The Hekamon (26 page)

"Did you did see anyone going south?" he
called out, trying to make himself heard without attracting too much
attention. Even so, his voice echoed back conspicuously.

Too loud,
yet it also seemed not loud enough, as the elderly man cupped a hand
to his ear.

"Anyone?" Tregarron said again, making some
hand gestures that seemed to convey the message.

"No, nobody," the old man shouted back. The
reverberations emphasizing the point.

Tregarron had expected as much. The base of the mountain
chain might not be very wide, but they did rise steeply. The weaving
path would take an hour or more to clear, even for someone in good
condition.

Tregarron looked to his right and the road to the
priory. The guards who'd taken Croneygee by stretcher to the priory
would be approaching from that direction, but they wouldn't arrive
for at least another thirty minutes.

"Are we going to wait here for the others?"
Teague asked.

He considered it, but not for long. "No, we're only
a few minutes behind Tansley and need to keep it that way, the four
of us will be enough."

A search of the kitchen cupboards yielded little of
interest, but Alyssa found a source of nourishment in a bread basket
in a corner. Breaking off a chunk, she took a bite, neither fresh nor
stale, she ate some more.

She realized was going to have to go to Serfacre, either
traveling there with Tansley, or by following the man's directions to
the armory. The trouble was, the workshops were Demedelei territory
and that was going to present her with some difficulties. Her attire
marked her out as a Fennrean, her accent, too. She would disguise her
voice as best she could, but her clothing would be an easier fix.

She moved from the kitchen to the shop front, where there was enough light coming in through a partially
open blind for her to see what she was doing.

From her earlier visit,
Alyssa knew there were some clothes here she could make use of, so
set about finding something suitable. She wouldn't be able to walk
around dressed like she was, that was for sure. Her mottled green and
brown woolen tunic and tights concealed her well among trees and long
grass, but in the towns and villages she would be neither camouflaged
nor inconspicuous, but the complete opposite.

She would clearly stand
out as being from the marshes, and as such, would be looked on with
suspicion. Thieves and troublemakers was how most people this side of
the river thought of them.

Browsing the shop, she saw it was stocked with clothes
commonly seen in Demedelei. She recognized them from glimpsed views
of travelers on the roads, along with various things her brother had
picked up. Where from, he wouldn't say, found discarded along the
road he would claim.

Tansley seemed to have a lot of this type of clothing.
Demedelei must have been the main source for his stock, which made
sense given the town's close proximity.

Alyssa picked out a gray
hooded jacket, large leather walking boots and knee length leather
braccae that would need to be held up with braces. It was not exactly
an outfit for a young woman, but seemed more practical for her
situation. She would be disguising herself as a serfacre apprentice
after all, and since Tansley's shop offered little else by way of
choice, Alyssa made do with these.

She pulled the knee length braccae over her full length
woolen tights. She thought the effect looked a little strange, so
rolled the woolen tights up so they didn't show. Doing so exposed a
small tattoo just above her ankle. It was discrete and not easy to
see. Her mother's tattoo was of the same pattern but had covered her
whole back.

Vondern had refused to allow Alyssa to have one like it,
or even a small one in the same design. Curiously, he'd hinted that
her mother had not been tattooed willingly, and besides, such
markings were for ferguths only, or so he'd said. So she'd done it
herself. And kept its existence a secret.

She put on the gray hooded top and tied it at the waist
with a plain leather belt. Her own belt was in the traditional
Fennrean style. A large, elaborate deerskin leather band, that had
numerous pockets and places for keeping assorted accessories. A
dagger in its scabbard, lengths of twine and rope, snares, lures, a
water flask and a pouch containing flint and iron for fire lighting.
It was fastened with a large ornately carved wooden buckle. It would
need to be concealed beneath the jacket if her disguise was going to
work.

To complete the look she found some sturdy, oversize
leather boots with wooden soles and pulled them over her own light,
boar hide shoes. She tried walking around in them. They felt heavy,
ungainly and noisy. Is this really what they wore? At least she
wouldn't have to wear them for long.

Moving upstairs she noticed how much lighter it was. The
ground floor windows may have been blocked with wooden blinds, but
not here. The unobstructed windows gave a good view of the road
outside but it was something else that caught her attention. The bed.

It was big, soft and a world away from the blanket
covered pile grass she had to make do with at Ochre or Egret. She
imagined this bed to be extremely comfortable and quickly discovered
that it was. Her lack of proper sleep was catching up with her again,
and she realized this might be as good a time as any to grab some
rest. The men downstairs were all tied up, and besides, she was
waiting on them waking up. Well, Tansley anyway.

Perhaps she should sleep now and recover her alertness.
She would undoubtedly need her wits about her if she was going to get the
Ettinshel from out of a Serfacre armory.

Making herself comfortable,
her drowsiness took over, and Alyssa felt she would fall asleep in no time,
as her head rested on the pillow.

Moving from the High Gate crossroads and onto the Regis
Highway, Tregarron and his men started descending again. They walked
quickly along the tree lined road, as it curved around the contours
of the foot hills, until they reached the stretch of road with the
trading posts.

"Do you know which one is Tansley's?" Teague
asked, out of breath at the fast pace they were setting.

"Yes," Tregarron replied, but then, it was his
job to know. The trading posts might not be Demedelei territory but
they were close enough.

It was for this reason that he made sure he had his
sources, here and elsewhere along the route. People who kept him
informed of any notable movement along the roads, from the bridge to
the pass. Nothing, and no person of interest traveled along here
without him knowing about it. Or at least, that's what he'd thought,
just now he was not feeling quite so certain.

Things had been quiet. The reports had become less
frequent. He had allowed himself to become more reliant on the
judgment others, making do with second hand information. At the same
time the number of men under his command had diminished, His control
had started to slip.

If
you don't look you won't find
.
He hadn't been looking.

As he neared the trading posts he realized he hadn't
been this way for quite some time. He welcomed the fact that he now
had a justifiable reason to conduct a search. He would take the
opportunity to question a few of the merchants while he was here.
Living in the glades meant they wouldn't have to bow to his
authority, but in Tregarron's experience, they knew it was in their
interests not to antagonize him. If they wanted unfettered access to
the town, they would talk with him. But that could come later, there
was one merchant in particular he needed to speak with first.

Approaching
the trading post in question, Tregarron became increasingly wary with
every step. Smoke was coming from the chimney but there seemed to be
no other sign of activity. The ground floor of the building seemed
dark, due to either shutters or blinds, while the upper floor windows
were unobstructed. Just then, the calmness seemed to be disturbed. Was
that movement he saw? It seemed to be. So Tansley
was
inside. In that case he would make sure the man would not evade
questioning.

At the moment he considered Tansley to be a witness. He
had been the last person to see the victim of the assault. But if the
merchant was involved or in anyway responsible for what had happened
to Croneygee, then he wouldn't hang around if he saw guards approaching.

With a silent gesture, he signaled for two of the guards, Holcroft and
Pearson, to go to the rear.

At his signal the men promptly moved off the highway and
started to move through the trees, toward the back of the property.
While they did, he and Teague approached the front of the trading
post. Once there, he waited a few moments, until he was confident his
men were in position, before hammering on the door three times with
his clenched hand.

After
a few seconds, and with no reply, he tried the handle. The door was
locked, and judging by how little give there was, probably bolted
too.
It would be
difficult to break in here
.
He tried to peer through the windows but the blinds were closed and
it was hard to see anything, the small gaps and dimly lit interior
offered no clues. He moved to a different window and his fellow
guardsman did likewise.

"I see movement," he heard Teague say, the man
to his right had found a more accommodating set of blinds to peer
through, "There's somebody in there."

There came the sound of bolts being slid and the handle
rattled but the door didn't open.

"Sir, it's locked and there's no key,"
Holcroft shouted through the door. "Captain, you will have to go
around the back, you need to see this."

The concern in the guard's voice prompted Tregarron to
hasten round the side of the hut to the back door. He entered into a
woodshed and from there he stepped quickly into the store room.

The sight that greeted him was not one he had expected.
Two men were laying in the middle of the floor, bound with lengths of
rope. One was bleeding from a facial injury the other from an head
wound. At first, he thought one of the men had been gagged as well,
but looking more closely he could see he was masked with a gray hood.
It covered his head and wrapped around the face leaving just the eyes
visible. Blood was seeping into it.

"Another here," Pearson called from the
kitchen.

Leaving the two men on the floor, he moved through the
hall to the kitchen and stared at the bound and unconscious body of
Tansley. The guards looked at each other. With three men tied up it
was obvious there was at least one person missing. He turned to two
of his men and gave the order, and did so in little more than a
whisper, "Check upstairs."

Every night before she went to sleep, Alyssa would
remove her necklace and place it a small pocket she had sewn into the
inside of her vest. Keeping it safe and close to her heart. It was in
the moments before she fell asleep that her mind seemed most
receptive and when her mother's voice was at its clearest and her
advice most inspiring.

It was at this moment, as her mind drifted into sleep,
that the absence of the Ettinshel was most tangible. Her thoughts
were hazy, her dreams would be restless. Yet there was a voice in her
head, her own voice, and it seemed to fill the void. This voice was
not tired, it was just waking up, and she felt the rest of her
following its lead.

No sooner had her head rested on the pillow, than she raised
it again.

It had not been her intention to come upstairs to sleep,
but to look around for anything that might prove useful. If she was
going to get some rest she would need to prepare first. She was in an
unfamiliar house a long way from home and none of her family knew where she
was. Her sleepiness began to subside and an awareness of her
vulnerability started to take hold. Suddenly she was awake again and her mind
was active, evaluating, questioning.

There was the matter of the other occupants.

There had been two men searching for Tansley, might
there be more? Out in the forest waiting? Expecting their associates
to leave and becoming suspicious when they didn't. She also started to
wonder how they'd got in. Had Tansley let them in? Did they break
in and, if so how?

Could they know about the tunnel?

The security of the tunnel was that it was well hidden
and secret. Once known about the hut became more vulnerable. Or did
it? She and her brother had needed Tansley to let them in, why?
Perhaps the tradesman kept it wedged closed with logs, yet she had
not done so. She had been too busy tying up the two men.

Then there was the doors. Were they locked? She hadn't
tried them and the building might not be secure. Alyssa realized
there was so much she needed to do before she could risk going to
sleep here. Sitting up, she slid to the edge of the bed.

From this position she could see out of the windows and
surveyed the road outside. At the very minimum she should check on
the likelihood of prospective visitors. She was in a trading post, if
customers were to visit and try to enter, they would be able to if the
doors were not locked. Alyssa looked to her left and at the Regis
Highway, as it rose up towards the fortified gate that protected the
town of Demedelei. What she saw caused her to gasp in disbelief.

Four men were approaching, and not just any men,
Demedelite guards. Their dark blue uniforms and wide brimmed iron
helmets unmistakable. Three of them were carrying halberds, while the guard
with neither helmet nor halberd, was pointing towards the trees behind
the hut. As he did, two guards moved off the road, while the lead
guard and his companion headed straight for her.

Alyssa was a keen huntress and a good judge of time and
distance, springing traps on unsuspecting deer called for it. But now
she felt like a fawn, and with the trap already sprung. The men were
forty yards, and twenty seconds away. Alyssa made her decision, and
now had nineteen seconds.