Redoubt (18 page)

“Well,” he said. “Whasser hair an’ eyes?”

“Brown,” the customer said. “Why?”

“Carved wood bead, brown cord, like that there carved wood rose. Or mebbe amber. Think
I got a amber up there too. Them as gots brown hair allus likes somethin’ what goes
with their eyes. Blondes, they like somethin’ thet stands out, so anythin’ on black
horsehair. An if’n ye got a redhead, she wants somethin’ thet makes ’er ’air look
good, so red, like thet there red glass bit.” He sighed. “Wisht th’ rest uv what they
likes was easier to reckon out.”

“You an’ me both,” said the man, as he separated out the amber and brown horsehair
necklace, and a red beaded one for good measure, and paid for both. “You an’ me both.”

* * *

Mags set off over the rooftops, but he had a distinctly uneasy feeling as he did so.
He couldn’t get over the feeling that someone was watching him. More than once he
stopped, cautiously dropped his shields, and “looked” for anyone who might be up here—because
it
was
possible that a real thief was up here too, had seen a fellow roof-runner, and wanted
to be sure he wouldn’t be interfered with in his chosen target. But every time he
stopped and closed his eyes and searched through all the nearby thoughts for someone
whose mind was full of the night, the rooftops, and possibly himself, he found nothing.
Nothing but those who were dreaming and those few who were still awake and working.
He got flashes of someone laboring over sewing, a potter tending a kiln by night,
some people making buttons of wood and river shell, some children carving spoons,
someone knitting, spinning, weaving . . . the sensation of working until the worker
simply couldn’t keep his or her eyes open anymore. Mags knew that feeling, and, oh,
how he sympathized. All of these except the potter were indoors, in attic and garret
rooms. No one was so much as glancing out an open window

He didn’t dare let that feeling of being watched distract him up here. One slip, and
he could very well end up in a bad situation. He concentrated on the placement of
his hands and feet, on his knowledge of his roof-road, and on where he was going to
land next.

It wasn’t until he neared the inn where Dallen’s stable and the disguise room were
that he felt that sensation drop away. He wasn’t relieved. He hadn’t liked that feeling
at all, and he liked still less the idea that his own mind was playing tricks on him.

:You didn’ pick up anything, did you?:
he asked Dallen, as he slipped down the inn roof and dropped directly down into the
courtyard instead of coming in from the alley as he and Nikolas usually did when they
were together.

:Not a thing. You know, it could have been an animal.:

Mags snorted as he unlocked the disguise room.
:An animal? No critter’s ever made the hair on the back of m’neck stand up like that
afore.:

But Dallen was quite serious.
:You’ve never seen some of the things that come out of the Pelagirs. And the closer
to human intelligence an animal is, the more likely it is that it would be able to
get this far into Valdemar without detection.:

Well . . . he
had
heard all those stories about the Hawkbrothers. It hadn’t been
that
long ago that there had been a Hawkbrother ambassador or two, making a brief visit
under the auspices of Herald Vanyel . . . Was there a chance that one could have slipped
across the Border in disguise?

:That’s exactly what I mean. We just had a very major event here, the wedding of the
Heir. That event might have brought a Hawkbrother here just to see how we’ve been
faring. And some of the Hawkbrothers fly owls. Or it is just possible that one of
the Hawkbrother Bondbirds was somehow blown here by a storm, or unusual weather. If
they aren’t bonded to a particular person, there’s no accounting for what one might
do.:

Mags carefully removed the streaks in his hair and coiled them into their container.
:Seems pretty unlikely to me. We ain’t heard nothin’ from them Hawkbrothers for years,
so why would they care now? It ain’t as if they’re blood relatives or nothin’. They
got their lands, we got ours, peace between us, so that’s all there is. An’ I’d think
a big old hawk or owl’d find the pickings pretty slim in a town. Crow mebbe, or raven,
but they don’t fly at night..:

Dallen clearly was not convinced, but he also seemed disinclined to argue the point.
:I’m just saying that it could have been a preternaturally intelligent animal. Or,
for all you know, a ghost.:

The hair went up on the back of Mags’ head again. Of all the things he did
not
want to hear about, ghosts were on top of the list. He hated ghost stories. He could
never imagine why a ghost would linger, except to get revenge on the living. And how
could you stop a ghost? They could walk through walls, they could slip up on you and
you would never know it, they could steal your breath while you slept.
:Oh, no. Don’t you go puttin’ no haunt stories in my head! I wanta sleep t’night!:

He hastily poured himself a basin full of water and began vigorously washing his face
and head, trying to wash away the thought of ghosts. Why, oh,
why
had Dallen said that? He knew how Mags felt!

:Mags, you have to remember that if it is a ghost, it has no connection to you,:
Dallen admonished. Dallen knew how he felt about ghosts.
:I have never heard of a ghost hurting anyone in Valdemar. I’ve never even heard of
one that had a reason to hurt someone—revenge—being able to. All they ever seem to
do is, well, haunt. I don’t think they can hurt you—not like the Karsite demons can.:

:Oh,
thank you,
ye bloody sadist!:
he groaned. All right, there was something he was more afraid of than ghosts. Karsite
demons. The first time he’d learned about them in history class, he had scarcely been
able to close his eyes that night.
:Now ye got me thinkin’ ’bout ghosts
and
demons! I ain’t gonna be able t’ sleep all night!:

He pulled on his clothing in a bit of a temper. Dallen
knew
how he felt about these things! And Dallen should bloody well know that trying to
reassure him about them was only going to make him think about them more! He stamped
his boots into place on his feet with more energy than was strictly necessary and
wrenched the door to Dallen’s stall open, glaring at him. The Companion gazed back
at him, and if he could judge these things, Dallen was not in the least repentant.

“I should put a buckwheat groat under yer saddle,” he said, crossly. “I really should.
And ride ye all the way up the Hill with it there.”

:Oh, come now,:
Dallen replied, as he threw the Companion’s tack onto him and cinched and buckled
it down.
:I’ve done you a favor.:

“A
favor?”
he exclaimed, as he mounted, and Dallen headed for the door into the stable. He ducked
a little to pass under the top of the doorframe. “A favor? An’ just
how
did ye do me a favor, exactly? By makin’ sure I’ll have nightmares for the next week?”

:First, you can’t keep avoiding the subject of spirits and demons if you are going
to go out in the field as a Herald, so you might as well get used to the fact that
they exist. Second, I kept you from fretting yourself in circles over Amily for almost
a quarter candlemark.:

“I’d ruther fret about Amily,” he growled.

:Well, I suppose now you’ll be fretting about both.:
Dallen’s logic was inescapable.
:Anyway, we know it’s not a demon, and it probably isn’t a ghost. So rest easy.:

“Then I hope at least I don’t have nightmares. Sadist.”

6

T
he next three days, Mags was not on shop duty, which pleased him a very great deal.
Nikolas didn’t get in anything that “needed” the deaf-mute’s skills with gemstones,
so he didn’t ask Mags to come down, and he and his two friends could easily handle
the rest of the business that came in the door. Or at least, that was his story. Mags
had a feeling that the King’s Own had gotten an earful from his daughter about monopolizing
what little free time he had. On the one hand, he appreciated it. He could never bring
himself to ask Nikolas for any favors for himself, much less tell his mentor that
he was feeling strained and stretched and would like him to ease off. But on the other
hand, he felt distinctly uneasy about the idea of Amily going to her father with demands
that he give Mags less work.

Not that this would have stopped Nikolas from demanding Mags’ presence if he actually
had
needed him there. Mags’ skill at identifying stones had enhanced the Weasel’s reputation,
and Nikolas was not about to sacrifice that. But the purpose of going to the shop
with Nikolas had always been primarily so that Nikolas could tutor Mags in the art
of holding to a persona and disguise, and the mere fact that he was now tending the
shop on his own was proof that Nikolas thought he had managed that particular lesson
well enough that he didn’t need supervision anymore. Or, at least, he didn’t need
the supervision in the personas of the deaf-mute and the cocky little thug.

All things considered, Mags was just as glad to have his evenings taken only one night
out of every four. The sultry heat had begun to ease a bit, so classes were going
back to their usual pace, which meant his time was going to get taken up with studies.

Studies he could, and certainly
would,
do with Amily. A bit of combining business with pleasure there, since Amily was a
thousand times the scholar that he was and always knew where to look things up. And
there was a great advantage to using studying as a reason to spend time with her—he
didn’t need to think about what to talk about or what to do, when it was obvious that
he needed help and she was conscientious enough to make sure he got it rather than
trying to coax him into some other, albeit more pleasurable, occupation.

There were more demands on his time coming as well. A few more weeks, and Kirball
practice would begin again; that was strenuous enough by anyone’s standards, but this
fall was going to make some big changes for the Red team and, more particularly, for
him. The Guard was not keeping their young recruits here just because they played
a good game of ball, and it was time for some of the younger fellows to set out before
winter set in, especially if they were going to posts at the Border. They were going
to lose all their Foot but Corwin, which was a real pity, and Lord Wess of their Horse.
There’d be four new Foot to train up out of the backup players, and there really wasn’t
anyone outstanding to take the place of Lord Wess unless one of the spring recruits
made some drastic improvements, or someone new turned up for the trials when they
opened in the fall.

Nor were these the only changes they were facing. Next spring, Pip and Gennie would
probably go into Whites and out on their first Circuit, which meant that everyone
was looking to him to be team captain next year. And that, in turn, meant Gennie was
drilling him in tactics and intended to load a lot more responsibility on him.

In fact, if Amily had intended to get some time with him to herself other than study
time and
had
talked to Nikolas about making sure he wasn’t down at the shop as much, her plan
backfired.

Gennie had decided that she had first call on his time, and what Gennie wanted, Gennie
generally got.

And the first chance Gennie got, she made her plans very clear indeed.

The next night after shop duty, while he and Amily had dinner with the usual group,
Gennie leaned over the table in the middle of desert. “You and I need another training
session,” she said bluntly, without giving Amily any chance to object.

“Uh,” he began.

“You might as well come on along, Amily,” she just said, cheerfully. “Like it or not,
Mags is Kirball and Kirball is Mags, and you got both when you decided to set your
cap at him.”

The others had chuckled, but nodded in a way that pretty much told Amily that this
was the truth and there was no arguing around it.

So Amily gave in. With good grace, but it probably wasn’t anything like the evening
she had hoped for. Poor Amily had to come with them both to an empty classroom, and
listen while Gennie and Mags went over things that were probably as boring to her
as listening to Bear drone on about herbs was to
him
.

“So, say Corwin’s out, ’cause he did something risky and hurt himself; that means
you have Tanner, Chet, Potter, and Green as your Foot,” Gennie posited. “So, what
would
you
do? How would you tell them to run defense?”

Well, I’d been
thinkin’
’bout askin’ ye fer advice about Amily,
Mags sighed under heavy shield.
But I’m thinkin’ now that if ye can’t see past the game, an’ if ye can’t guess Amily
might be put out at this, ye prolly ain’t the right person t’ask.
Since Gennie was the only other girl he really knew besides Lydia, he really was
out of luck on that score. . . .

Gennie finally let him go, and he did get a chance to walk with Amily a little and
sit on the bridge and look at the stars. He didn’t think she was annoyed at the way
that Gennie had appropriated him and his time—or at least, was not
still
annoyed—but she hadn’t said a word while he and Gennie nattered on, and she didn’t
say anything about it now, so . . . well, he just wasn’t sure.

Everything was perfectly normal on his next night at the shop. He had the usual sorts
of customers. A few people actually bought things. One old fellow came and redeemed
his good suit of clothing and bought a second out of the used clothing bin, which
signaled a new level of prosperity for him, and Mags had given him a good price. Thieves
brought in small items of the sort he was allowed to buy; some shirts, several fine
handkerchiefs, two spoons, five knives, and a carved walking stick. People paid their
pawn fees to keep their things from being sold. If anyone had anything interesting
to sell in the way of information,
he
wouldn’t hear about it—that sort of sale was reserved for Nikolas.

And when he went out on the roof to head for Dallen—he had that feeling of being watched
again. This time it came down on him suddenly, rather than creeping up on him, as
if whatever it was had been waiting for him.

:Dallen!:
he yelped.

:I know, I know . . . I’m checking, and I can’t find anyone.:

He did some evasive maneuvers—down a drainpipe, transfer to a second drainpipe, down
onto a wall, up onto the roof of a shed, and from there to the side of a roof that
wasn’t visible from the shop roof—then hid in the shadows of some chimneys. The feeling
did not go away, but he couldn’t see anything or anyone, nor could he detect any minds
concentrating on him.

He decided to put as much distance between himself and whatever it was as he could.
And he definitely did not want to lead it back to Dallen.

This time he deliberately went in the opposite direction to where Dallen was. And
at about the same distance from the shop as last time . . . the sense of being watched
faded, and he finally felt that he could stop and take a rest. He wasn’t winded, but
his heart was pounding, and his stomach felt knotted.

He didn’t double back to return to his usual route. Instead, he circled around and
came at the inn by another path entirely. The feeling did not come back, and he entered
the stable feeling uneasy, unhappy, nerves all afire, and a little frustrated. He
wondered if he should have searched the nearby roofs for—whatever it was. He still
didn’t think it was an animal or bird.

Dallen didn’t tease him this time, either.
:I can’t account for it,:
he said.
:There is nothing that I can use to identify it, whatever it is that is watching you.
And all my teasing aside, now I really am wondering if it actually
is
something like a spirit, or a ghost.:

The prickly sensation on the back of his neck started again, and Mags shivered.
:Why would ye say that?:

:Because neither you nor I can pinpoint this thing, we can’t pick up any actual thoughts,
and you are living in a part of town where there is a lot of death. If it
is
a ghost, I am not sure what to do about it. There’s a Gift for speaking with spirits,
but none of the other Companions or Heralds at the moment have it.:

Well, that was certainly anything but helpful, or comforting.

However, it finally gave him a direction. He couldn’t go report “I had the feeling
of being watched” without more than that to offer. But this, at least, was something
he
could
go to someone about, and he did. He’d had it happen twice, and he had Dallen’s speculation.
It wasn’t something to concern Nikolas with, at least not yet, but he certainly could
ask someone else’s advice.

Herald Caelen, the Dean of the Collegium, was always in his office early, and Mags
was waiting for him when he arrived, bearing a plate with hot bread, butter, and fruit
and a pot of tea.

The Dean of the Collegium was solidly built, to say the least. In fact, he looked
a little as if he had been constructed out of a series of building blocks. If it hadn’t
been for his graying hair, Mags would have been very tempted to ask him if
he
wanted to play Kirball, he certainly looked fit enough, and with his build, he looked
as if he could fend off everything that came at him.

Just now, he also looked a little startled to see Mags. “I see you come bearing my
breakfast, youngling,” he said as he opened the door to his office, “And I thank you
kindly, but the question is,
why
have you come?” His brow creased as he wave Mags inside. “No troubles, I hope . . . ?”

“Not exactly, sir,” Mags replied, and closed the door. He took the seat that Caelen
waved him to. Finally, now that all the renovations were done, Caelen no longer had
to share his office with what seemed like half of the Heraldic Collegium library.
As a result, the office was tidy to a fault and looked almost empty. “I come t’you
on account of you know what I’m doin’ with Nikolas, so you’re safest t’ ask some things
of.” Quickly he described that
feeling of being watched,
his and Dallen’s inability to find a living person doing the watching, and Dallen’s
suggestion that it was a ghost. Caelen nodded thoughtfully throughout the explanation,
and when Mags was done, he drummed his fingers on his desk for a while, thinking.
Mags let him think in peace. In his experience, you didn’t get answers out of someone
any faster by pelting them with more questions.

“I’m sure Dallen has told you that there
is
a Gift for speaking with the spirits of the dead that are still lingering on earth,”
the Dean said, finally. “I’m sure he has also told you that there aren’t any Heralds
living now who have that particular Gift. It generally doesn’t come up for Heralds
anyway, it’s more an . . . independent sort of thing. They call people like that ‘Mediums,’
but not too many of them are genuine, and it’s a difficult Gift to bear, I am told.”

Mags nodded, refusing to feel disappointment yet. Caelen clearly wasn’t done speaking.

“Now, I can’t tell you whether or not what you sensed was a spirit. I
can
tell you that Dallen is right; it wouldn’t be out of the question for the ghost of
someone who had recently died to be lingering in that neighborhood.” Caelen’s sober
expression at least told Mags that the Dean was taking him seriously, and at his word.
“How often do people die there, as a rule?”

Mags shrugged. It wasn’t something he liked to think about. “Pretty often. Death cart
generally has a customer within shoutin’ distance of the shop every couple of days.”

Caelen nodded. “Out of all of them, I am sure there are a few who aren’t aware they
have died, or who are afraid to pass on, or would be lingering for some other reason.
Did you feel anything other than that you were being watched? Any emotion at all?
Anger? Fear?”

Well, at least that was something he could answer. “Nothin’ but bein’ watched, like.”

“Hmm. Well. Actually, that’s not so bad. If it is a spirit, at least it isn’t angry
with you.” Caelen drummed his fingers on the desk some more, a look of concentration
on his face. “I don’t suppose you experienced an intense sensation of cold? Many who
have directly encountered spirits have reported that.”

In this heat . . . that’d be right welcome . . .
In that way his imagination had of picturing something incongruous in the middle of
a serious discussion, Mags had a sudden mental picture of someone running about with
a gossamer net and a jar, trying to capture ghosts and store them for their cold-producing
abilities. “No cold,” he said, “but I was movin’ pretty brisk. I might not’ve felt
anythin’.”

Caelen chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “But
what I can do is put the word out to see if there is someone who actually
has
this particular Gift somewhere within a reasonable distance of Haven, if you like.
It might take some time, because there are a great many people who pretend to have
it in order to defraud the gullible. And those who do have it sometimes would rather
not actually use it, so it might take some persuasion.”

But Mags shook his head. “Nothin’ attacked me, nor even did anythin’ but give me the
prickles,” he pointed out. “Dallen said it might’a been somethin’ out of the Pelagirs
too.”

Caelen made a face. “Far be it from me to contradict a Companion, but that seems even
less likely. The Pelagirs are a long way from here, Mags. Even something that flies
would have a difficult time making its way here.”