“At any rate,” said Marguerite, “there was a detour. A clearly marked detour, no less.”
“Those were arrows painted on boulders.”
“Yes. Clearly painted. And here we are. In the highlands.” Marguerite made a sweeping gesture, taking in the expanse of rolling hills, the lush grass, and the absolute lack of other humans.
It pained Shane to agree with Davith in any way, but… “Unfortunately I’m not certain where we are in relation to the rest of the highlands. And the trail seems to have stopped.”
Marguerite took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and strode out across the green hillside.
“It’ll be fine, ” she said. “We’ll find someone and ask for directions.”
IT TOOK an additional hour before they found someone. The light was starting to fade and Shane was beginning to look for anything that might work as shelter. It hadn’t rained again, thankfully, but lacking even dried sheep dung to burn, it was going to be a long night.
Davith’s insistence of asking directions of every sheep they passed wasn’t helping.
“Are you certain we need him?” Shane asked, while the other man interrogated a ewe about which side of the hill to go around.
“Theoretically, he’ll point out Sail operatives to us if he sees them,” Marguerite said, with an expression that indicated that she wasn’t certain if that was enough. “It’s his skin too, and he knows that. Davith is a jackass, but he’s not going to risk his neck out of spite.”
“I could make it look like an accident,” said Wren hopefully.
Shane just looked at her.
“An…axe-related…accident?”
“I can hear you, you know,” said Davith, returning from the unimpressed ewe. “And once you’re done plotting to kill me, you might like to know that there’s smoke coming from over thataway.”
He pointed. Shane couldn’t see it, but Wren and Marguerite evidently could. “Oh thank the Rat,”
said Marguerite. “Civilization at last.”
Civilization, in this case, turned out to be a solitary shepherd’s hut, built of the same stone as everything else, but with a heavy thatched roof. Light leaked around the edges of the shutters and under the door. As they approached through the deepening twilight, Shane first saw a pen holding a flock of sheep, then heard a dog begin to bark from inside the hut.
“Dog,” said Wren. She nodded toward the pen. “Flock protector, not the loud one.”
Shane nodded, even though the sheep were now a white blur and he had no hope of picking a dog out of the flock, unless it happened to be, say, bright pink.
“Do you think they’d be willing to put us up for the night?” asked Marguerite. “Normally I’d ask if they had space in the barn, but…” She waved her hands, encompassing the lack of anything barn-like in the vicinity.
Shane had doubts that any of the locals would be willing to put up a small band of strangers, two of whom looked extremely warlike. “It doesn’t hurt to ask,” he said, and rapped on the door.
The dog inside lost its mind. Shane was just wondering if he should knock again when the top half of the door swung partway open, revealing an old man draped in sheepskins, holding a rushlight in a metal holder.
“Eh?” the man said. Bushy eyebrows drew together over small, bright eyes. “What’s your business, strangers?”
“I apologize for disturbing you,” said Shane, in the most soothing voice he could muster. “We’ve been lost for much of the day.”
He half-expected Marguerite to step in at this point, but she didn’t. When he glanced over at her, she nodded encouragingly to him. Right. This is what I get for using the voice. Well, it wasn’t like it was the first time.
The old man lifted the rushlight, peering across the group, then back to Shane. “Lost, eh?” he said.
Shane bowed slightly. “I understand, sir, if you don’t wish to let us in. I realize how we look. But if we could impose upon you to purchase some fuel…or perhaps a hot cup of tea…”
“I would commit mortal sins for hot tea,” said Wren, which, while clearly heartfelt, probably did not put the shepherd at ease.
“Quiet!” the old man snapped. Shane immediately closed his lips on what he was going to say.
“No, not you. The dog. Quiet, you!”
The dog did not stop barking, but at least began to space the barks out somewhat. The shepherd turned back. “Came over the mountain, did you?”
“Ah…” Shane glanced back at the other three, not sure how much to reveal.
“I ain’t asking,” the man said. “You must’ve come that way because if you came t’other way, dog down the way would have gone off when you went by.”
“Ah,” said Shane again. “Yes.”
“Hmmph.” He looked across the four again. “You ain’t bandits.”
“No, we’re not,” Shane agreed.
“’Course not. I know every bandit in the hills, and they know I ain’t got nothing worth stealing but sheep. And you’d have just taken the sheep.” He reached down and unbolted the lower door. “Might as well come in and get warm.”
“Bless you,” said Marguerite, as fervently as any priest.
They tromped into the little building, which filled up rapidly with all the extra bodies. Shane stationed himself by the door. Marguerite and Davith made a bee-line for the fire. Wren tried to help the old man make tea until he told her to sit down, he wasn’t quite in the grave yet. The dog ran from one person to another, sniffing wildly, barked at Shane several times in apparent confusion, then shoved its head under Davith’s elbow until he gave in and petted its ears.
“You have no taste,” Wren told the dog.
Davith covered its ears with his hands. “Hush, you’ll hurt her feelings.” To the dog he said, “They just don’t understand our love.” The dog gazed at him adoringly and thumped its tail on the floor.
The shepherd passed around mismatched mugs filled with some brown tannic liquid that resembled tea more than it resembled anything else. The only thing that mattered was that it was hot.
Shane suppressed a hedonistic groan. Marguerite didn’t even try.
“S’pose you can stay the night,” said the shepherd. “Ain’t got blankets for the lot of you, but it’s warmer than outside.”
“We are very grateful,” said Marguerite. She paused, then gave the shepherd a disarmingly frank smile. “As you guessed, we’re not from around here. Is it acceptable to offer you money, or would it be offensive?”
Apparently elderly men were no more immune to Marguerite than anyone else. He didn’t exactly smile, but the deep lines in his face rearranged themselves in a slightly less forbidding fashion. “You go handing out money willy-nilly, some people think you’re saying they look poor. What you do if someone gives you a good turn is hand ’em a coin and ask ’em to offer a prayer for you in church.”
“Ah.” Marguerite nodded understanding and reached into her coin pouch. “So may I ask you to offer two prayers for me? One for your hospitality, and one for the good advice?”