The Lost Stories (17 page)

“Are you mad, Randell?” asked the third man. He was obviously trying to keep his voice low but the intensity of his words made them carry to Will's attentive ears. “You don't go telling strangers about the . . .” He stopped himself, then finished, “The you-know-what.”

“Sorry! Sorry!” It was Randell now, upset at his carelessness. “Still, no damage done and they look harmless enough. Not as if . . .”

The rest of his words were lost in the low hubbub of voices in the tavern. As they sat, Will and Alyss exchanged meaningful looks. Then she smiled at him.

“Laugh,” she said. “Laugh out loud. Now.”

Puzzled, he threw back his head and laughed. She joined in, then touched his hand fondly and took a sip of her coffee. Still smiling, she said quietly, “Don't want them to think we're talking about what just happened.”

He nodded, smiling broadly. It seemed strange to be talking seriously while keeping a happy smile fixed on his face. But Alyss was experienced in this sort of deception and he allowed himself to be guided by her.

She leaned toward him and ran her hand fondly down his cheek. “Let's try to look as if we're having a romantic chat,” she said.

He nodded, smiling still, and took her hand gently, touching his lips to it.

“What did you make of all that?” she asked, then looked shyly around the room, as if embarrassed that people might be watching this show of affection. “Keep smiling,” she admonished as she saw his brow furrowing thoughtfully. Hastily, he adjusted his expression.

“Something's happening on Sevenday. Something that involves gambling and the chance to win big money.”

“So,” she said, brushing her hair to one side in a coquettish gesture, “it's something out of the ordinary. What does that suggest?”

He could tell they were thinking along the same lines. “Dogfighting,” he said. “That's why the Roamers have settled in for a while. They'll be running a dogfight somewhere in the forest on Sevenday.”

“Tomorrow is Twainday,” Alyss said thoughtfully. “That gives us a little time.”

“Not much,” Will said. All pretense of smiling and romance was gone now. “We still don't know how to find Ebony. We need to get busy tomorrow.”

SHORTLY AFTER SUNRISE, THEY WERE BACK IN THEIR OBSERVATION post of the previous night, watching the Roamers' camp. For some hours, nothing out of the ordinary seemed to occur. The Roamers went about mundane day-to-day tasks, like lighting fires, preparing breakfast, cleaning, and mending items of equipment and clothing.

Then, around midmorning, Jerome, the heavyset man from the night before, emerged from one of the caravans. He was dressed in a brightly patterned shirt that came down below his hips and had wide, voluminous sleeves, gathered by a leather cuff at each wrist. A heavy leather belt was around his waist and Will could see the hilt of a long knife in a scabbard worn on his left-hand side. He wore black trousers and knee-high brown leather boots. Of more immediate interest to Will, he carried a large canvas sack in his hand. As he climbed down the steps from his caravan, two of the camp dogs ran low-bellied toward him and tried to sniff at it. He cursed at them and they slunk away.

“What do you suppose is in the sack?” Will asked quietly.

Alyss, lying beside him, wrapped in her brown cloak, glanced at him. “From the interest those dogs showed, I'd say it's meat.”

“My guess too,” Will said. He had also noticed the brown stains on the sack—dried blood in all probability.

Jerome walked toward the far side of the camp, then turned and called to the caravans.

“Petulengo! Where the blazes are you, boy?”

“Coming, Jerome!” called a high-pitched voice. The door of one of the caravans slammed open and a young boy, no more than twelve or thirteen by the look of him, hurried down the set of steps, tucking his shirt in as he went. He was olive-skinned and had long dark hair, held back from his face by a yellow headband.

“Next time be ready when I tell you,” Jerome said. He was obviously not the forgiving type. “Now keep watch behind me.” He strode toward the trees on the far side of the clearing. The boy had to half run to keep up with Jerome's long strides, and he stayed a few paces behind him.

“Wait here and keep an eye on things,” Will said. “I'm going to see where our friend Jerome is off to.”

It was easier said than done. He had to skirt in a wide arc to stay clear of the campsite, then move along the road to the edge of the far tree line. Despite losing time doing so, once he entered the trees he was confident he'd pick up Jerome's trail soon enough.

He was mistaken. He found the boy's trail easily enough. But Petulengo hadn't stayed with his older companion. He was following some distance behind him, obliterating the tracks Jerome made as he twisted and turned his way through the forest. Jerome zigzagged so much that there was no way of establishing his base course and there was a distinct danger that Will would be spotted by Petulengo.

The boy was dangerously alert too. Several times, when Will made a slight noise—and it was impossible to move in total silence—the dark head would snap up and around and Will would have to freeze in place, concealed from view by his cloak and his own ability to stand stock-still.

Petulengo stayed so far behind Jerome that Will never sighted the burly Roamer. He had to be content to shadow the boy. After a short while, he realized how effective the Roamers' system was. The boy obviously knew where Jerome was heading, so he could stay a long way behind him and effectively frustrate any stranger who might be trying to track him—as Will was doing.

After ten minutes, Will had to admit defeat. He simply couldn't take the risk that he might be spotted—it might cost Ebony her life. Seething with frustration, he made his roundabout way back to the spot where Alyss was watching the camp. She saw by the look on his face that he had had no luck. She pointed to the campsite.

“I think I might have found our way in,” she said.

Will followed her pointing finger and saw a figure he hadn't noticed before. It was an old woman dressed in filthy rags, her hair long and gray and unkempt. She moved around the camp, bent almost double, collecting firewood from the central wood stack and distributing it to the individual cooking fires as ready fuel.

With that task done, she filled a bucket from a large water barrel attached to one of the caravans and proceeded to distribute that as well.

It became obvious that she was nothing more than a drudge, a beast of burden in the camp. If any of the Roamers came close to her, they ignored her at best, or spat a curse at her as they passed. One of the men cuffed her around the back of the head. She shied away from him, dropping her bucket and spilling the water. Her shrill cry of protest was met by uncaring laughter from the man. As she stooped to retrieve her bucket, he kicked it, sending it rolling away from her. She scuttled after it, one hand instinctively raised to ward off another blow, sniveling and whining.

At the same time, a door in one of the caravans banged open and a Roamer woman, at least twenty years younger than the gray-haired woman, shouted at her, “Hilde! Get that water in here at once! What are you doing, you layabout!”

Hilde whined something unintelligible and the man who had caused her to spill the water snarled at her as well. She hobbled back to the rain barrel to refill her bucket, pursued by the Roamer woman's sharp insults and orders.

In the Roamer camp, Hilde was the lowest of the low.

Will frowned at Alyss. “I don't see how that will help us.”

She smiled back at him. “While you were gone, I heard one of the Roamers telling her to get more firewood. We wait till she leaves camp. Then we follow her and I take her place.”

“You have to be joking!” Will said. He looked from the bent figure of the crone, now hobbling back to the caravan with a full water bucket, to Alyss—slim and beautiful and young. “You don't think they might notice a slight difference in her appearance?”

“I don't think they notice her at all,” Alyss said seriously. “They don't see her as a person, just as a piece of equipment or something to kick or cuff or curse when they're in the mood. Don't forget, I've been trained to disguise myself when necessary. If I put ash and dirt through my hair and hobble around like her, I doubt they'll see the difference. Particularly if I swap clothes with her.” She shuddered slightly. “That's the one part I'm not looking forward to.”

Will studied the hobbling, mumbling figure again. “You really think you can pass yourself off as her?”

Alyss nodded. “If she were one of them, I'd never get away with it. But they take no notice of her. And people see what they expect to see. You've told me that often enough.”

He was silent for a few seconds and she pressed home her argument.

“This way, I'll be inside their camp. I'll be able to listen to their conversations, and with any luck I'll find out where they're keeping Ebony. Or if Jerome and the boy go off into the forest, I'll follow them. Odds are they won't take any notice of Hilde collecting firewood. And you can follow me, at a distance. That way, you can stay well back out of sight until we find where they've got Ebony hidden.”

“I'm not sure,” Will said. “It might work. But it's a big chance . . .”

“I'm willing to take it. What can they do to me? After all, you'll be watching here in the forest if I am found out. And I honestly think it's our only chance to find Ebony.”

“Let me think,” Will said. He knew that if he were in Alyss's place, he wouldn't hesitate to put the plan into operation. But he'd be risking Alyss, as well as Ebony, and he simply couldn't make that decision.

“Better think fast,” Alyss said. “She's leaving the camp.”

He looked up. Hilde was trudging toward the forest, a small ax in her hand and a large wicker wood carrier slung over her shoulder. She was heading for a point fifty meters to the north of where they lay concealed.

“All right,” he said, coming to a decision. “Let's do it.”

 

It was easy to find Hilde. The sound of the small ax rang through the forest as she cut pieces of deadfall into manageable lengths. Will and Alyss ghosted through the trees as she slowly moved farther and farther away from the encampment. When they felt they were a safe distance away, Will stepped quietly from the trees in front of her. To Hilde, it seemed that the young man in the green-and-gray cloak had suddenly materialized out of thin air. She gasped in fright and staggered back, one hand raised in front of her face. Will recognized the gesture. It was one that older people used to ward off what they called “the evil eye” from strangers.

He also noted that, although she had the ax in her other hand, she made no movement to defend herself with it, nor to threaten him. Hilde's instincts for self-protection seemed to have been dulled by her time with the Roamers.

“Relax, Hilde,” he said softly. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Who are you? How do you know my name? I've done nothing wrong!” she babbled, still averting her gaze from his. He looked to Alyss, standing concealed in the trees, and made a gesture:
help needed here.

Alyss moved into sight now and Hilde backed away as she saw her.

“It's all right, Hilde,” Alyss said in a soothing voice. “We're not going to hurt you. We're here to help you.”

Perhaps the sight of another woman gave Hilde greater confidence. Slowly, she lowered the arm she had thrown up to shield her face. She leaned forward to peer more closely at Alyss. Alyss smiled encouragingly at her. It had often been said that Alyss's smile was a sight worth seeing, and it seemed to have a calming effect on the old woman.

“Who are you?” Hilde asked.

“My name is Alyss, and this is my friend Will,” she said, indicating the young Ranger. Hilde glanced at him, all the suspicion and fear returning to her face as she did so. Alyss continued quickly. “Tell us, Hilde, why are the Roamers so cruel to you?”

It was the right approach to take, Will realized. It immediately placed Alyss on Hilde's side. The old woman sniffed, wiping her nose with the ragged end of her sleeve.

“Cruel? Ay, that they are. Beat me, they do. And curse me and kick me. And I try to do my best for them, but I'm old now. I can't move as fast as I used to. I try, but I'm too slow and they beat me.”

“But aren't you one of them?” Alyss asked. She took the old woman's hand gently in her own and Hilde looked up at her through teary eyes, eyes whose color seemed washed away by age.

“One of them? No. I'm Gallican. Least I was. When my man died, the village had no further use for me. Wanted the farm, you see. They threw me out with nothing. Left me to die. The Roamers took me in. I was grateful at first, but after a while, I wished they hadn't. Might have been easier to die. Been with them now for . . .” She paused and a vague look came into her eyes. “I don't know how long.”

“Why do you stay with them?” Will asked, and she looked at him. By now she seemed to accept that if he was a friend of Alyss's, she had nothing to fear from him.

“Where else could I go?” she said.“Nobody wants an old woman. It was stay with the Roamers or starve.” She laughed suddenly, a harsh cackle that had no humor in it. “Not that they feed me well. It's scraps for me—anything that's not good enough for the dogs.”

Alyss and Will exchanged a quick glance.

“The dogs,” Alyss said. “The dogs in the camp?”

“Aye. Those too. And the oth—” She stopped, a fearful gleam in her eyes. “Yes, the dogs in the camp,” she amended quickly. With an enormous effort, Will prevented himself from looking at Alyss again. He looked away casually, as if he hadn't noticed Hilde's stumble.