The King's Justice (8 page)

“My men are good. His surpassed them. I have rarely seen arms and armor of such quality. Their training was diligent, their skill prodigious, and their vigilance in their master's name exceeded all bounds. If they ever ate or slept”—she remembers them with as much awe as her nature allows—“I say this seriously, Black—they did so only when he admitted one or at most two of them to his house. With four such men in my employ, I could dispense with ten others and call myself well defended.”

For a moment, Kelvera drifts among her memories. To prompt her, Black asks, “He named his destination, this Sought?”

Her full attention returns to the shaped man. “He did not,” she replies more sharply. “He said that he would go with me as far as I went. Then he would find another caravan to continue his journey.”

“Yet he turned aside?”

She folds her arms. “As I have said. He did not emerge from his wagon while we rested here. But when we had passed a league beyond Settle's Crossways, his teamster pulled his oxen from the road. There the old man informed my captain of wagons that
he was content. He needed rest, he said. He would bide where he was for a time. His guards would suffice to fend for him.”

“Fend for him?” Black interjects. The phrase troubles him. It matches his hasty speculations too closely.

Again Kelvera shrugs. “So he said. As he asked no return of coin, I had no cause to refuse him.”

Black is silent for a moment. Within himself, he wonders whether his purpose will require him to confront a foe he cannot comprehend. A foe against whom his own powers will have no meaning. Despite his ability to forget, and his singular resolve, he is forced to acknowledge—not for the first time—that he is afraid.

Yet he masks his uncertainty. His manner is unchanged as he asks, “The place where he joined your train. Is it known for its winds?”

“Known?” snorts Kelvera. “Say infamous. It is an unholy hell of winds. Their dust can strip the flesh from bones. Every outcropping of rock has been sculpted until it resembles a fiend yearning for release. Those winds—” She shakes her head to dispel thoughts of over-turned wagons, mangled deaths, spilled goods, maimed beasts. “There is a price in pain to be paid for crossing that stretch of desert.”

By these words, Kelvera tells Black that the land of her birth holds to an alien theology, one which would not be recognized in the kingdom he serves. The temples created by the King have not yet excreted such arcana as hells and fiends. Perhaps sorceries are possible in the west that are inconceivable here.

He knows now that he has entered deep waters. For him, they may be bottomless. Nevertheless his purpose is at its most compulsory when he fears it.

As he gathers himself to thank the caravan-master, however, his doubts prompt one more question.

“A dire desert, then,” he remarks. “What gods are worshipped there?”

If the old man is in truth a hierophant—

Kelvera rolls her eyes. “What else?” She has her own reasons to scorn religions. “Wind and sun. In that region, there are no other powers that can be asked for mercy.” Then she shrugs once more. “Those prayers are not answered.”

Thinking, Lungs and livers, air and heat, Black can delay no longer. He must obey his purpose.

But when he rises from his chair, the caravan-master stops him with a gesture. He has warned her. She has a warning of her own to deliver.

Leaning close, she says, “Heed me, Black,” a whisper no one will overhear. “You are a shaped man. That Sought was not. Be wary of him.”

Black raises an eyebrow at her recognition. She does not need to say the words he hears. If the old man is not shaped, he may yet be a shaper. Also his guards are fearsome.

More formally than is his custom, Black replies, “Accept my gratitude, Blossom. I am in your debt.”

This debt he hopes to repay.

Kelvera returns a smile as disturbing as his. The more she
thinks on him, the more she desires to understand the danger. It may spill onto her caravan. “Perhaps,” she suggests, “we will meet again.”

She means to add, When we do, we can discuss who is in debt. But Black forestalls her. He is in haste. “We will not,” he says like a man who is already gone. Giving her no time to respond, he strides for the doors.

Still he wants guidance. It will shorten his search. At the doors, he pauses to grip the arm of the most recent arrival, a burly chandler still wearing his leather apron mottled with dried wax. Black invokes his sigil of command as he demands the location of Haul Varder's workshop.

The chandler glowers, torn between umbrage, distorted rumors, and an inability to refuse. He tries to sound angry as he directs Black. To some extent, he succeeds.

At once, Black releases the man. Through the swinging doors, he leaves the inn and enters the glare of the midafternoon sun.

He is at his most certain when he is afraid.

T
wo streets and three alleys from the inn, he finds the wheelwright's smithy and woodshop. The structure resembles an open-sided barn, providing abundant space for Haul Varder's forge at one end and his lathes at the other. Near the forge stands an anvil. Between and above the ends, he has storage for his iron
and hammers, for his supplies of wood, and for racks to hold his chisels, saws, and other tools.

The place is near the edge of the town. But this stretch of Settle's Crossways is not extensive. Black judges that he is two hundred paces from Jon Marker's house, perhaps three hundred from the caravan's road. Above the workshop's roof to the east, he can see the tops of the nearest trees.

He hopes to find his quarry there, but he is not surprised when he does not. If the ritual that required Tamlin Marker's murder is near its culmination—and if the wheelwright is involved, as Black now believes—the final preparations are being made. And they are certainly not being made in the town. They are not being made anywhere that risks witnesses. Their perpetrators will seek seclusion against even the most obscure mischance.

The ashes in the forge are cold. They have been cold for some time. The sawdust around the lathes has not been swept. The lathes themselves wear a fine fur of dust, as do their tools. If Black had spent more time questioning townsfolk, he would no doubt have learned how long the shop has been unattended. But he does not need that knowledge. The scent of evil is strong here, as acrid as acid, as bitter as kale, and fraught with intimations of bloodshed. To his shaped senses, it is as distinct as murder, overriding even the stink of cold ashes and the warm odor of drying resins. He will be able to follow it.

A brief stroking of his thigh summons his horse. While he
waits, he searches for some sign of Haul Varder's intent, some indication left by carelessness or haste. But the search does not have his full attention. Kelvera has answered his more practical questions. It is his need for understanding that troubles him. He cannot gauge the peril ahead of him. He is forced to consider that an impossible ritual may be the only possible explanation for the smell that haunts his nose.

His mount greets him with a soft whicker as it trots forward. Despite the hard use he made of it earlier, it is strong and ready, as refreshed as a horse that has enjoyed days of rest and rich pasturage. The ways that it has been shaped are subtle, difficult to discern, but they are potent. The beast will not fail him until he fails himself.

He checks his horse's girth and tack, an old habit. Then he mounts. Though he is no longer patient and believes that he knows his way, he circles the workshop twice, testing the air in every direction. When he is done, he trots toward the eastern outskirts of the town.

There near the fringe of the forest, Settle's Crossways is a haphazard collection of buildings. The shifting sunlight shows him several large warehouses belonging, no doubt, to prosperous merchants. It shows him hovels where the town's poor scrabble for shelter, hoping that their proximity to the warehouses will ease their efforts to find work. And among the hovels and warehouses, he discovers a scattering of more sturdy homes. These lack such amenities as roofed porches. Their owners are not reluctant to enter with mud, dirt, and the droppings of horses and cattle on
their boots. Still they are solid houses, made to last. They belong to men or families who do not care for appearances, but who mean to be secure in their homes.

Black does not expect to see lights in the windows at this time of day. They face the westering sun. Their occupants do not yet need lamps. But the windows of one house glow. Covered as they are with oiled cloths, they give him no glimpse of what waits inside. With the sun on them, they should not glow as they do. Yet they are unmistakable in the dwindling afternoon.

The scent of evil leads Black to the lit house.

He dismounts. Silent as nightfall, he approaches the door. When he places his palm there, he knows at once that his quarry is absent. This is Haul Varder's house. The odor of his doings permeates the door, the walls, the glowing windows. Black is sure. But the wheelwright is not here.

Someone else occupies the house. Someone else lights lamps against the coming darkness. That someone, alone, has lit a profusion of lamps.

Black considers departing as he came, in silence. He can follow the obscenity of Tamlin Marker's murder unaided. He does not fear the men who killed the brigands. But an impulse overtakes him, and he knocks.

The quaver of an old voice calls, “What?” An old woman's voice. “Go away. He is not here. Leave me to my prayers.”

Black does not ask permission to enter. Lifting the latch, he steps into a room lit by a noonday sun of lamps, lanterns, and candles.

The old woman sits in a comfortless wooden chair surrounded by many lights. Her hearth is cold, but she does not need its warmth. The flames give abundant heat. A dew of sweat glistens on her brow and gathers in the seams of her face, giving her the look of a woman who has labored too long in the last years of her life. Nevertheless she wears a heavy shawl over her shoulders, and she clutches it to her breast as though she imagines that it will protect her.

She turns her head unerringly toward Black, and he sees at once that she is blind. The milky hue that covers her eyes is too thick to permit sight. Still she has heard him. She knows where he stands, just as she knows every lamp, lantern, and taper around her. She keeps them lit at every hour of the day and night. When one or several go out, she refills or replaces them with no fear that she will set herself or the house aflame. It is not Haul Varder who desires them, though the woman does not need them. They are her prayers.

“You dare?” she croaks at Black. She sounds both querulous and frightened. “Be gone. Leave me. When he catches you, he will teach you to respect his mother.”

“I do not fear him,” Black replies like the coming night. “You have no cause to fear me. Only tell me what he does, and I will go. Only tell me where he is, and I will go.”

“
Tell?
” the old woman retorts. The puckering of her mouth betrays her toothless gums. “
I?
Tell
you
? I will tell you nothing. You are a blackguard who preys on weakness. I am a gods-fearing woman, gods-fearing. I do not go to the temples. I cannot walk
so far. But that does not make me evil. I worship
here
, do you understand? I worship
here
. There is no temple-goer more devout.

“If you do not go—if he does not catch you—I will call down Bright Eternal's light to consume you. I will cast you into Dark Enduring's agony.”

To an extent, Black believes her. He does not doubt that she will hurl her lamps and lanterns at him, as many as she can reach. He does not doubt that her aim will be good. But he also knows that he will not burn. His cloak and his shaping will ward him. Still he seeks to calm her. If she acts against him, her house will become conflagration. He will be forced to rescue her. He may be forced to find aid for her before he can resume his purpose.

In his mildest tone, his softest silk, he asks, “Who speaks of evil? I did not.”

“Blackguard,” she snaps. As her fright fades, her bitterness grows. “Do you think to confuse me? I know you. You are the canker that rots the heart of this town. You do not speak of evil
now
. You are too cunning for that. But you did
then
. You were not so bold to say it to my face, but you said it. You said it behind it my back, a gods-fearing woman's back. You said it and did not admit your wrong. You did not ask my forgiveness.”

Sweat gathers on her brow. It trickles into her eyes. But she does not blink it away. It is not sorrow or regret. It is an old woman's trembling fury.

“If you had said it to my face, I would have told you that I see as clearly as you, indeed I do. And I have a clearer sight of my
duty. There
was
evil in him then. He was a wicked boy, cursed son of a cursed father. Did you think me blind to it? But there is no evil
now
. With my own love and my own strength, I ripped it from his heart after his father forsook us. With punishment and prayer, I drove it out.
Out
, do you hear me? I scarred him with my love until he had no room in him for evil.