A Play of Shadow (17 page)

The smith shook his head. “Get your rest. We’ll need you tomorrow.” He tossed a bedroll into the space in the cart left for Frann and Lorra. “Ancestors Witness, anyone tries to steal this takes me too.”

Bannan gave a grim nod.

Worry clouded everything. Gallie, Loee, and Zehr were now in the room across from Frann’s. To everyone’s surprise, Lorra had merely nodded when told of the dawn departure.

To no one’s, she’d banished the healer and his apprentice, and ordered meals brought to the room.

Perrkin and the other Marrowdell mounts nickered a welcome as Hettie entered the stable, laden with a tray of covered dishes. “I’ve brought supper,” she announced briskly. “Where would you like it?”

Bannan patted the top of his crate. He’d had no chance to open it, but there’d been room after all, not that the reason was good. They’d tried their best these hours past, but trade was trade. Though sympathetic, no one in Endshere was ready to make a quick deal to Marrowdell’s benefit, especially without Frann or Lorra involved. They’d leave their remaining goods for trade with Allin, who’d do what he could with them through the rest of the fair. As he’d warned, the cart would return home empty, but no one argued otherwise.

Anything, to get Frann into Covie’s care.

“Any change?” Davi asked, taking his bowl.

Hettie nodded. “She’s awake at last. Won’t eat, but Gallie said Frann drank some sweet tea.” She fretted at the ends of her shawl. “Ancestors Bothersome and Bound. Someone needs say it.”

Bannan gave her his full attention. “What?”

“Something’s not right. When she first woke up, Frann was furious with Lorra for changing her room without permission.” The young woman’s eyes were round and anxious. “How can she not know where she is?”

“Ancestors Blessed,” Davi said, warm and hearty. “Frann’s confused, that’s all. She must have bumped her head. Like Tadd, that time on the ice. Right, Bannan?”

He’d looked for such an injury and hadn’t found one, but what they needed to hear wasn’t more reason to worry. “I’ve seen it before,” the truthseer agreed, choosing not to elaborate. Blows to the head weren’t always fatal, but few soldiers who survived them were the same afterward. “We’re doing the right thing, taking Frann home.”

He wasn’t sorry, seeing the relief in their faces.

Hettie left soon after, needing rest herself. Once they’d finished their meal, Bannan went to return the tray to the inn. He owed Great Gran her story and tonight would be farewells, to Allin and the Anans.

Stepping from the stable, warmed by horses, into the night air, he found himself in winter. Stars twinkled like specks of ice in the black sky and the ground was hard, the grass crunching beneath his boots. Smoke wreathed rooftops; his breath fogged around his head.

The truthseer walked faster, trying not to shiver. If this was but winter’s start in the north, best he study how the villagers dressed for this weather. Vorkoun and the marches rarely stayed below freezing for long and the only snow to last was on the peaks.

It’d be different here.

Marrowdell’s folk made ready to leave before dawn the next morning. The cold reddened cheeks and noses, biting at fingers bared for work. The horses might have been on fire, the way steam rose from their backs and puffed with each snorted breath. Battle stamped, jingling his harness rings, impatient to be away. To head for home.

In complete agreement, Bannan warmed his hands under Perrkin’s saddle blanket as long as he could, then gave the aged gelding a cheery pat. Home it was. When had he last felt such anticipation at the word? Then again, he’d never had someone, not just some place, waiting.

“There you are,” Palma said, ducking under Perrkin’s head. Apparently the morning wasn’t cold enough, in her estimation, to require more than a lacy shawl around her shoulders. She smiled and pressed one of the small packages from the basket over her arm into Bannan’s hands. “Something for the trip.”

A hot and fragrant something. “My thanks,” he said most sincerely.

“Please give my thanks to Master Jupp, would you?” Palma shook her head, black curls bouncing. “I’d hoped to send some of my manuscript back with you, but it’s not ready.”

“You’ve the winter to work on it, then.”

Her smile was replaced by a small, worried frown. “Winter’s harsh on our elders. Bannan, after what’s happened to Frann Nall, I worry about Master Jupp, at his greater age, living in Marrowdell. We’d make him welcome here. Please tell him so.” Then—innocent of what she said, because hadn’t she forgotten too?—she added, “Marrowdell has nothing we can’t offer here, and better.”

Which wasn’t true. It had magic. It had dragons, and house toads, and a silver road flowing between living hills that marked doorways to another world. It had Jenn Nalynn.

Heart’s Blood, without the moth, he’d have forgotten too. He’d have urged Frann to stay here, would have headed south after Lila, would have lost . . .

Everything.

Warmth on his neck, ice in his heart, Bannan thanked his Ancestors once more. To Palma, he bowed. “I will tell him of your generous offer. However, I suspect,” he smiled at her, “he’ll be more interested in reading your manuscript.”

She blushed but, given the newly determined glint in her eye, Bannan knew the book would be finished and in Master Jupp’s hands the moment winter eased again. Ancestors Hale and Hearty, the elderly gentleman best stay in good health or Palma would have his head.

A commotion broke out, horses shifting with alarmed whinnies, voices shouting: “Get away!” “Move!” “Heart’s Blood! Bannan!!”

Only one thing could possibly cause such a stir.

Scourge.

Hastily returning his package to Palma, Bannan bolted for continuing shouts. He should have told the warhorse that plans had changed. If the idiot beast thought the villagers were somehow stealing what he’d been ordered to protect, there was no telling what he’d do.

A shout louder than the rest. “I’ll have you made into sausage!!”

Lorra? Worse and worse.

He dodged Hettie’s mount and suddenly stopped, as stunned as the rest surrounding the cart.

Frann lay amid a wealth of blankets, Scourge’s massive slobbery head in her lap, while Lorra, swearing like a soldier, flailed at the rest of him with her hat. Frann appeared unconscious, and the great beast?

Was humming.

The sound was deep, running along the nerves. The hair on Bannan’s neck stood on end and, though he’d never heard it before, he knew it for what it was.

A warning.

Amazed Scourge had tolerated her this much, Bannan grabbed Lorra around the waist and carried her bodily out of range of the warhorse’s back hooves, earning a few curses and swats of the hat in the process. Ignoring those, he handed Davi his mother and turned back to the cart.

In Marrowdell, he could ask the bloody beast to explain himself. Here, unsure how much Scourge even remembered of himself, he supposed he’d have to treat him as a horse.

A very large and disturbed horse, who’d somehow found it necessary to climb half into a loaded cart to be close to a sick woman.

It wasn’t, Bannan thought, sorely puzzled, the sort of thing Scourge did. Eat someone or something helpless, yes.

He went to the front of the cart and climbed onto the driver’s seat, hands open. To his relief, Frann seemed in no immediate danger, other than being afflicted by hair and drool. Scourge had placed his front hooves to either side of her; though it looked as if he’d rested his heavy head on her chest, it was held slightly above her. Muscles strained along the beast’s shoulders and neck. Sweat steamed.

Dripping on poor Frann.

“Idiot Beast,” Bannan said firmly. “Get off!”

Red-rimmed eyes glared. Scourge flattened his ears and his lips rippled over fangs.

Humming, as he had at Lorra.

Heart’s Blood. Could it be? The truthseer sank to the wooden bench, holding up a hand to ask patience from those watching. After all their years together, something new.

For some reason—making sense only within that narrow skull—was Scourge protecting Frann from the rest of them?

Ancestors Compassionate and Caring. He’d have smiled, if it wasn’t for the real danger posed by those great hooves and fangs. His tone free of any challenge, Bannan tried again. “No one’s harmed Frann. We’re taking her home, where she belongs, so Covie can look after her. Or we will,” he corrected, “once you get off, you great lump.”

An ear flickered, then nostrils flared, showing red. Unconvinced, that meant.

Growing desperate, Bannan circled his fingers over his heart. “Hearts of my Ancestors, I swear we mean her no harm. We need you to guard her on the road home. There could be,” with all the sincere innocence he could muster, “another bear. Or bandits.”

He hadn’t realized how intimidating the hum had been till it stopped.

Lips closed. Rage left the eyes. Neck curved in a noble arch, Scourge, Protector of the Helpless, stepped off the cart.

Lorra Treff smacked him across the rump with the remains of her hat. She climbed in with Frann and glared at Bannan, still on the driver’s seat. “Well?”

“Ready to go,” he assured her, jumping down to let Davi take his place.

As Bannan mounted Perrkin and reclaimed his package from Palma, everyone bound for Marrowdell falling into their traveling order around the cart, Scourge pranced ahead, unaffected by hats or mutters about sausage stuffing. Soon enough, he’d melt into the forest alongside the road.

Bannan hoped.

The question of why the great beast had defended Frann would have to wait for Marrowdell, where he’d once more have a voice.

Scourge explain himself?

Bannan settled into the saddle, appreciating the gelding’s easy gait, and chuckled.

He’d not bet on it.

If the lack of towel on the Emms’ door handle wasn’t clue enough, the marvelous smell of rich hot pudding Jenn inhaled when she stepped into the kitchen prepared her for Peggs being there and waiting, lanterns lit.

If not for her sister’s pounce and the tight hug that followed. “Sorry I’m late—” Jenn squeaked with what breath she had left, her arms around her sister in an equally fervent embrace.

For hadn’t she left the world and returned again?

And missed supper.

“I’m fine, Dear Heart,” Jenn said with quick remorse, feeling Peggs tremble. “Wisp stayed with me and Mistress Sand did come. She answered so many of my questions—” though not all, and few to any comfort. “You know how I am once distracted,” she finished disarmingly.

Another close-to-painful squeeze, then Peggs pushed her away, keeping a grip on her shoulders. She studied Jenn’s face, her eyes huge and dark. “Ancestors Tried and Troubled. Distracted in your meadow’s one thing. You were in the Verge!” A hard shake. “Late? I’ve been terrified. I’d have come after you if I’d known how!”

“You mustn’t think that! Where I went, you can never follow.” Jenn couldn’t help the harshness of her voice. It was more than the truth. “I have to know you won’t try. Ever. Promise me.” She waited for her sister, now grim-faced, to nod before going on more calmly, “You mustn’t fear for me there, Peggs. Not like this. The other world is strange and beautiful—I wish I had your skill with a brush, but we don’t have the colors, not here. As I am strange, now, and no longer just your sister.” She cupped Peggs’ face in her hands, rising on tiptoe to press a quick kiss on her nose. “But I’ll always be your sister.”

“Will you always come home?”

Words like the tolling of a bell. “If you cook me supper,” Jenn countered, making it light. She sniffed and pretended to follow her nose to the covered pudding. “Especially my favorites.”

“Dearest Heart.” Her sister shook her head, not quite smiling, then did. “What isn’t your favorite?”

Jenn made a face. “Liver. Are you ready to hear what Mistress Sand had to say?” She set about making tea for them both, the familiar movements easing her heart when what she had to say, what she now knew, did anything but.

Peggs sat at the Emms’ table, her eyes bright with curiosity and more than a little dread. “Not in the least. Don’t let that stop you,” she added, determined. “I want to know.”

Oh, she’d guessed that. Jenn took a deep breath and managed to smile over her shoulder. “I’ll start with the mask.”