Rise Of Empire (22 page)

“You need to tie it tighter and use a flat knot.”

“That’s two suggestions. Thanks, but I think it’ll be fine.”

He reached up and pulled on the saddle’s horn. The saddle easily slid off and came to rest between the horse’s legs.

“But it
was
tight.”

“I’m sure it was.” Hadrian pulled the saddle back up and undid the knot. “People think horses are stupid—dumb animals, they call them—but they’re not. This one, for instance, just out-smarted the Princess of Melengar.” He pulled the saddle off, folded the blanket over, and returned the saddle to the animal’s back. “You see, horses don’t like to have a saddle bound around their chest any more than I suspect you enjoy being trussed up in a corset. The looser, the better, they figure, because they don’t really mind if you slide off.” He looped the leather strap through the ring in the cinch and pulled it tight. “So what she’s doing right now is holding her breath, expanding her chest and waiting for me to tie the saddle on. When she exhales, it’ll be loose. Thing is, I know this. I also know she can’t hold her breath forever.” He waited with two hands on the strap, and the moment the mare exhaled, he pulled, gaining a full four inches. “See?”

She watched as he looped the strap across, then through and down, making a flat knot that laid comfortably against
the horse’s side. “Okay, I admit it. This is the first time I’ve saddled a horse,” she confessed.

“And you’re doing wonderfully,” he mocked.

“You are aware I can have you imprisoned for life, right?”

Royce and Etcher entered the barn. The younger thief grabbed his horse and left without a word.

“Friendly sorts, those Diamonds are,” Hadrian observed.

“Cosmos seemed hospitable,” Arista pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’s how you might expect a spider to talk to a fly as she wraps him up.”

“What an interesting metaphor,” Arista noted. “You could have a future in politics, Hadrian.”

He glanced at Royce. “We never considered that as one of the options.”

“I’m not sure how it differs from acting.”

“He never likes my ideas,” Hadrian told her, then turned his attention back to Royce. “Where to now?”

“Hintindar,” Royce replied.

“Hintindar? Are you serious?”

“It’s out of the way and a good place to disappear for a while. Problem?”

Hadrian narrowed his eyes. “You know darn well there’s a problem.”

“What’s wrong?” Arista asked.

“I was born in Hintindar.”

“I’ve already told Etcher that’s where we’ll wait for him,” Royce said. “Nothing we can do about it now.”

“But Hintindar is just a tiny manorial village—some farms and trade shops. There’s no place to stay.”

“Even better. After Colnora, lodging in a public house might not be too smart. There must be a few people there that still know you. I’m sure someone will lend a hand and put us up for a while. We need to go somewhere off the beaten track.”

“You don’t honestly think anyone is still following us. I know the empire would want to stop Arista from reaching Gaunt, but I doubt anybody recognized her in Colnora—at least no one still alive.”

Royce did not answer.

“Royce?”

“I’m just playing it safe,” he snapped.

“Royce? What did Cosmos mean back there about you not being the only ex-Diamond in Warric? What was that talk of ghosts all about?” Royce remained silent. Hadrian glared at him. “I came along as a favor to you, but if you’re going to keep secrets …”

Royce relented. “It’s probably nothing, but then again—Merrick could be after us.”

Hadrian lost his look of irritation and replied with a simple, “Oh.”

“Anyone going to tell me who Merrick is?” Arista asked. “Or why Hadrian doesn’t want to go home?”

“I didn’t leave under the best of circumstances,” Hadrian answered, “and haven’t been back in a long time.”

“And Merrick?”

“Merrick Marius, also known as Cutter, was Royce’s friend once. They were members of the Diamond together, but they …” He glanced at Royce. “Well, let’s just say they had a falling out.”

“So?”

Hadrian waited for Royce to speak and, when he did not, answered for him. “It’s a long story, but the gist of the matter is that Merrick and Royce seriously don’t get along.” He paused, then added, “Merrick is an awful lot like Royce.”

Arista continued to stare at Hadrian until the revelation dawned on her.

“Still, that doesn’t mean Merrick is after us,” Hadrian
went on. “It’s been a long time, right? Why would he bother with you now?”

“He’s working for the empire,” Royce said. “That’s what Cosmos meant. And if there’s an imperial mole in the Diamond, Merrick knows all about us by now. Even if there isn’t a spy, Merrick could still find out about us from the Diamond. There are plenty who think of him as a hero for sending me to Manzant. I’m the evil one in their eyes.”

“You were in Manzant?” Arista asked, stunned.

“It’s not something he likes to talk about.” Hadrian again answered for him. “So if Merrick is after us, what do we do?”

“What we always do,” Royce replied, “only better.”

The village of Hintindar lay nestled in a small sheltered river valley surrounded by gentle hills. A patchwork of six cultivated fields, outlined by hedgerows and majestic stands of oak and ash, decorated the landscape in a crop mosaic. Horizontal lines of mounded green marked three of the fields with furrows, sown in strips, to hold the runoff. Animals grazed in the fourth field and the fifth was cut for hay. The last field lay fallow. Young women were in the fields, cutting flax and stuffing it in sacks thrown over their shoulders, while men weeded crops and threw up hay.

The center of the village clustered along the main road near a little river, a tributary of the Bernum. Wood, stone, and wattle-and-daub buildings with shake or grass-thatched roofs lined the road, beginning just past the wooden bridge and ending halfway up the hillside toward the manor house. Between them were a variety of shops. From several buildings smoke rose, the blackest of which came from the smithy. Their horses announced their arrival with a loud hollow
clop clip
clop
as they crossed the bridge. Heads turned, each villager nudging the next, fingers pointing in their direction. Those they passed stopped what they were doing to follow, keeping a safe distance.

“Good afternoon,” Hadrian offered, but no one replied. No one smiled.

Some whispered in the shelter of doorways. Mothers pulled children inside and men picked up pitchforks or axes.

“This is where
you
grew up?” Arista whispered to Hadrian. “Somehow it seems more like how I would imagine Royce’s hometown to be.”

This brought a look from Royce.

“They don’t get too many travelers here,” Hadrian explained.

“I can see why.”

They passed the mill, where a great wooden wheel turned with the power of the river. The town also had a leatherworker’s shop, a candlemaker, a weaver, and even a shoemaker. They were halfway up the road when they reached the brewer.

A heavyset matron with gray hair and a hooked nose worked outside beside a boiling vat next to a stand of large wooden casks. She watched their slow approach, then walked to the middle of the road, wiping her hands on a soiled rag.

“That’ll be fer enough,” she told them with a heavy south-province accent.

She wore a stained apron tied around her shapeless dress and a kerchief tied over her head. Her feet were bare and her face was covered in dirt and sweat.

“Who are ya and what’s yer business here? And be quick afore the hue and cry is called and yer carried to the bailiff. We don’t stand fer troublemakers here.”

“Hue and cry?” Arista softly asked.

Hadrian looked over. “It’s an alarm that everyone in the
village responds to. Not a pretty sight.” His eyes narrowed as he studied the woman. Then he slowly dismounted.

The woman took a step back and grabbed hold of a mallet used to tap the kegs. “I said I’d call the hue and cry and I meant it!”

Hadrian handed his reins to Royce and walked over to her. “If I remember correctly,
you
were the biggest troublemaker in the village, Armigil, and in close to twenty years, it doesn’t seem much has changed.”

The woman looked surprised, then suspicious. “Haddy?” she said in disbelief. “That can’t be, can it?”

Hadrian chuckled. “No one’s called me Haddy in years.”

“Dear Maribor, how you’ve grown, lad!” When the shock wore off, she set the mallet down and turned to the spectators now lining the road. “This here is Haddy Blackwater, the son of Danbury the smithy, come back home.”

“How are you, Armigil?” Hadrian said with a broad smile, stepping forward to greet her.

She replied by making a fist and punching him hard in the jaw. She had put all her weight into it, and winced, shaking her hand in pain. “Oww! Damned if ya haven’t got a hard bloody jaw!”

“Why did you hit me?” Hadrian held his chin, stunned.

“That’s fer running out on yer father and leaving him to die alone. I’ve been waiting to do that fer nearly twenty years.”

Hadrian licked blood from his lip and scowled.

“Oh, get over it, ya baby! An’ ya better keep yer eyes out fer more round here. Danbury was a damn fine man and ya broke his heart the day ya left.”

Hadrian continued to massage his jaw.

Armigil rolled her eyes. “Come here,” she ordered, and grabbed hold of his face. Hadrian flinched as she examined him. “Yer fine, for Maribor’s sake. Honestly, I thought yer
father made ya tougher than that. If I had a sword in me hand, yer shoulders would have less of a burden to carry, and the wee ones would have a new ball to kick around, eh? Here, let me get ya a mug of ale. This batch came of age this morning. That’ll take the sting out of a warm welcome, it will.”

She walked to a large cask, filled a wooden cup with a dark amber draft, and handed it to him.

Hadrian looked at the drink dubiously. “How many times have you filtered this?”

“Three,” she said unconvincingly.

“Has His Lordship’s taster passed this?”

“Of course not, ya dern fool. I just told ya it got done fermenting this morning. Brewed it day afore yesterday, I did, a nice two days in the keg. Most of the sediment ought to have settled and it should have a nice kick by now.”

“Just don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“I ain’t selling it to ya, now am I? So drink it and shut up or I’ll hit ya again for being daft.”

“Haddy? Is it really you?” A thin man about Hadrian’s age approached. He had shoulder-length blond hair and a soft doughy face. He was dressed in a worn gray tunic and a faded green cowl, his feet wrapped in cloth up to his knees. A light brown dust covered him as if he had been burrowing through a sand hill.

“Dunstan?”

The man nodded and the two embraced, clapping each other on the shoulders. Wherever Hadrian patted Dunstan, a puff of brown powder arose, leaving the two in a little cloud.

“You used to live here?” a little girl from the gathering crowd asked, and Hadrian nodded. This touched off a wave of conversations among those gathering in the street. More people rushed over and Hadrian was enveloped in their midst. Eventually he was able to get a word in and motioned toward Royce and Arista.

“Everyone, this is my friend Mr. Everton and his wife, Erma.”

Arista and Royce exchanged glances.

“Vince, Erma, this is the village brew mistress, Armigil, and Dunstan here is the baker’s son.”

“Just the baker, Haddy. Dad’s been dead five years now.”

“Oh—sorry to hear that, Dun. I’ve nothing but fond memories of trying to steal bread from his ovens.”

Dunstan looked at Royce. “Haddy and I were best friends when he lived here—until he disappeared,” he said with a note of bitterness.

“Will I have to endure a swing from you too?” Hadrian feigned fear.

“You should, but I remember all too well the last time I fought you.”

Hadrian grinned wickedly as Dunstan scowled back.