“Are they dead?” Wren asked.
“If they wake up again, no. If they don’t, yes.” At Davith’s look, he said, “Head injuries aren’t exactly precise.”
A shutter seemed to roll down over Davith’s face. “No,” the man said, in a colorless voice. “That they are not.”
Which was interesting in its own way, and Shane wished that he knew what to make of it.
“Right,” said Marguerite. “If the gods are kind, they’ll all think we went south. We’re sleeping rough tonight, I think.” She grimaced. “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.”
It did not rain, but the dew the next morning was so thick that everyone was soaked through anyway. Davith took off his shirt and wrung it out. Wren pointedly did not look at his bare torso.
Shane did, long enough to determine that Davith was not a professional fighter of any kind. While he
knew plenty of warriors who were slim rather than stocky—Galen, his fellow paladin, was built along almost identical lines—Davith’s skin was as smooth and unmarked as a fresh sheet of vellum.
Not that I should assume. He could just be supernaturally lucky. I doubt it, though.
“See something you like, paladin?” asked Davith, striking a pose.
“You don’t fight much, do you?”
“God, no!” Davith made a gesture to avert the evil eye. “I avoid it whenever possible.”
“Afraid something will happen to your face?” asked Wren sweetly.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Davith lifted his chin. “You see this nose? This nose is a sculpture.
Breaking it would be a crime against humanity.”
“It might give you character,” Shane rumbled.
“Character is how you describe a building that’s about to fall down. ‘Oh, this place has so much character.’ Then you get there and the roof’s made of two sticks and a prayer. No, thank you.”
“If you’re done showing off, put your clothes back on and let’s get moving,” said Marguerite. “I have a dream that perhaps we’ll get to Nallanford and I’ll get to sleep in a real bed. Maybe with a real pillow.”
“And sheets?” asked Wren.
“I don’t dare dream that big.”
NALLANFORD, at first sight, did not look like a place that you would find pillows, unless they were made out of rock. It appeared to be less a town than a sprawling compound inhabited by one enormous clan, a cross between a keep, a village, and a half-assembled rock pile. Many of the houses were obviously partly dug out of the ground, and what looked like mine entrances dotted the nearby hillsides. People came out of the houses to look them over, and two small children ran up as they approached.
“Be you traders?” asked the child with a clogged nostril.
“Be you minstrels?” asked the other, who had the kind of ground-in grubbiness that transcends both bathwater and parental care.
“Traders, yes,” said Marguerite. “Of a sort. Where might I find your lord?”
Nostril pointed to the largest section of rock pile. Grubby bounced. “What’ve you got to trade? Is it good?”
“That’s for your lord’s ears first,” said Davith. “Run along and tell him we’re coming, will you?”
Shane gave him a sharp look. Davith rolled his eyes. “What? The whole town will know we’re here in under five minutes. It’s not like we could hide, even if we wanted to.”
“Mmm.” Shane was forced to admit the truth of this. “Could Magnus really hide here, then?”
“Maybe,” said Marguerite. “Strangers will stick out like a sore thumb, so the Sail certainly won’t be able to sneak up on her.”
Shane glanced around the town as they walked through it. It looked prosperous enough. Most of the rock piles, on closer inspection were actually houses, with cut stone and timbers in the right places, and they looked to be in good repair. People wore good clothes, many with brightly colored scarves. Still, he was automatically suspicious of anyone that Baron Maltrevor would be inclined to trust.
It didn’t help that the valley here actually had a good amount of trees. The river running through it held several millwheels and something—perhaps the added water, perhaps the shelter from the wind
—meant that there was something resembling a wood on both slopes. Which of course meant that there might be a great many more people lurking than Shane could see.
Still, the Nallans didn’t act nervous. Visitors were clearly interesting, but not frightening. That bodes well that the Sail hasn’t gotten here first.
They followed the children to the keep, which initially looked like a walled courtyard built around a hole in the ground, with chimneys. A stoop-shouldered man, probably the castellan, came out to meet them. Shane listened to Marguerite dazzle the man with half an ear while mapping the defenses. Stubby stone towers at the courtyard’s corners didn’t rise much higher than the hill itself, but were manned by alert-looking sentries. The entrance had heavily reinforced double doors, and Shane suspected that they could withstand a siege engine. Hmm, I’d probably try to find where the air intakes are and close those off…they’re probably keeping fires burning there to draw air in…
Indeed, as they entered the doors behind the castellan, air blew down the corridor behind them, pushing them deeper inside.
The castellan led them to a side chamber, appointed as a waiting area. The furniture had more wrought-iron than wood, but was fortunately heavily padded with cushions.
“I will inform Lord Nallan that you are here,” said the castellan.
“Now,” said Marguerite, as the door closed behind him, “if I was actually a double agent and planning on betraying you, this is about when I’d do it.”
Shane and Wren looked at her with what Shane suspected were identical blank expressions.
She sighed. “Neither of you even thought of that, did you?”
“No.”
“No.”
“I did,” said Davith brightly. “What do I win?”
“You already won. You’re still alive.”
“That’s a pretty crappy prize.”
“We could always rescind it,” offered Shane.
“That joke wasn’t funny the last ten times you made it.”
“Maybe not to you.”
“Children, behave,” said Marguerite, running her hand over her face.
“He started it,” said Davith, and winked at Shane, who wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Fortunately he didn’t need to decide, because the door opened again and the castellan beckoned them through, down another corridor, to another room. The walls had been plastered and painted bright colors, but the lack of windows cast a certain gloom to the scene, particularly combined with the dark smoke stains across the ceiling.
“You will have to leave your weapons here,” said the castellan, pausing in a large alcove.
“Haven’t got any,” lied Marguerite, “unless you count an eating knife.”
“Haven’t even got that,” said Davith cheerfully.
Wren and Shane began stripping. It took a while. The castellan rocked on the balls of his feet and hummed, clearly no stranger to heavily-armed warriors with more swords than sense.