Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion) (6 page)

He angled away from the track toward a stand of firs cut through by a frothy creek, its banks rimed in ice gone a poisoned brown from tanning wastes. The waters burbled by, taking their befouled load around Iceford, and emptying it into the River Sedge well downstream from the village. There was no sign of those he sought, so he waited.

Stiny came alone, a young boy of twelve years or less carrying a wooden bucket loaded with dung. Had it been high summer, doubtless flies would have plagued him. Now only the stench of his burden perfumed the frosty air. Short and skinny as he was, the ratty collection of moth-eaten wool he wore as a coat made him look as if he were wearing an older brother’s clothes.

Rathe glanced around. “Where are the others?”

Stiny dropped his bucket and gave a languid, one-shouldered shrug. “Berry had to go fishing with her da,” he said, speaking of the young girl with the large red wen growing on her chin. “An’ last night, Amers tried to steal a stew bone back from a bastard of a cur-dog and got bit—lost a finger, he did.” Stiny wiggled his little finger to indicate which one. “Helmund … well, he says you’re naught but a lack-witted arsehole, if you think
shadows
are after you. He wants no part.”

Rathe took no offense. “Then I take it you haven’t seen any shadows?”

“Oh, I see ‘em all the time.” Stiny rubbed a hand through his tangled nest of wheat-colored hair, making it stand up in greasy knots. “Course, they ain’t really shadows, so much as folk who think if they stay in the dark, no one will know what they’re up to.”

Rathe’s interest sharpened. “
Who?
”

Stiny bobbed his head. “Nina the cobbler’s wife, for one. She creeps out after most decent folk are abed, and then sneaks like a cat all the way across the village to Aeril’s shack—he’s a woodcutter. By all Nina’s moaning and crying when she’s there, Aeril must be a mean whoreson.”

Rathe hid a smile. Nina, the cobbler’s cuckolding wife, was of no interest to him. By Stiny’s smirk, Rathe suspected the boy also knew what Nina was up to at the woodcutter’s shack. “Nothing else?”

Stiny’s face screwed up in concentration. “Morning before last, I saw a few strangers. I’d judge they’re too stupid to be dangerous.”

Rathe was not so sure. King Nabar had put quite the reward on his head, and that much gold would tempt all manner of bounty hunters. “What did they look like?”

“Outlanders from the south, like most outlanders hereabouts. I’d guess they’re merchants.”

“Why?”

“They’re too well-fed, and their clothes are too fine, to be otherwise,” Stiny said, casting a pointed glance at Rathe’s garb.

Rathe had seen many mercenaries and men who earned their way collecting bounties. These strangers didn’t sound the sort. Likely, Stiny had the way of it.

“So, you haven’t seen anything else I should know about?”

“You mean to say
shadows
?” Stiny asked, a hint of a smile turning his lips.

“
Strange
shadows, boy, those shaped like men, but when you look at them, they vanish.”
Fear hones a man to his sharpest.
That was something the mysterious swordsman had said once, and Rathe believed it. But at Ravenhold, it was he who had put fear into the Shadowman’s heart. From what little he had gathered of the man’s ways, Rathe suspected the fellow hadn’t enjoyed the reversal. In time, he would come again.

“Shadows shaped like men?” Stiny offered another lopsided shrug. “Ain’t seen nothin’ like that. An’ the only strangers in Iceford besides merchants are you, your friends, an’ a few sailors off that accursed ship.”

The
Lamprey
had gotten a reputation for bad luck around Iceford, but Rathe was sure Captain Ostre’s troubles had nothing to do with luck, good or ill.

Rathe rummaged through his purse until he found a silver coin. It was ten times the amount he usually paid Stiny and his friends, but theirs was necessary work that he greatly valued. He held it out, and Stiny wrapped his grimy fingers around the coin with a comical look of awe.

“You’ve done well,” Rathe said.

“For this much, I s’pose I could find a man or three who’d poke a knife into any shadow that troubles you.”

Rathe went still, mind working. It took less than three heartbeats to decide how best to keep Stiny from doing something that might get his throat slit.

“Keep the coin for yourself, boy, for there’s no more coming. Forget about shadows, forget about me. You’ve done all I asked, and our arrangement is finished.”

With a final shrug, Stiny collected his dung bucket and headed toward the tannery. Looking after him, Rathe shouted, “If you see a shadow, especially one that looks like a man, you run.”

Stiny turned a little, waved a dismissive hand. “Shadows are everywhere,” he said, grinning wryly. “I’ve one, an’ so do you. Every man casts a shadow. To run from them all would make for a pair of awful tired legs.”

Rathe found himself hoping Nesaea was right about the craftiness of such children. After the boy disappeared into the tannery, Rathe made his way back through Iceford, hurrying to another appointment.

Chapter 4

Master Abyk, renowned as the finest tailor in Iceford, and a better than average armorer in a former life, used his hand to slash a few errant white hairs back from his wrinkled brow and gave his handiwork a critical glare.

Rathe had never been knowledgeable of fashion, but in his estimation, the garb Loro wore had looked better before he stretched it over his girth.

“We must start over,” Abyk said after a long consideration, and reached for a measuring string tucked into a pocket of his woolen vest.

Looking put out, Loro fingered one of six straining buckles on his new jerkin, the front and back of which were covered in burnished steel scales. Rathe decided it was best not to tell his companion that he resembled a gleaming, overfed trout.

“What did you do wrong?” Loro asked.

At Abyk’s pained look, Rathe spread his hands in sympathy. He was more than satisfied with his own clothing. It was not nearly as extravagant as Nesaea preferred, but he had been a soldier too long to change. His heavy woolen coat was red, and the shirt beneath it brown linen and plenty warm. His leather trousers and stout boots, both lined with wool, were black. Simple garb, if better than what most of the folk of Iceford wore.

“I made no mistakes,” Abyk said, scowling more fiercely than ever. “The problem isn’t with my workmanship, but with you. You’re built all wrong, and—” his forefinger circled around Loro’s prodigious belly “—and exceedingly bloated besides.”

Loro frowned as he scratched his bald head. Generally, he did the insulting. Being on the other end seemed to have fouled his mood. “Listen here, you twiggy little fool, if you want payment, then you’d better make this right.”

“How can I?” Abyk blurted, and promptly jabbed a finger into the bulge of Loro’s gut, making him retreat, eyes wide, mouth opened in shock. The tailor gave chase, every step of the way using his finger like a dagger to prod the portly warrior.

“Your arse is smaller than your belly, which forces your trousers to fall.”

Loro slapped at the man, trying to ward him off. “That’s why I have a belt, idiot!”

Another jab. “Your teats sag worse than my grandmother’s!”

“Teats!” Loro yowled, cupping his hands to his chest. “I’ve the strength of a bull!”

Another poke. “Your legs are stumpy and broad as barrels.”

“You ought to see what’s nested between them, you wilted bastard!”

Another stab, driving Loro into a corner hung with samples of cloth. “Your neck is a flabby pillar of suet.”

“It only looks bunchy because you made the collar too tight, you ham-fisted buffoon!”

This time Abyk delivered a ringing slap to the side of Loro’s skull. “Your head is like a fat, brown egg.”

“What difference does that make? I didn’t ask for a hat,” Loro growled, hauling out his sword and slashing it under the Abyk’s nose. “Now back away, or I’ll chop off that finger of yours, and stuff it up your bony arse!”

Rathe suppressed a chuckle, but chose not to intervene. Presently, Loro didn’t have that particular crazed light in his eye that signaled he was ready to cut a man’s life short.

Abyk danced back. Once he gained a safe distance, he pressed his fists to his hips, looked Loro up and down. With a sniff, he pointed a finger at Rathe. “Your companion is the picture of what you should seek to attain in yourself. He’s lean where he should be, tall and straight, and proportioned after a sculptor’s vision of an ideal hero.”

“My thanks,” Rathe said, bowing to hide a grin from Loro.

“He’s barely off his mother’s teat,” Loro countered. “Why, when I was that young, I looked the same—better, even.”

Abyk eyed him doubtfully.

“Be that as it may, heroes come in different shapes and sizes,” Loro said defensively. “Why, if it weren’t for me, Rathe wouldn’t be standing here soaking up all your sunny praise.”

“That is true,” Rathe admitted. The short of it was, Loro had a knack for showing up when the fighting was at its worst, and he never hesitated to throw himself into the thick of things.

Abyk snorted. “Even so, he’s still more of an ox than a man.”

Loro gave Rathe a bemused look, but in this Rathe could not help him. Truth told, all the fat Loro had lost trekking through the Gyntor Mountains had returned during their time in Iceford. It was not all Loro’s fault, as Fira, the fire-haired Maiden of the Lyre he had reunited with at Ravenhold, took great pains to keep him well fed.

Abyk looked to the ceiling, as if beseeching a helpful spirit stashed in the cobwebby rafters. “How does someone, even with my exceptional skill, change the unchangeable?” He dropped his gaze. “There’s nothing I can do for a … a
man-ox
, I say. Nothing at all.”

“I don’t need to suffer this horseshit,” Loro snapped, flinging a pair of silver pieces at the tailor and heading for the door. “Come along, Rathe, unless you want to hear more of this wrinkled bastard’s tripe.”

After retrieving his earnings off the floor, Abyk straightened. “If you want miracles,” he called after Loro, “then speak to the gods. Otherwise, find a curtain to wrap yourself in—better yet, a tapestry!”

“Piss on you, your gods, and your drapery!” Loro slammed open the shop door and strode out.

“You must overlook his manners,” Rathe said. “Loro doesn’t look it, but he’s
sensitive
.”

Abyk folded his arms across his chest and answered with a disparaging grunt.

Outside, the sun had dropped behind the rooftops, and the air was growing chillier by the moment. With most of the day’s chores ended, the villagers had retired to their homes to prepare supper. Rathe’s belly growled at the scents of roasting meat and baking bread. Alert as always for any indication of trouble, he was able to ignore his hunger.

Loro had no such mastery, and he made straight for an open-sided tent set up on the stoop of a butcher’s shop. “Master Kato!” he bawled.

Kato the butcher, caught in the final acts of packing up for the evening, glanced up from a huge cast iron brazier. A lonely haunch of roasted meat hung from a spit over the brazier’s ruddy coals.

“My friends!” the man called, offering Rathe and Loro a toothy grin. He was a huge man, easily twice Loro’s girth and several hands taller, with a mane of greasy brown hair that fell well below his sloping shoulders. “I feared you’d sailed without saying farewell.”

“Never think it, Kato,” Loro admonished, eyeing the spitted meat. “You’re the only merchant in this blasted town I enjoy seeing.”

Kato eyed Rathe and Loro’s new clothes. “You went to see Abyk, didn’t you, even after I warned you against it?”

“Aye,” Loro said ruefully.

“Ah, well, he’s the best tailor in Iceford, so what choice did you have?” Kato put on a broader grin than before. “Here, I’ve something special for you.” He took hold of a cleaver roughly the size of a battle-axe, and began sawing the haunch of spitted meat.

“What is it?” Loro asked, an eager gleam in his eyes.

“Bear seared in a blackberry glaze,” Kato said, thrusting the dripping meat into Loro’s waiting hand.

Loro took a bite, and his eyes widened in ecstasy. “Food fit for gods! Have some, Rathe.”

Seeing the clotted purple smears on Loro’s chin, Rathe declined. “Alas,” he said to Kato, who had already hacked off another chunk of meat, “I’ve already eaten.”

Kato’s grin never faltered. “I’ll wrap it for you,” he said, slapping the meat onto a square of cheesecloth. “’Tis just as tasty when cold.”

While Loro gobbled his food, Rathe fished a few coppers from his coin purse, and dropped them into Kato’s waiting hand.

“I’ll take that,” Loro said, snatching the packet of meat from the vendor.

“Just so!” Kato said, chuckling. “Just so! Be sure to come back on the morrow for my frost leopard stew.”

Loro made his promises, and they left a whistling Kato to his tasks.

As they walked along the quiet street, Loro licked his fingers clean. “Much as I appreciate Kato’s skill, I hope to find that Captain Ostre has his ship in order. I was ready to sail from Iceford a week ago. Too cold in these parts for our southern blood.”