I frowned, disliking his inference. Brydda caught my expression and misinterpreted it. "I am sorry. I have no right to question you. But I am only concerned. Perhaps you don't realize ..."
"It is you who doesn't realize," I interrupted him gently. "We undertake rescues to bring Talented Misfits to Obernewtyn where they will be safe, but that does not mean we callously ignore the plight of all others. There are many we have helped escape the soldierguards, who were not Talented, and others who were not Misfits at all, but simply ordinary Landfolk in need. We don't see ourselves as a race apart, as the gypsies seem to. We are people, even as you are; even as the Councilmen and soldierguards are, for all they behave as if they are cousins to Lud. We think of ourselves as normal human beings and we want others to think of us in that way too."
Brydda looked ill at ease. "I was only concerned that you risked yourself for one who will not show gratitude."
"I hope you are wrong," I said, "but I did not do it for gratitude."
We rode into the yard, dismounting to the squeak of leather and the jingle of metal buckles on the harness. There was a coolness between us. I felt Brydda blamed me for failing to farseek the slave supplier, and I was disturbed more than I liked by the big rebel's words about gypsies.
When the horses were released into the grassy holding yard, Brydda bade them thanks in his finger signs, saying aloud to me that he would not come up. "Reuvan expects me back by sunrise and it is moments away. Where are the drugged Councilfarm workers being kept?"
I told him the cellar's location that I had taken from the thoughts of Evan Bollange.
"I will return tomorrow night," the big man said. "Let us hope Daffyd has come by then with some news for us."
As I watched him stride away, a cat yowled forlornly some streets away, startling me. I thought of Maruman again, and farsought him with an attuned probe.
It did not locate him.
There could be any number of reasons for that. I knew the cat's mind as well as my own, but if he had fallen into one of his mad states, his mind would change its shape, rendering him as good as invisible to a probe which was specifically shaped to his sane mind. Or he might be sleeping or prowling over tainted ground or water.
Or he might be in trouble.
The early morning chill seemed to have seeped into my bones as I farsent Gahltha and Jaygar, asking if they had seen the battered old cat leave the safe house. They had not.
I cursed myself for not watching him more closely.
"What could/would you have done?" Gahltha farsent gently. "The yelloweyes wanders where he wills."
There was truth in that.
Instinctively I glanced up, seeking the pitted face of the moon. Maruman had always attributed his darkest foresight to it, and I had come to see it as a bad omen too. As if summoned by my thoughts, the moon suddenly sailed clear of me clouds.
I felt a mindless rush of fright at the sight of it glaring down on me like the eye of some unearthly hunter. But even as I laughed at my melodramatic imagination, I felt oddly unsettled, and it took me a long time to sleep.
I woke just before midday.
Gray daylight streamed in through the sky windows of the safe house sleeping chamber, but there was no warmth in it. I stretched under the covers, then sat up reluctantly, reaching for my robe. Ariel's face came into my mind, and I froze in the act of climbing out of me bed, remembering that I had dreamed of him.
We had been in the stone tunnel again.
The stone tunnel was a recurrent image from my dreams and once I had asked Maryon what it could mean. She had replied that it was either a place where I would one day go, or it represented me or some aspect of me.
I belted the robe, letting the dream flow back into my mind. This time, instead of pursuing me with a knife or some other horror, Ariel had been walking beside me, his hand nestled in mine, small but very cold. He had smiled up at me as we came to the part of the tunnel where the doors of Obernewtyn flamed.
With the strange logic of dreams, it had seemed perfectly reasonable to me that the doors I had commanded be burned, should exist here.
"Why did you burn them?" the dream Ariel had asked in his piping, eager voice. His eyes had seemed to bore into mine with hypnotic intensity.
"Because there was a map carved into the design," I had answered. "I did not want anyone to find it."
This was the truth. Everyone at Obernewtyn believed the doors had been burned to free the inlaid gold in the design so that we could make guildleaders' armbands from it. But my true object had been to destroy the hidden map carved into the doors, which showed the location of a cache of Beforetime weaponmachines.
Louis Larkin had once told me that he remembered, as a boy, hearing Marisa Seraphim purchase the great doors. She was long dead now, but there was a painting of her at Obernewtyn. She had been very beautiful but everything in the picture spoke of her brilliance and will, and nothing of her heart. Her diaries had revealed a woman as clever and ruthless as a teknoguilder without soul.
In the dream Ariel's face had possessed that same brilliant, soulless quality, as he moved forward to peer at the doors.
Drawing on my slippers, I wondered what it meant that Ariel asked such questions in my dreams. I had the powerful feeling that he had asked something more, but I could not recall what or if I had answered. The questions had ended when I had heard Gahltha's cool mental voice calling my name. He had emerged from the shadows behind me in the tunnel, dark and even more magnificent than in life.
"Ride on me," his mind spoke to mine.
I had responded instinctively, vaulting onto his back. We had ridden a road which led eerily up into the clouds and the sky, leaving Ariel and the dreamcave far below. We had ridden impossibly high, until Gahltha sent to me that he was unable to go further. Before I could say it did not matter, he bucked violently, sending me flying up like a stone from a catapault.
I had screamed in fear, but all at once an Agyllian bird flew beneath me. I clutched convulsively at the warm feathers and thin bones.
I had thought the bird was Atthis, except the Eldar was blind and too small to bear me. This bird was pure white, rather than red and enormous like the Agyllians.
"Things bear their spirit shapes on the dreamtrails," a voice had whispered, but so faintly I could not tell whose it was. The bird bore me silently ever up and out, through a swirling rainbow of color and light that ended only when I awoke.
It had been a peculiar dream. Not an ashling, for all its vividness; perhaps no more than the distorted summation of a long day of turmoil. Even so, it was hard to throw off.
I took refuge in practicalities. A swift farseeking scan told me Matthew and Kella were busy shifting the boxes from the rig back into the safe house. There was no sign, yet, of Daffyd. Or, indeed, of Maruman.
I gathered up my clothing, careful not to waken Dragon who was still sound asleep. I crept from the room and padded along the hallway to the bathing chamber to splash my face and neck before dressing.
My eyes looked out of the mirror at me, bloodshot but alert. That was when I realized with horror that I had done nothing about the mental barrier I had set up to catch the pain of the whipping in the market. I knew better than any, the danger of allowing too much pain to build up for, when freed, it had an accumulative impact—the pain from simple leg cramp left for too long could become a crippling agony.
My heart thumped with apprehension as I began carefully to dismantle the barrier. I went very slowly, so as not to flood my senses with too much of the stockpiled pain at once. It was always difficult to regulate the flow.
To my surprise, nothing at all leaked out of the minute gap I had made. Puzzled, I removed the barrier completely, but there was not even a slight ache waiting to be endured.
My face looked out at me from the mirror, blank with astonishment. Stored pain could not be released without my experiencing it, so what had happened? Had the herbal ointment Maire had applied to the wounds somehow absorbed or
counteracted the pain? Or had I dismantled the barrier and endured the pain in my sleep? A pain barrier could split open of its own accord, though it happened rarely. But it was hard to imagine anyone sleeping through it.
On the other hand, it might explain the queerness of my dreams and the sluggishness that had filled me on waking.
Well, I had no complaint if that had been the case. I wished it would always be so easy. Trapped pain was more severe than in its raw form because it was concentrated. Letting it loose deliberately required a large dollop of mental discipline. Relieved to have been let off so lightly, I decided not to push my luck and disturb Maire's bandages. Instead, I simply put a clean shirt on and went to the kitchen.
Over a late firstmeal, I told Matthew and Kella what had happened in the meeting with the slave supplier.
Not unexpectedly, Kella disapproved. As a healer she did not accept the notion of revenge. To my surprise, Matthew also chided me.
"Ye know Rushton would nowt approve. An' ye should at least have let me know where ye was goin'."
This caution was so unlike the farseeker that I stared at him.
His eyes fell away from mine, but I caught a swiftly shielded memory of Dragon with her arms about the two children in the market. This Dragon was not the dirty urchin Matthew usually saw when he looked at the empath-coercer. She was older and her eyes shone with courage. In its own way, it was no more a true picture of her than the old one had been, but at least it was no longer derogatory.
Matthew had always peopled the world with villains and heroes, and his head was stuffed full of wild scenes of courage and drama. It had been so, for as long as I had known him. The fleeting and idealized memory of Dragon defending the children suggested her mad-headed bravery in trying to protect them had forced a change in his attitude to her. Clearly, he was finding that confusing enough to distort his other cherished attitudes. Well, it was about time he began to realize that life was not all perfect heroes and heroines and undiluted quests for good.
Domick arrived during midmeal. He was unsurprised to hear about my encounter with Daffyd, saying only that he had expected the armsman to turn up sooner or later. He had come to tell me that the search for the renegade gypsies had been shifted to Rangorn. "There is a rumor that you were sighted up that way and three troops of soldier-guards have been despatched to search the area."
That explained the absence of soldierguards on the street that morning. I was impressed. The gypsy who had rescued me from the whipping might be arrogant and conceited, but he had said he would get the soldierguards out of the city, and he had done it.
Even so, I could not help being puzzled by the scale of the search, and I said so.
"It can be no great grief to the Council that soldierguards died in Guanette or even that we escaped with a half-dead gypsy woman. From what I heard at the inn the other night, there are plenty of men ready to take up the yellow cloak for a few coins. What does it matter that one gypsy escapes the fire? Or that one Herder dies?"
"Th' Council mun have some reason fer orderin' a sizable search," Matthew said.
The coercer shrugged. "If they ordered it. The soldier-guards may have done it on their own. They have the power, and given that some of their men were killed in Guanette, they might want revenge."
"Rank-and-file soldierguards are a mercenary lot," I disagreed. "They fight for coin, not for justice or loyalty to their fellows. I cannot see it troubling them that a soldier-guard or two died. They would simply give thanks to Lud that it had not been them."
"I think you are making too much of the number of soldierguards sent out," Domick said impatiently. "You said yourself they are recruiting more soldierguards—they may simply be using this search as a training exercise."
I refused to be soothed. "I want you to find out who set the search in motion, and why it is so large." I thought of something else. "You might also look into the Council's relationship with the Faction since the plagues. Yesterday I overheard a soldierguard talk of secret rewards offered by the Faction for information that could be used to discredit the Twentyfamilies gypsies.... "
"There are always rumors of rewards," the coercer said dismissively. "The soldierguard captains start them half the time. They are nothing more than that—rumors aimed at getting information from dolts who imagine they will get something for their troubles. But the size of the search may be the Herders' doing. The fact that gypsies killed one of their people would enrage them and they might be putting pressure on the Council to strengthen the search."
Especially if they believe a Twentyfamilies gypsy was involved, I thought. If they could prove that, it would destroy the accord.
"I want you to find out for sure whose doing it is," I said firmly. "And where the coin is coming from to recruit all of these soldierguards. I heard a soldierguard say the Faction is going to fund a war against Sador. If the Herders are splashing bribe coin about, we must know from whence it comes."
Domick snorted scornfully. "How would the Faction have coin for bribes or to finance wars? They might well be using their renewed power with the people since the plagues to force the Council to organize a search. But what coin they have is extorted from their congregations. It would not be enough to bribe one soldierguard let alone a captain. You make too much of this and worry where there is no need. The search is concentrated on Rangorn, as I told you, so what does it matter? They will not find you there."
There was an arrogance to Domick's surmising that dismayed me. Yet, he might be right that I was overreacting. After all, how much did they know that would hurt us?
In Guanette, two gypsy halfbreeds had helped another escape a burning, killing two soldierguards and a Herder. Violent, perhaps, but not unheard of. And in a Sutrium market, a young girl had leapt to the defense of two frightened children. Unlikely, but not impossible.
My intervention on Gahltha at the market was less explicable. If only Matthew had not been seen taking Dragon, Gahltha's fit might have been judged coincidental, but we had obviously helped Dragon escape. Two gypsies helping a Landgirl was definitely odd and putting this together with the Guanette fracas and my whipping, I could see why someone might begin to wonder about gypsies; why a larger than usual number of soldierguards might be sent out. But since there had been no obvious use of Misfit powers on any of the three occasions, it must be seen as a mystery relating to gypsies, not Talented Misfits.
After the meal, the coercer returned to the Councilcourt, and Matthew accepted Kella's offer to learn how to bake bread. I had made up my mind to take the gypsy woman to Maire at dusk, when the world was shadowy and people were too busy going home and getting their supper to pay much attention to anyone else. That would allow me to arrive at the gypsy green right on dark, as Maire had suggested. I decided to spend the afternoon trimming the horses' hoofs and reshoeing them. This was done whenever we came to the city, for it was the only time horses were forced to walk on stones and cobbles. In the mountains they had no need of metal shoes.
The afternoon shadows were long, striping the yard, when I hammered the last nail into the last shoe and stretched the taut muscles in my back. I took a comb and began to smooth Jaygar's tangled mane, thinking again of the way the soldierguard captain had looked at Dragon. Domick's underthoughts had suggested I imagined that knowing expression. Instead of feeling indignant, I began to wonder about his carelessness in shielding his thoughts. I hoped this new sloppiness did not manifest itself during the time he spent at the Councilcourt.
I would let Rushton make the final decision whether to bring Domick in. Regardless of his usefulness as a spy, my own instinct said we ought to bring him back to Ob-ernewtyn. Surely, with Domick's inside knowledge, someone else might be insinuated in his place. It would be wise to have someone else trained, just in case something ever went wrong.
For a second I had a remarkably vivid vision of the coercer lying slumped in a Councilcourt cell, hair long and matted, his body covered in sores and filth. I thrust the revolting
image from me and made the warding-off sign, for I believed as Maryon did, that things could be made to happen by thinking of them too much.
I finished the roan's mane, acknowledged his thanks and turned to Gahltha, my thoughts circling back to Maruman, and the hazy look in his eye.
Was he wandering, mindless, in Sutrium? Again, I wondered if I should have restrained him for his own good? Since I loved him, hadn't I the right to stop him from harming himself?
With something of a shock it occurred to me that this was the sort of thinking that had caused Gahltha to try to stop me helping the little mare, Faraf. And which had once caused Rushton to forbid me to go on dangerous expeditions.
I would never exchange safety for freedom, I thought, regardless of the danger. I had the right to risk my life as I chose.
"Truly danger is part of freedom/freerunning," Gahltha sent unexpectedly, sounding as if the thought startled him. "It is easy to forget this when it is not us/me."
The equine's aslant way of using his mental abilities had allowed him to bypass my shield and hear my deepthoughts because we were in physical contact. I had forgotten for the moment, but was not annoyed. We had grown much closer than the wall of formality Gahltha erected between us implied.
"It's easy to have one rule for others and another for myself but there's no honor in such double standards," I sent mildly.
"Honor?" Gahltha snorted. "That is a littleword for a great thing. Funaga have freerunning thoughts. But instead of admiring/joying in them, you would cagethem with words. Some things will not be tamed to words."
I smiled a little, thinking to myself how Maryon and her futuretellers, or Dameon in his most reflective mood, delighted in such complex ethical and moral discussions as this. They never tried to come up with a final answer. For them the reason for such a mental journey was in the wordy road traveled.