The Warded Man (3 page)

Arlen didn’t want to believe it. There had to be safe places in the world. But again the image of himself being thrown into the cellar flashed across his mind, and he knew that nowhere was truly safe at night.

The Messenger arrived an hour later. He was a tall man in his early thirties, with cropped brown hair and a short, thick beard. Draped about his broad shoulders was a shirt of metal links, and he wore a long dark cloak with thick leather breeches and boots. His mare was a sleek brown courser. Strapped to the horse’s saddle was a harness holding a number of different spears. His face was grim as he approached, but his shoulders were high and proud. He scanned the crowd and spotted the Speaker easily as she stood giving orders. He turned his horse toward her.

Riding a few paces behind on a heavily laden cart pulled by a pair of dark brown mollies was the Jongleur. His clothes were a brightly colored patchwork, and he had a lute resting on the bench next to him. His hair was a color Arlen had never seen before, like a pale carrot, and his skin was so fair it seemed the sun had never touched it. His shoulders slumped, and he looked thoroughly exhausted.

There was always a Jongleur with the annual Messenger. To the children, and some of the adults, the Jongleur was the more important of the two. For as long as Arlen could remember, it had been the same man, gray-haired but spry and full of cheer. This new one was younger, and he seemed sullen. Children ran to him immediately, and the young Jongleur perked up, the frustration melting from his face so quickly Arlen began to doubt it was ever there. In an instant, the Jongleur was off the cart and spinning his colored balls into the air as the children cheered.

Others, Arlen among them, forgot their work, drifting toward the newcomers. Selia whirled on them, having none of it. “The day is no longer because the Messenger’s come!” she barked. “Back to your work!”

There were grumbles, but everyone went back to work. “Not you, Arlen,” Selia said. “Come here.” Arlen pulled his eyes from the Jongleur and went to her as the Messenger arrived.

“Selia Barren?” the Messenger asked.

“Just Selia will do,” Selia replied primly. The Messenger’s eyes widened, and he blushed, the tops of his pale cheeks turning a deep red above his beard. He leapt down from his horse and bowed low.

“Apologies,” he said. “I did not think. Graig, your usual Messenger, told me that’s what you were called.”

“It’s pleasing to know what Graig thinks of me after all these years,” Selia said, sounding not at all pleased.

“Thought,” the Messenger corrected. “He’s dead, ma’am.”

“Dead?” Selia asked, looking suddenly sad. “Was it …?”

The Messenger shook his head. “It was a chill took him, not corelings. I’m Ragen, your Messenger this year, as a favor to his widow. The guild will select a new Messenger for you starting next fall.”

“A year and a half again before the next Messenger?” Selia asked, sounding like she was readying a scolding. “We barely made it through this past winter without the fall salt,” she said. “I know you take it for granted in Miln, but half our meat and fish spoiled for lack of proper curing. And what of our letters?”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Ragen said. “Your towns are well off the common roads, and paying a Messenger to commit for a month and more of travel each year is costly. The Messengers’ Guild is shorthanded, what with Graig catching that chill.” He chuckled and shook his head, but noticed Selia’s visage darken in response.

“No offense meant, ma’am,” Ragen said. “He was my friend as well. It’s just … it’s not many of us Messengers get to go with a roof above, a bed below, and a young wife at our side. The night usually gets us before that, you see?”

“I do,” Selia said. “Do
you
have a wife, Ragen?” she asked.

“Ay,” the Messenger said, “though to her pleasure and my pain, I see my mare more than my bride.” He laughed, confusing Arlen, who didn’t think having a wife not miss you was funny.

Selia didn’t seem to notice. “What if you couldn’t see her at all?” she asked. “What if all you had were letters once a year to connect you to her? How would you feel to hear your letters would be delayed half a year? There are some in this town with kin in the Free Cities. Left with one Messenger or another, some as much as two generations gone. Those people ent going to come home, Ragen. Letters are all we have of them, and they of us.”

“I am in full agreement with you, ma’am,” Ragen said, “but the decision is not mine to make. The duke …”

“But you will speak to the duke upon your return, yes?” Selia asked.

“I will,” he said.

“Shall I write the message down for you?” Selia asked.

Ragen smiled. “I think I can remember it, ma’am.”

“See that you do.”

Ragen bowed again, still lower. “Apologies, for coming to call on such a dark day,” he said, his eyes flicking to the funeral pyre.

“We cannot tell the rain when to come, nor the wind, nor the cold,” Selia said. “Not the corelings, either. So life must go on despite these things.”

“Life goes on,” Ragen agreed, “but if there’s anything I or my Jongleur can do to help; I’ve a strong back and I’ve treated coreling wounds many times.”

“Your Jongleur is helping already,” Selia said, nodding toward the young man as he sang and did his tricks, “distracting the young ones while their kin do their work. As for you, I’ve much to do over the next few days, if we’re to recover from this loss. I won’t have time to hand the mail and read to those who haven’t learned their letters.”

“I can read to those who can’t, ma’am,” Ragen said, “but I don’t know your town well enough to distribute.”

“No need,” Selia said, pulling Arlen forward. “Arlen here will take you to the general store in Town Square. Give the letters and packages to Rusco Hog when you deliver the salt. Most everyone will come running now that the salt’s in, and Rusco’s one of the few in town with letters and numbers. The old crook will complain and try to insist on payment, but you tell him that in time of trouble, the whole town must throw in. You tell him to give out the letters and read to those who can’t, or I’ll not lift a finger the next time the town wants to throw a rope around his neck.”

Ragen looked closely at Selia, perhaps trying to tell if she was joking, but her stony face gave no indication. He bowed again.

“Hurry along, then,” Selia said. “Lift your feet and you’ll both be back as everyone is readying to leave here for the night. If you and your Jongleur don’t want to pay Rusco for a room, any here will be glad to offer their homes.” She shooed the two of them away and turned back to scold those pausing their work to stare at the newcomers.

“Is she always so … forceful?” Ragen asked Arlen as they walked over to where the Jongleur was mumming for the youngest children. The rest had been pulled back to work.

Arlen snorted. “You should hear her talk to the graybeards. You’re lucky to get away with your skin after calling her ‘Barren.’”

“Graig said that’s what everyone called her,” Ragen said.

“They do,” Arlen agreed, “just not to her face, unless they’re looking to take a coreling by the horns. Everyone hops when Selia speaks.”

Ragen chuckled. “And her an old Daughter, at that,” he mused. “Where I come from, only Mothers expect everyone to jump at their command like that.”

“What difference does that make?” Arlen asked.

Ragen shrugged. “Don’t know, I suppose,” he conceded. “That’s just how things are in Miln. People make the world go, and Mothers make people, so they lead the dance.”

“It’s not like that here,” Arlen said.

“It never is, in the small towns,” Ragen said. “Not enough people to spare. But the Free Cities are different. Apart from Miln, none of the others give their women much voice at all.”

“That sounds just as dumb,” Arlen muttered.

“It is,” Ragen agreed.

The Messenger stopped, and handed Arlen the reins to his courser. “Wait here a minute,” he said, and headed over to the Jongleur. The two men moved aside to talk, and Arlen saw the Jongleur’s face change again, becoming angry, then petulant, and finally resigned as he tried to argue with Ragen, whose face remained stony throughout.

Never taking his glare off the Jongleur, the Messenger beckoned with a hand to Arlen, who brought the horse over to them.

“… don’t care how tired you are,” Ragen was saying, his voice a harsh whisper, “these people have grisly work to do, and if you need to dance and juggle all afternoon to keep their kids occupied while they do it, then you’d damn well better! Now put your face back on and get to it!” He grabbed the reins from Arlen and thrust them at the man.

Arlen got a good look at the young Jongleur’s face, full of indignation and fear, before the Jongleur took notice of him. The second he saw he was being watched, the man’s face rippled, and a moment later he was the bright, cheerful fellow who danced for children.

Ragen took Arlen to the cart and the two climbed on. Ragen snapped the reins, and they turned back up the dirt path that led to the main road.

“What were you arguing about?” Arlen asked as the cart bounced along.

The Messenger looked at him a moment, then shrugged. “It’s Keerin’s first time so far out of the city,” he said. “He was brave enough when there was a group of us and he had a covered wagon to sleep in, but when we left the rest of our caravan behind in Angiers, he didn’t do near as well. He’s got day-jitters from the corelings, and it’s made him poor company.”

“You can’t tell,” Arlen said, looking back at the cartwheeling man.

“Jongleurs have their mummers’ tricks,” Ragen said. “They can pretend so hard to be something they’re not that they actually convince themselves of it for a time. Keerin pretended to be brave. The guild tested him for travel and he passed, but you never really know how people will hold up after two weeks on the open road until they do it for real.”

“How
do
you stay out on the roads at night?” Arlen asked. “Da says drawing wards in the dirt’s asking for trouble.”

“Your da is right,” Ragen said. “Look in that compartment by your feet.”

Arlen did, and produced a large bag of soft leather. Inside was a knotted rope, strung with lacquered wooden plates bigger than his hand. His eyes widened when he saw wards carved and painted into the wood.

Immediately, Arlen knew what it was: a portable warding circle, large enough to surround the cart and more besides. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arlen said.

“They’re not easy to make,” the Messenger said. “Most Messengers spend their whole apprenticeship mastering the art. No wind or rain is going to smudge those wards. But even then, they’re not the same as having warded walls and a door.

“Ever see a coreling face-to-face, boy?” he asked, turning and looking at Arlen hard. “Watched it take a swipe at you with nowhere to run and nothing to protect you except magic you can’t see?” He shook his head. “Maybe I’m being too hard on Keerin. He handled his test all right. Screamed a bit, but that’s to be expected. Night after night is another matter. Takes its toll on some men, always worried that a stray leaf will land on a ward, and then …” He hissed suddenly and swiped a clawed hand at Arlen, laughing when the boy jumped.

Arlen ran his thumb over each smooth, lacquered ward, feeling their strength. There was one of the little plates for every foot of rope, much as there would be in any warding. He counted more than forty of them. “Can’t wind demons fly into a circle this big?” he asked. “Da puts posts up to keep them from landing in the fields.”

The man looked over at him, a little surprised. “Your da’s probably wasting his time,” he said. “Wind demons are strong fliers, but they need running space or something to climb and leap from in order to take off. Not much of either in a cornfield, so they’d be reluctant to land, unless they saw something too tempting to resist, like some little boy sleeping in the field on a dare.” He looked at Arlen in that same way Jeph did, when warning Arlen that the corelings were serious business. As if he didn’t know.

“Wind demons also need to turn in wide arcs,” Ragen continued, “and most of them have a wingspan larger than that circle. It’s possible that one could get in, but I’ve never seen it happen. If it does, though …” He gestured to the long, thick spear he kept next to him.

“You can kill a coreling with a spear?” Arlen asked.

“Probably not,” Ragen replied, “but I’ve heard that you can stun them by pinning them against your wards.” He chuckled. “I hope I never have to find out.”

Arlen looked at him, wide-eyed.

Ragen looked back at him, his face suddenly serious. “Messaging’s dangerous work, boy,” he said.

Arlen stared at him a long time. “It would be worth it, to see the Free Cities,” he said at last. “Tell me true, what’s Fort Miln like?”

“It’s the richest and most beautiful city in the world,” Ragen replied, lifting his mail sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his forearm of a city nestled between two mountains. “The Duke’s Mines run rich with salt, metal, and coal. Its walls and rooftops are so well warded, it’s rare for the house wards to even be tested. When the sun shines on its walls, it puts the mountains themselves to shame.”

“Never seen a mountain,” Arlen said, marveling as he traced the tattoo with a finger. “My da says they’re just big hills.”