The Laurentine Spy (33 page)

Lenka took the rough wooden bowls and placed them in the pot to be washed. Darkness fell rapidly. Osker lit the lantern. It illuminated the tent and made it almost cozy. A fine trick; they and their belongings were worn and drab-colored. The only brightness in this place was hidden.

Athan glanced at Franta. The headscarf covered her hair.

He looked away and rubbed his face. The beard rasped beneath his hand. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, remembering how her hair looked. Rich and warm, gleaming, as bright as copper.

Osker rummaged in a saddlebag. He was a thin man who expected defeat at every turn. Lenka had once been more cheerful; there were laughter lines about her eyes. Now she was as haggard and careworn as her husband. Their children had died, that much Athan knew. This journey was an escape—from memories, from poverty.

Osker turned back to the light, a flask in his hand. This was the routine they’d established during the past month: dinner, followed by a mouthful of raw, fiery liquor. And then bed. Sleep was always quick to come after the exhaustions of the day.

Athan watched as Franta raised the flask to her lips. She swallowed and grimaced and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
A foundling from the Ninth Ward
, she’d said. At this moment he could believe it. She looked like a peasant, sitting cross-legged on her bedroll.

But so do I.
He hadn’t shaved in a month, or bathed or changed his clothes.

Franta held the flask out to him.

Athan took it. He shuddered as he swallowed. The liquor burned its way down his throat.
Vile.

He handed the flask to Osker and glanced around the tent. Everything was worn, dirty: the taut goat hair fabric thrumming in the wind, the thin bedrolls and darned woolen blankets, the stained clothes he wore. His fingernails were ragged and filthy. He knew he stank of old sweat.

It was better to be in this tent—full of shadows and lantern light, surrounded by darkness and wind and snow—than the Citadel. Better to fall asleep on a lumpy bedroll with hunger in his belly and the taste of liquor burning on his tongue, listening to the wind roar overhead.

Better. Safer.

Each night in this tent brought them closer to home.

T
HE BLIZZARD HAD
died by dawn and so had two of the migrants. Stones were piled high to cover their bodies; the ground was too hard to bury them.

Snow stretched as far as the eye could see—white plateau, white mountains—and the sky was intensely blue. Athan felt as if he’d climbed to the top of the world, a place so far from the Citadel that the court and its inhabitants ceased to exist. Lord Ivo was gone. Lady Petra, gone.

He hefted the heavy, unwieldy bundle of the tent on his shoulder and walked to where Osker loaded the donkeys. The animals stood patiently, their eyes half-closed.

The donkey that carried their food had a light load. There was meat enough for one more pot of stew, flour for three more loaves of bread. After that, they’d go hungry.

Neycha and the shelter of the caravansary, the market where they could buy supplies, was two days’ journey away. Athan turned and looked east. He saw nothing but white, stretching to the distance.

He glanced back at the pile of stones, the graves. The plateau—for all its startling beauty—was a dangerous place.
We could all die here.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

N
EYCHA, WHEN THEY
arrived in the raw wind of dusk, was an unappealing and dismal settlement. The town fought a losing battle with mud. Buildings wallowed in muck, seemingly resigned to a slow and choking death. Athan inhaled, smelling woodsmoke and something acrid, something unpleasant. He glanced at Franta. “Is that—?”

Her face told him she’d recognized the smell too. She stopped walking. The donkey she led halted.

“Are you all right?”

She groped for her shawl and pulled it up over her nose. Her eyes squeezed shut.

Athan reached for her. “Are you all right?” he asked again.

Franta didn’t flinch from him; she didn’t even seem to notice his hand on her arm.

“Franta...” He tightened his grip.

Her eyes opened. She looked at him above the twist of shawl. “That smell. It’s—” She swallowed. “I hate it.”

Others had smelled it too: wood smoke, the scent of burned hair and flesh. There was a stir in the caravan.
Witch-burning.

Athan kept his hand on Franta’s arm as the caravan skirted the town. The smell became stronger. “Don’t look,” he said as a bare field came into sight, a fire still smoldering at its center The snow was churned with footprints. Sluggish black smoke rose into the sky. The stink of burned meat almost made him gag.

The caravan straggled as it passed the field. Some migrants hurried past, others slowed. Athan heard hushed whispers of fear, of disappointment that a spectacle had been missed. Franta said nothing. She didn’t turn her head to see the skeleton of the bonfire: charred logs, charred bones. She walked with her gaze lowered and the shawl held to her nose.

The caravansary lay on the far side of Neycha. The fenced yard was a quagmire, thick with the churned-up filth of previous caravans.

“Where shall we pitch the tent?”

Franta didn’t answer. She seemed not to have heard the question. The bustle of the caravan surrounded them—donkeys and mules, wagons, men and women and children, a bleating goat.

“Franta,” he said more loudly. “Where would you like to pitch the tent?”

Her head lifted. He watched as her eyes focused. She glanced around.

“Are you all right?” he asked beneath the noise of the caravan.

Franta looked at him. “I don’t like this town.”

“Neither do I.”

Falling darkness hid the squalor, but in the morning the ice-encrusted grime and piles of refuse offended Athan’s eyes again. It was the slovenly, careless filth of people who no longer cared. The sense of despair was almost tangible. The buildings of the caravansary—inn and stable—sagged, defeated by their surroundings.

His mood was sour as he counted out copper coins.
I pay to sleep in a dungheap.
He trudged across the yard and pushed open the door to the inn.

The taproom was dark after the sunlight. Athan paused, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. He saw a smoke-stained ceiling and walls, a fire in a grimy hearth, scarred benches and tables.

Straw was strewn on the floor. An unpleasant smell rose from it as he crossed the room. The tables hadn’t been wiped in a long time. They were littered with crumbs. Food lay where it had been spilled.

The innkeeper was as repugnant as the taproom, as the yard outside. He didn’t appear to have washed in months. He smelled of liquor and stale sweat.

“For the two nights,” Athan said. The coins clinked thinly as he laid them on the grubby counter.

The man took the coins without bothering to speak. His fingernails were black with dirt.

Athan turned away.

“You want food? Liquor?”

Athan looked back at the innkeeper.
I want nothing your hands have touched.
“No.”

The man shrugged. “A bath?”

Athan turned around fully. “You have baths?”

The innkeeper nodded, and spat on the floor.

“Hot water? Soap?”

The man nodded again.

Then why don’t you bathe? Why don’t you wash the filth off yourself?
“How much?” he asked.

A
THAN HUNKERED DOWN
by the tent and opened the pouch of money. He tipped the coins into his hand. They barely filled his palm.

“They sell baths here.” He touched a coin with one finger and looked up at Franta. “Would you like one?”

She shook her head.

“Are you certain?” He held the coin out to her.

Franta put her hands behind her back. “Spend it on food.”

“One coin won’t make much difference.”

She shook her head again. “You’re too thin.”

“So are you.”

She shrugged.

Athan returned the coins to the pouch. “As you wish.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

T
HE MARKETPLACE WAS
as dirty as the caravansary. Mud and refuse squelched beneath his boots.

The stalls were ramshackle, their goods sparse. Athan glanced around. There was no bustle, no cheerfulness. Men lounged, sour-faced, talking and spitting.
A mean little town.

He tied up his donkey beside the drinking trough. A scum of ice lay on the water. Osker fastened his donkey alongside. His expression was dour.

Athan scanned the marketplace. He saw meat, vegetables, leather, bread—

And Corhonase soldiers, two of them.

They looked nothing like the guards in the Citadel—clean, alert. Their faces were stubbled, their metal buckles and leather boots unpolished.

Athan turned away from them.

Haunches of meat and strings of onions hung from the nearest stall. The meat was gray, the onions withered. He slouched as the soldiers strolled past.
Just another starving peasant, boys. Nothing of interest.

“How much?”

The price the stallholder asked was absurd. When Athan told him so, the man sneered and spat on the ground.

There was nothing good-natured about the bartering, not at that stall or the next. Osker became more dour. They strapped a sack of potatoes on a donkey’s back, onions and meat on the other. Athan turned and surveyed the market, aware of the soldiers. What else did they need to buy?

Flour.

The sky was gray. Snowflakes began to drift down.

They found a stall selling flour. It was coarse, gritty. “How much for a sack?”

Athan haggled, while the soldiers strolled around the marketplace. He held onto his temper as he handed over coins—too many coins. Osker hefted the sack on his shoulder. His expression was as sour as the stallholder’s.

Jeers rose to Athan’s left, a shout.

He turned his head. What he saw—the handful of men, the stones—made him push away from the stall.

Let it go. Beware of the soldiers.
But his feet were already striding. He pushed through the group of men. “Stop.”

One of the men shoved him aside. “Out of the way, peasant.”

Athan turned to him. He bared his teeth in a smile.

“Didn’t you hear me, peasant? Get out of my—”

He hit with his full weight behind him. All the frustrations of the past few hours were in the blow.

The man went down like a felled tree.

Athan swung round to face the other men.
Three against one. Not good odds.
“Who’s next?”

The second man took two blows to the head before he fell. Athan shook his fist out.
Two to one.
But it was more than that—four, five, six men, attracted by the prospect of a brawl.

Walk away from this. Now.

It was too late. Men ringed him.

Athan blew out a breath. He flexed his hands and clenched them again.
Go for the biggest man. Bring him down first—

“What’s happening?” The two soldiers pushed through the cluster of men.

Athan unclenched his fists. “Nothing.”

The townsfolk who surrounded him stepped back and turned away. The first man he’d hit scrambled unsteadily to his feet and followed them, lurching.

“Explain yourself,” one of the soldiers demanded. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

Athan opened his hands in a shrug. He tried to look mild and unthreatening, confused. “I was just buying flour.”

The guardsman surveyed him. His face was unshaven, his uniform wrinkled, his gaze narrow and suspicious.

“That’s right.” It was Osker, the sack on his shoulder. “Flour.”

The soldier glanced at Osker and the fallen man, before looking back at Athan. He didn’t release his grip on the sword.

Athan stood with his hands open and relaxed. Snowflakes floated down.

The soldier cleared his throat and spat. “Make any more trouble in this marketplace, peasant, and you’ll spend the night in gaol.”

“No more trouble,” Athan said. He dipped his head humbly.

The soldier grunted. He turned away. The second guardsman eyed Athan a moment longer, then followed his companion.

Athan watched them walk away. The man at his feet groaned and pushed up onto an elbow. Blood streamed from his nose.

“What was that about?” Osker asked.

“This.” Athan turned and crouched.

The kitten had hidden itself behind a broken plank of wood. It cowered away from Athan’s hand. He grasped it by the nape of the neck and stood.