Moongather (18 page)

Dinafar climbed the three broad steps and stopped beside the meie who was examining that formidable door with weary interest. She glanced up, stared. The upper floors jutted out above her, an overhang about two feet wide with a marching row of plugged peepholes just visible in the thick wood flooring the overhang. She took another step and stood beside the meie frowning at the door. Three iron bars crossed in front of it, forming a black metal star whose ends disappeared into deep slots. A heavy chain was twisted about the point where the three bars crossed, fastened into place by a padlock that looked strong enough to resist a war-ax. She lifted it, exclaimed at the weight, let it clank dully back into place. “You'd have to burn the place down to get in.”

“Think so?” Tired eyes twinkling, the meie bent and fished for a moment in the top of her boot. Twisting her head up, she went on. “You can't see any way inside?”

Dinafar tugged at the chain, grimaced, stepped back and scanned the front of the house. “Maybe around back.”

The meie straightened. “First lesson. Enter a house through the door.”

“Meie!”

“Seriously, little one.” She opened her hand and showed Dinafar the thin steel probes crossing her palm. “The strongest point of a fortress can also be its weakest if you look at it in the right way.” She knelt before the lock. “And use your head properly. Doesn't just apply to locks either.” She slipped a probe in and began waggling it gently about. “This looks hard. Isn't. All you need is a key.” Humming softly, she slipped a second probe in beside the first and moved it delicately about. “Or a substitute for that key. Ah.” With a heavy clunk, the padlock dropped open. She slipped the probes back into their pockets inside her boot. With a hand from Dinafar, she got off her knees, worked the chain from the bars and collapsed them into their slots. “As you see. Nothing difficult about this.” She pulled the door open and went inside.

Shaking her head, Dinafar followed. The air inside had a stale smell as if the Stenda had been gone a year, not a few days, and with the door closed there was very little light entering to lessen the murky darkness. “Meie?”

“Up here; Dina.” The meie was looking down at her from a hole in the ceiling. She leaned out a little farther and slapped her hand against the wall. “Ladder. Climb it. I need you up here.”

Dinafar pulled herself up a series of carved slats and emerged into a dusty twilight space between the inner and outer walls, a space wide enough for two men to walk along, side by side. “What's this?”

“Part of the defense system.” The meie knelt beside a smaller trap half a pace out from the one they'd come through. She knocked back the heavy iron latch and hauled the plug up, exposing a narrow hole, somewhat broader than her shoulders and about half as wide. Dinafar nodded to herself as she recognized one of the peepholes she'd seen in the overhang. Their purpose became clear when the meie beckoned Dinafar over and pointed. “Look.” The front door was just below. Defenders could take out anyone trying to fool with it.

The meie unbuckled her weaponbelt and set it aside, unclipped her bow and laid it beside the belt. “I'm going to put things back the way they were. You'll have to help me up afterwards. Think you can?”

Dinafar nodded. She looked down at her big hands and nodded again.

“Good.” The meie dropped lightly in front of the door. She pulled the bars out and wound the chain back through and around them, snapped the padlock home, stepped back a little and looked up. “Stretch out flat up there, then drop me the bow strap, it's strong enough to hold my weight. Don't try lifting me; I think I can wiggle up on my own.”

When Dinafar lowered the strap the little woman leaped, caught hold of it, climbed it hand over hand until she could catch hold of the opening. With a quick flexing of her agile body she was through the opening, sprawled beside Dinafar. Then she was on her feet slapping at her clothing, brushing the grit from her palms. She kicked the plug back in the hole, stepped back as Dinafar slid the latch home.

Dinafar sat back on her heels. “What now, meie?”

The meie leaned against the wall, her eyes closed. In the dim light Dinafar couldn't see her too clearly, but the dark shadows around her eyes and the lines of strain in her face were marked too strongly for Dina to miss. The meie sighed and pushed away from the wall. “I'd like to say sleep, but that's not a good idea. Bath first, have to be cold water, but that's all right.” She drew the back of her hand across her eyes. “Clean clothes. You'll want to get out of that.” Her fingers flicked at the bloodstained tabard. “Hot food washed down with pots and pots of cha.” She yawned, smiled. “Come on, I know a bit about how these holds are laid out. Friend of mine was a Stenda.” The last words were spoken in such a deliberately matter-of-fact way that Dinafar needed no telling who that Stenda was—the other meie, dead and eaten by traxim.

Bathed and fed and dressed in clean clothes, they sat at a kitchen work-table sharing a comfortable silence in a long pleasant room with a huge fireplace, dark red tiles on the floor, cast-iron and copper pans hanging from pegs on the walls. A steaming cha-pot at her elbow, the meie was repairing a torn rucksack while Dinafar sorted dried fruit and jerked meat into two piles beside small wax-covered cheeses and tins of cha leaves.

When she was finished she sat back and watched the meie drive the needle through the leather, pulling the stitches tight with quick twists of her hand. “Why do you call that a weaponbelt?” Leaning forward she rubbed her fingers over the series of small pockets. “Salve and soap, needles and thread, anything you happen to need. But no weapons.”

The meie looked up, smiled. “It carries the sheath for my grace blade.”

“That's nothing.”

“I know.” The little half-smile was back. “Patience a minute.” She examined the rucksack, then tied off her thread and cut away the trailing end with the grace blade. “Finished.” She patted a yawn, smiled drowsily at Dinafar. “Most meien carry swords.” Another yawn. “Maiden bless. Unh. My teachers laughed me out of it, taught me the bow. And to use my head instead of the muscles I haven't got. Like this morning.”

“You fell on purpose?” Dinafar opened her eyes wide. “You could have been killed.”

“That's the point. You know it; he knew it in his bones and he let that knowledge color his actions, let his anger overwhelm his skill. I had a bit of luck when his leg gave, but I'd have gotten behind him without it and once behind him.…” She spread out her hands. “You see?”

Dinafar nodded.

“The head, Dina, will.…”

A noisy hammering on the front door accompanied by muffled shouts interrupted her. Lifting from her chair with a swift smooth surge, all the tiredness wiped out of her face, she buckled on her weaponbelt. Then she was out of the kitchen, running through the house to the front hall. Dinafar hurried after her, was just in time to see her vanish through the trap. Dinafar pulled herself up into the walkway. The meie looked up, touched a finger to her lips. She was stretched out on the floor, her head close to the peephole. Moving as quietly as she could, Dinafar stretched herself out on the other side of the hole.

The hammering stopped. She heard men moving about the court, kicking open the doors to the small houses. Two men came stomping up the steps and rattled the bars. Her heart in her mouth, Dinafar blessed the meie's cool head. If that door had been open—well she didn't like to think about that. She heard them moving about, then they stopped close beneath the peephole.

“What the hell, she ain' here. Ol' horny tooth up there say so.”

“Damn fool. Want to tell the Son you didn't bother checking out the Hold?”

“Cai-shit, Cap'n. You know it. I know it. T'lads know it. Meie drownt herself in that hoor-storm t'other night. Ol' horny he got hisself a bellyache and had hisself a bad dream. What's Son want with her anyway? Scrawny thing they say; not worth wearin' down.”

The other man just grunted.

Dinafar heard several macai hoots and the scratching of claws on the courtyard paving. The riders stopped by the stairs. “No signa anyone, Cap'n. Couple herders out with t'stock. Saw their tracks. T'other Stendam, they musta gone down to Oras.”

“What about you, Winuk?”

“Same. Want we should go get the herders?”

“Trax up there, he say you're right. Gegger's Hold the next over, five mile south.” The men's groans were heartfelt. “Ever think the Son's looking down at you now through them eyes?” Dinafar heard a soft slipping sound, a creak of leather, and pictured him waving a hand at the circling bird. The sudden silence brought snorting laughter out of him. “Move it, Seyderim. We got half a day yet.”

When the noise of their passage faded, the meie pushed herself up until she was kneeling and staring into the dimness beyond Dinafar's shoulders. “Sankoy,” she whispered. “The Intii hinted at it. Sankoy.”

“Meie?” Dinafar scanned the drawn face, worried by the hopelessness in it. Maybe she was just tired, but the meie sounded like she was ready to give up. “They didn't find us.”

The meie pressed her hands against her eyes, sighed, dropped them onto her thighs. “Those men were the High Teyn's Berseyders from Sankoy, Dina. Berseyders being run by a Son of the Flame doing the work of a Nor from Oras. Maiden bless, Dina, I didn't know how big this is, Lybor and her feeble plots, she hasn't a glimmer …” She rubbed at her eyes, yawned. “Ay-ii, I'm tired.”

“It's getting late. Why don't we spend the night here?”

The meie sat without answering, one hand draped across her eyes, then she got wearily to her feet. “No. There's no time. I want to make the Highroad early tomorrow; we need to keep moving as long as there's light to see by.” She turned and started for the ladder.

Dinafar chewed on her lip. There was too much she didn't understand but she knew enough about exhaustion to see that the meie was traveling on will alone.
My, I'm not going so good either
. She stretched her legs out in front of her, rubbed at her aching knees.
It doesn't make sense, leaving here. She's let her need blind her understanding as bad as the Kappra and those guards. I have to make her see.…
She climbed down the ladder and hurried after the meie, catching her near the kitchen; she touched her arm and the meie swung around a frown on her small face. Dinafar licked her lips. “It's only an hour or two lost, meie. How much difference can an hour or two make?”

The meie's eyes flashed gold fire as she jerked her arm free, wheeled and stalked away. In the doorway she turned again. “We leave in half an hour. Be ready.”

Dressed in the clothes the meie had found for her, Dinafar walked slowly into the kitchen, uncertain of the mood she'd find the meie in. The little woman's back was to the door. She'd taken off the weaponbelt—it lay in a broken circle on the table beside the two stuffed rucksacks. She wore black wool trousers stuffed into her boot tops, a loose white shirt whose sleeves were too long; she was fumbling with the wrist knots, finding this more awkward and difficult than she liked. When she spat out an impatient oath, Dinafar grinned and went to tie the strings for her. The meie smiled wearily. “Thank you, Dina. Sorry I snapped at you.”

Dinafar grimaced. “You know what I think, meie.”

“I know.” The meie slipped her arms into a boy's vest, settled the heavy russet cloth down over her body. “If the stakes weren't quite so high, you'd be right.” With a grimace of distaste she fitted a boy's leather cap over her head, tucking in her sorrel curls.

Dinafar looked at her, started to speak, then pressed her lips together.

Orange laughter danced momentarily in the meie's eyes. “Green skin,” she said. “Makes a joke of any disguise, doesn't it?”

“Well.…” Dinafar looked down at the red tiles. “Anyone seeing you, meie, has to know you.”

“Don't worry about it, Dina. Before we reach the Highroad I take care of that detail too.” She touched the bow that lay beside the sacks, sighed and shook her head. “This too. I'll have to leave it somewhere.” She stroked her hand along the smooth curve of the upper limb. “Perhaps I can come back for it sometime.” She took the bow and arrow case and dropped them onto the pile of blankets and ground-sheets. “Everything's ready. We'd better get out before the caretakers come in.”

“What about that?” Dinafar pointed to a waxy button in the center of the table.

The meie grimaced. “Tarr.” She went slowly to the table and picked up the grey-green bud. “You're right, Dina.” Dropping into a chair, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I'd fall off if I tried riding.” Her voice slurred with her fatigue. “My teachers wanted me to study herbs and be a heal-woman, they said I had a talent for it. I didn't want to, it was too close to … never mind. Have you heard of the Biserica heal-women, Dina?”

Dinafar sat on the front edge of a chair, wondering if she was expected to answer; if she kept very still the meie might talk herself to sleep. She looked up, met the drowsy orange-gold gaze. “No, meie. But we didn't get much outside news in the village.”

The meie's eyelids dropped again; her short slim fingers played idly with the grey-green bud. “South of the mijloc there's an island chain; barren rocks most of them, but the largest has a spring and lots and lots of little scraggly bushes.” Dinafar could barely make out the words they were so blurred and slow. She smiled to herself, suppressed the smile when she saw the meie looking at her.

“Think you're smart, don't you. Won't work, my girl.” The meie yawned, then fumbled the bud into her mouth. She chewed a moment, swallowed, shut her eyes. “Every spring those bushes produce these tasty little buds.” Her mouth twisted into a wry half-smile. “Addictive and dangerous. But.…” She straightened, her eyes brightening, color returning to her pale face. “But, my tricky young friend, for the next five hours, I'll have my strength back.” She stood. “Let's go. Get yourself an armful and follow me.”