for a time, but my heels hurt dreadfully. Finally, I glanced back to be sure that I was too far for anyone to see me clearly and removed the offending boots. Their unpleasant odor made me wonder exactly where Erit had got them. Tying the laces, I rose, slung the boots across my shoulder, and walked into the waves to cool my feet.

Standing in the cold shallow froth, I turned inland to watch some young stable hands exercising their charges with an enthusiasm that might have alarmed the horse’s owners. Clearly I could not summon Rawen until they had retreated inside the city walls, for a lone and unbridled horse would certainly be pursued, and these lads might have heard the rumor of a horse thief from Morganna. I sent out a probe to locate the mare and found her some distance inland on the other side of the main road. I asked her to meet me after the sun set, explaining that I was walking along the coast away from the city toward a place with both grazing and water. I apologized for having no other directions, but Rawen said if there was fresh water, she would scent it when she was closer.