CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Borrorill

Denna turned left instead of right as she came out of her room. At first I thought she was disoriented, but when she came to a back stairway I saw she was actually trying to leave without heading through the taproom. She found the alley door, but it was locked fast.

So we headed out the front. As soon as we entered the taproom I was pointedly aware of everyone’s attention on us. Denna made a beeline for the front door, moving but with the slow determination of a storm cloud.

We were almost out when the man behind the bar called out. “Hoy! Hey now!”

Denna’s eyes flickered to the side. Her mouth made a thin line and she continued her walk to the door as if she hadn’t heard.

“I’ll deal with him,” I said softly. “Wait for me. I’ll be out in just a second.”

I walked over to where the barman stood scowling. “That your cousin then?” he asked. “Has the constable said she can go?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know anything about it,” I said.

“I surely don’t. But she’s had use of the room, and meals, and I had the doctor out to patch her up.”

I gave him a hard look. “If there’s a doctor in this town worth more than ha’penny, then I’m the King of Vint.”

“I’m out half a talent in all,” he insisted. “Bandages ain’t free, and I had a woman by to sit with her, waiting for her to wake up.”

I doubted very much that he was out half that, but I certainly didn’t want trouble with the constable. In truth, I didn’t want any sort of delay. Given Denna’s tendencies, I was worried that if I lost sight of her for more than a minute she would disappear like morning fog.

I took five jots from my purse and scattered them onto the bar. “Knackers profit from a plague,” I said scathingly, and left.

I felt a ridiculous amount of relief when I saw Denna waiting outside, leaning against the horse post. Her eyes were closed and she had her face tilted toward the sun. She sighed contentedly and turned toward the sound of my approaching footsteps.

“Was it that bad?” I asked.

“They were kind enough at first,” Denna admitted, gesturing with her bandaged arm. “But this old woman kept checking in on me.” She frowned and brushed her long black hair back, giving me a clear view of the purpling bruise that spread from her temple all the way back to her hairline. “You know the type, some tight-laced spinster with a mouth like a cat’s ass.”

I burst out laughing, and Denna’s sudden smile was like the sun peering from behind a cloud. Then her face grew dark again as she continued. “She kept giving me this look. Like I should’ve had the decency to die with all the other folk. Like all this was my fault.”

Denna shook her head. “But she was better than the old men. The constable put his hand on my leg!” She shuddered. “Even the mayor came, clucking over me like he cared, but he was only there to badger me with questions. ‘What were you doing there? What happened? What did you see ... ?’ ”

The scorn in Denna’s voice made me bite back my own questions so quickly that I almost caught my tongue between my teeth. It’s my nature to ask questions, not to mention that the whole purpose of this mad dash into the foothills was to investigate what had happened.

Still, the tone of Denna’s voice made it clear she was in no mood to give answers right now. I shrugged my travelsack higher up onto my shoulder and something occurred to me. “Wait. Your things. You left them all back in your room.”

Denna hesitated for a heartbeat. “I don’t think anything of mine was there,” she said as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to her before.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back and check?”

She shook her head firmly. “I leave where I’m not welcome,” she said matter-of-factly “Everything else I can make up along the way.”

Denna started to walk down the street and I fell in beside her. She turned onto a narrow side street heading west. We passed an old woman hanging a shamble-man made of oat sheaves. It wore a crude straw hat and a pair of sackcloth pants. “Where are we headed?” I asked.

“I need to see if my things are out at the Mauthen farm,” she said. “After that I’m open to suggestions. Where were you planning to go before you found me?”

“Honestly, I was heading out to the Mauthen farm myself.”

Denna gave me a sideways look. “Fair enough. It’s only about a mile out to the farm. We can be there and still have plenty of light.”

The land around Trebon was rough, mostly thick forest broken by stretches of rocky ground. Then the road would round a corner and there would be a small, perfect field of golden wheat tucked among the trees, or nestled into a valley surrounded by dark stone bluffs. Farmers and hands dotted the fields, covered in chaff and moving with the slow weariness that comes from knowing half the day’s harvest was still to come.

We’d only been walking a minute when I heard a familiar thump of hooves behind us. I turned to see a small open-topped cart bumping slowly up the road. Denna and I stepped off into the scrub, as the road was barely wide enough for the cart. A bone weary farmer eyed us suspiciously from where he sat, hunched over the reins.

“We’re heading to the Mauthen farm,” Denna called out as he came closer. “Would you mind if we caught a ride?”

The man eyed us grimly, then nodded toward the back of the cart. “I’m heading past old Borrorill. Ye’ll have to make your own way from there.”

Denna and I clambered on and sat facing backward on the clapboard with our feet dangling over the edge. It wasn’t much faster than walking, but we were both glad to be off our feet.

We rode in silence. Denna obviously wasn’t interested in discussing things in front of the farmer, and I was glad to have a moment to think things over. I had planned on telling whatever lies were necessary to get the information I wanted from the witness. Denna complicated things. I didn’t want to lie to her, but at the same time I couldn’t risk telling her too much. The last thing I wanted to do was convince her I was crazy with wild stories of the Chandrian....

So we rode in silence. It was nice just being near her. You wouldn’t think a girl in bandages with a blackened eye could be beautiful, but Denna was. Lovely as the moon: not flawless, perhaps, but perfect.

The farmer spoke up, breaking my reverie. “Here’s Borrorill.”

I looked around for the rill, but couldn’t see it. Which was a shame, as I wouldn’t mind a cool drink or a bit of a wash. Hours of hard riding had left me sweaty and smelling of horse.

We thanked the farmer and hopped off the back of the cart. Denna led the way along the dirt track that wound back and forth up the side of the hill, between the trees and the occasional outcrop of worn, dark stone. Denna seemed steadier than when we’d left the tavern, but kept her eyes on the ground, choosing her steps with deliberate care as if she didn’t quite trust her balance.

A sudden thought came to me. “I got your note,” I said, pulling the folded piece of paper out of a pocket in my cloak. “When did you leave it for me?”

“Nearly two span ago.”

I grimaced, “I only got it last night.”

She nodded to herself. “I worried about that when you never showed up. I thought it might have fallen out, or gotten wet so you couldn’t read it.”

“I just haven’t used the window lately,” I said.

Denna shrugged nonchalantly. “Silly of me to assume you would, really.”

I tried to think of something to add, something that would explain what she might have seen when Fela had given me my cloak in the Eolian. I couldn’t think of anything. “I’m sorry I missed our lunch.”

Denna looked up, amused. “Deoch said you were caught in a fire or something. Told me you looked positively wretched.”