Irons in the Fire (48 page)

She would so much rather be travelling with him, even at the price of the Mountain Men's escort. She stifled fleeting recollections of their walks in Vanam, their easy conversation about places and people they both knew.

"We meet them the day after next." Nath emptied his goblet with a single swallow. "Six leagues out of Abray on the Great West Road at a tavern called the Pipe and Chime."

"I don't know it." Failla could only hope that meant no one would know her.

"We can spend this evening making fair copies until we have to leave to meet Kerith." Nath unscrewed his metal flask of ink and carefully filled the wells. "Then we can cut along the forest road from the shrine to reach the highway."

Failla had long since learned to tell when a man wasn't about to be gainsaid. "Very well."

"You take the main highway maps." He began trimming a quill. "The byways are more complicated, so I'll do those."

Failla reluctantly took a sheet of paper and chose a pen. How could she get away from Nath now? As she drew careful lines, she thought furiously.

They worked in silence until the third chimes struck. Nath scowled as he saw how few sheets she'd copied. "Can you work any faster?"

"Not if you don't want them blotted." Failla continued working, her hand steady. She still saw no solution to her own problem, though.

Nath bent over his own work. "I could do with some supper."

"I'll see what the kitchen can offer." Failla set down her pen with a snap.

She found the kitchens at the rear of the long building. The older woman who'd answered their bell was nowhere to be seen but the aproned maid was talking to a cook kneading dough.

"My lady?"

Failla smiled ruefully. "My brother has just had word of an urgent order for our maps. Could you serve us some food in our parlour while we work?"

The cook paused in her kneading. "There's breast of veal with a green sauce and batter puddings. With apricot pies and crayfishes?"

"That will be lovely, thank you."

Failla walked slowly back to the parlour. Nath didn't look up, intent on tracing a fine line. Failla took up her pen again and, still working as slowly as she dared, waited to hear footsteps outside the door. Making sure Nath couldn't see her face, she reluctantly unlocked her most painful memory. Tears slowly filled her eyes.

As she heard the maid approaching, she swept up the sheets of paper. "Here's our supper." Tipping an inkwell so that the black tide only flooded her own work wasn't easy but she managed.

"Drianon's tits!" Nath sprang up, clutching his painstaking copies.

"I'm so sorry." Deftly catching the sliding ink on the topmost sheet, Failla let the brimming tears spill down her cheeks.

"Master?" The aproned maid opened the door, another carrying a laden tray behind her. "Your supper?"

"What? Yes, thank you. Just put it down over there." Nath managed curt politeness but his face was burning with anger.

Failla took her chance to drop the ink-stained pages into the sooty hearth and huddled on the settle, her face in her hands. The maids left the food and made a hasty exit.

When Nath stopped swearing, Failla looked cautiously through her fingers. He was sorting through his own copies, checking to see if any of them were ruined.

"It's not as bad as it might have been," he said with a visible effort.

"I'll start again. I can work all night." Failla wiped tears from her cheeks with trembling hands. "If you meet this man Kerith and bring him back here."

"I suppose so." Nath sat down, leaning heavily on his elbows, his head hanging.

"If you're going to be riding all night, why don't you get some sleep first?" Failla hoped she sounded as if she'd just had the idea. "I can finish my copying and yours, too. Then I can sleep while you're on your way back. We'll both feel better."

Nath looked too weary to suspect anything. "I suppose so."

"Have something to eat," Failla urged.

Without waiting for his answer, she served them both. Despite her hunger she took only a small portion to maintain her pretence of distress. As they ate, she kept Nath's goblet topped up with the vinegary wine. Their long day's travel and the food and the drink soon had him yawning.

"I had better get some rest," he allowed, "or I'll fall off that cursed horse and end up snoring in a ditch."

"I'll come and wake you," Failla promised as she stacked their dirty plates on the tavern's tray.

As soon as he left the room, his travelling bag under one arm, she hurried to retrieve the papers she'd dumped on the cold ashes. The bottom few were too dirty to be salvaged and the ink had soaked the topmost. She tucked the rest inside Nath's writing case for safe keeping and redrew the ruined ones, working more swiftly than she had done all evening. By the time the fifth chime of the night sounded, she had copied a further handful and three of Nath's more intricate map. That should convince him that she had worked until the candles guttered.

The flames fluttered as the door opened. She froze, startled. Seeing it was Nath, she managed a smile. "I was just about to wake you."

Halcarion help her. Failla could only pray he wasn't about to ask how much she'd achieved.

"I saw that old woman on the stairs and asked her to call me at midnight." Nath rubbed a hand over his stubble, far more his usual genial self. He caught his cloak up from the chair. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Make sure you get some sleep."

"I will." Failla breathed more easily as the door closed behind him. Moving to the window, she eased the curtain aside. Smoky torches lit the courtyard and she saw an ostler bringing Nath's horse from the stables that occupied three sides of the inn's ground floor. As soon as he rode out through the arch onto the high road, she let the curtain fall.

She quickly packed away all the papers, ink and pens and buckled Nath's writing case securely. Gathering up her own bag and cloak along with it, she hurried upstairs. Nath had said their rooms were right above the parlour, hadn't he?

As she reached the top step, the old woman came out of a door opposite. She dropped a hasty curtsey. "I was just straightening the young master's bed and snuffing his candle."

"Of course." Failla nodded at the next door. "Is that my room?"

"It is, my lady." The old woman opened it up for her. "Let me fetch you a light."

Failla quickly stowed the writing case under the bed and left her travelling bag on top. If some ill-chance brought thieves in the night, they were welcome to her dirty linen. Hopefully they'd pay no attention to a case full of paper and pens. As for spies, mere maps could say nothing definite. She had all the incriminating letters in her pocket. Better not forget to read and answer them before Nath and this newcomer returned in the morning, she reminded herself. She slung her cloak around her shoulders.

"My lady?" Returning with a fresh candle, the old woman halted, surprised.

"My brother's riding to our patron's house without one of his commissions." Failla flourished the spoiled sheets of paper, folded into a convincing pretence. "If I hurry, I should catch him."

"You're riding out alone, at this hour?" The old woman was horrified.

"He's only just left, and there won't be anyone on the road." Failla was counting on that. Her luck had held thus far, thank Halcarion.

"My lady, at least take a groom with you."

"I'll be back soon." Failla brushed past the servant and headed for the stairs.

Down in the courtyard, a heavy-eyed ostler fetched her horse without comment. The timely arrival of a coach with a lame horse prompted a flurry of activity and she made her escape. The road was deserted. Even the hardiest beggars had found some hedgerow to sleep under by now. Riding out into the night, she paused only once.

Looking up, she was relieved to see that the day's clouds had yielded to a clear sky. With both moons waxing past their halves, there was plenty of light.

Looking back at the village spread out beyond the inn, she saw candles in a few unshuttered windows. The fire-baskets on either side of the inn's gateway burned brightly, showing no one following her. No one to see she was riding in quite the opposite direction from Nath.

Chapter Thirty

Faila

The Dromin Road, in the Lescari Dukedom of Carluse,

24
^th
of For-Autumn

"Come on, horse." She stroked the reluctant animal's neck before urging it on with ruthless boot heels.

It had been easy enough to find the waymark stones on the high road. Now she was on the lesser byways, she had to search the leafy shadows for their pale gleam. Each one marked a league closer to Carluse, but she couldn't worry about that. She couldn't fret about beggars or footpads or worry that some scum from Wynald's Warband might stumble across her. This was her only chance. She had to take it.

Sooner than she expected, she saw the stone marking twenty-eight leagues from Carluse Town on this road. Weak with relief, she urged the horse down a track branching north. Finally, she turned down a narrow rutted lane. The horse snorted and baulked. Despite her frustration, Failla let the weary beast pick its own path in the half-light. She'd be hard put to explain to Nath how the animal had lamed itself overnight in a stable. The last thing she needed was him challenging the ostler and learning she'd ridden out alone.

As the lane cut across a shallow crest, she could see the little farm nestling in the side of the valley. There was no sign of light, nor any smoke rising from the chimney at one end of the long, low roof.

Her frustration gave way to apprehension. What welcome could she expect? Dismounting at the gate, she led the horse past the byre and the pigsties where the fattening weanlings were safely penned up for the night. The scent of cows and swine hung heavy in the air and her mount snorted loudly. The farm's own plough horse responded with a curious whicker. A single goose cackled briefly in the darkness.

"Hush." Failla stroked her mount's nose before it could whinny. She unbolted the top half of the stable door and tied her reins to it. She knew the plough horse of old. It would raise more racket than Poldrion's demons if its curiosity went unsatisfied.

A window under the edge of the thatch rattled. "Who's there?"

"Failla." She felt her palms sweating inside her gloves.

There was a moment's startled silence. "Failla?"

A second voice murmured in the bedroom, impossible to make out.

"Wait there." The window snapped shut.

Failla hurried past the well and the dairy to the farmhouse door.

Bolts scraped and a white-gowned figure stood in the darkness. "What do you want?"

"I need to see her," Failla pleaded.

"In the middle of the night?" The figure made no move to let her in. "Where have you been?"

"I can't tell you. But Uncle Ernout knows. Please, let me see her," begged Failla.

"Have you brought any coin for her keep?"

"No, I couldn't." Failla was miserably conscious of her empty purse. "But there's something you need to know. Can I come in?" She held out beseeching hands.

The figure in the doorway stepped back. "I suppose so."

As Failla entered, the nightgowned woman went over to the hearth and stirred the banked fire to a sullen glow. "You're pregnant again? That's why Duke Garnot's sent you away?"

"No." Failla knew she should have expected that. "I'm carrying messages for Uncle Ernout."

"Saedrin send his schemes are prospering," the woman said grudgingly. "But don't tell me what they are," she warned.

Unable to contain her anxiety, Failla paced back and forth on the far side of the well-scrubbed table. "There's going to be fighting, Lathi."

"With Marlier or Sharlac?" As the woman tossed a handful of kindling onto the fire, the light illuminated her frightened face. She was much the same age as Failla, her features in the same mould.

"Neither." Failla bit her lip. "You mustn't say anything, not even to Uncle Ernout. He knows it's coming but I shouldn't be telling you. But I want you to be ready, so you're prepared."

"For what?" The woman gripped the poker like a weapon.

"Fighting will start in the north, any day now." Failla clenched her fists. "Not Sharlac invading but an army coming down from the hills to overthrow Jackal Moncan, and then Duke Garnot and all the rest. To bring us real peace, once and for all."

Lathi was aghast. "When did armies ever bring peace?"

"Uncle Ernout thinks this one will. Please, Lathi," Failla begged desperately, "let me see her. I can't stay long and I don't know when I'll be close by again."

The white-gowned woman bent to light a spill and then an oil lamp. "You mustn't wake her."

"I won't." Failla swallowed salty tears, her heart twisting inside her.

She followed Lathi up the narrow curving stair. At the top, she looked fearfully through the narrow door to the canopied bed. Lathi's husband was a silent heap beneath the blankets. Failla couldn't blame him. Far safer for him not to be involved.