“With the what?” The old woman stared up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
“Beggars making odd trades? Did your grandchildren trade with them?”
“I don’t know what yer talking about! Just leave me alone.”
“Here now, don’t be badgering her about such things!” a fat man called from his own hovel across the path. Heaving himself up from the crate he’d been sitting on, he stumped over to join them. “Can’t you see she’s mourning? Leave her be with your foolish questions!” the man growled, aiming a kick at Seregil.
Seregil grunted in pain and sprang to his feet. “Apologies to you both. Maker’s Mercy, old mother, and the Old Sailor’s peace.”
* * *
Frustrated and hungry, they sat on the end of a broken-down wagon with the bread and sausage they’d brought, not wanting to chance eating anything they’d find here.
“It’s like looking for one particular frog in Blackwater Marsh,” Alec muttered. “We’ve got trades with no deaths and deaths with no trades, and no sign of any raven people. It’s almost three days now, for Myrhichia.”
“We still have plenty of daylight left.”
A handful of ragged, hungry little children sidled up to them and Seregil threw the remains of his food to them. With a sigh, Alec did the same and after a brief squabble the children scampered away, the losers pursuing the ones with the spoils.
One little girl in a ragged grey shift lingered behind. After a moment, she cautiously approached them and looked Seregil boldly in the eye as she held up her short brown braid. The end of it looked newly trimmed. “Trade?”
“Hello, little bird. Did someone trade you for your hair?” asked Seregil.
“Ain’t you raven folk?” she asked, taking a step back.
“No, but we’re looking for them,” said Alec. “You’ve traded with them?”
The child stood on one bare foot with a finger in her mouth as she eyed them. “I’ll tell you for a penny.”
Grinning, Alec snatched a penny out of thin air and held it out to her.
“Toss it,” she said, unimpressed with his sleight of hand.
Cagey even at this age, he thought as he flipped it to her.
She snatched it and hid it away in a pocket of her dingy dress. “I seen the old lady yesterday. She traded me this.” Digging in her pocket, she showed them a tiny cat cunningly carved from bone.
“Did you give her some of your hair?” asked Alec.
She sucked her finger again and nodded.
“When, little bird?” asked Seregil.
The girl shrugged.
“Do you know where we could find her today?” Alec prompted.
“I’ll show you, for ’nother penny.”
Alec produced another one and tossed it to her. “You drive a hard bargain, miss.”
Satisfied, she motioned for them to follow her and led them farther into the makeshift village.
“We need that carving,” Alec whispered.
“I know,” Seregil murmured back. “We’ll buy it from her once she’s shown us where to find the old woman.”
Smoke curled low over the rooftops, defeated by the mist, and the smell of horse-dung fires and poverty hung heavy on the air. The paths had been trodden to mire, and they sank to their ankles in places.
They were nearly to the outer wall, passing between two rude shacks, when a pair of swordsmen stepped around a corner and blocked their way. Four more moved in behind them, trapping them. The girl scampered over to one of them in front of Seregil and hid behind his leg, lisping, “I brung some, Papa.”
“Good girl. Run home,” the man said, never taking his eyes off his supposed victims. “Now then, boys, you’re strangers here. We don’t much like strangers, ’less they have the money for our toll.”
“How much would that be?” Seregil asked.
That made the others laugh.
“Whatever you got, stranger,” one of them in back said, stepping toward Alec. Perhaps he took him for the weaker of the prey, because of his bandaged eye.
Alec soon disabused him of that notion. He threw back his cloak and drew his sword. “Come see for yourself.”
Seregil drew his sword and stood back-to-back with Alec, facing the men in front of them. “I don’t much care for the hospitality here.”
“Me neither,” said Alec. “And here I was hoping we’d get through the day without killing anyone.”
The leader smirked at that. “Can’t ya count, you raggedy bastard? You’re outmanned.”
“I don’t see us walking away, even if we do pay yer toll, you ugly son of a whore,” Seregil replied. “So I’d just as soon keep my purse, if it’s all the same to you.”
The leader’s smirk widened. “Suit yourself, then.
With that, he lunged at Seregil while two other men at Alec’s end closed on him.
Clearly the ambushers had chosen this spot on purpose; there was enough room to swing a sword, but no way for their victims to get past them. Seregil heard the clash of blades behind him as he met the man’s attack and blocked his swing. Springing back, he had just time enough to pull his poniard from the back of his belt before the man and another came at him. They worked like wolves, one trying to distract him so the other could get under his guard. Seregil managed to block them both, but realized that it wasn’t common brigands they were dealing with. These men fought like soldiers, fearlessly pressing their attack. Seregil beat them back and glanced back at Alec, who was holding his own against a big man while the others stood back and cheered their fellow on.
“What was your regiment?” Seregil asked his attackers, poised to strike.
That won him a look of surprise. “What’s that to you?” the leader growled.
“I don’t fancy killing fellow veterans, is all,” Seregil told him. Alec was still fighting behind him, and Seregil heard someone go down.
“Eagle. You?”
“Queen’s Horse,” Seregil lied, since he knew Beka Cavish’s regiment the best.
“You don’t have a rider’s stance,” the man scoffed.
“That’s what they said when they cashiered me, but that don’t make it not so.”
Thinking Seregil off his guard, the leader’s second came after him, slashing at his belly. Seregil narrowly sidestepped disembowelment, caught the man’s blade on his quillon, and drove the poniard’s thin three-sided blade deep between his ribs and up into his heart. He jumped back again as the dying man collapsed with a surprised look on his face.
“You bastard!” the leader snarled, coming at Seregil in earnest this time, having the measure of his foe now. He was skilled, and drove Seregil back with brute force until he nearly collided with Alec. Seregil stepped awkwardly, lost his footing in the mud and went down, still clutching his sword. Before he could raise it, the man came at him with a killing blow, only to be struck in the side of the head by Alec, who quickly wrenched his blade free of the skull and whirled back in time to run a man through.
The dying man collapsed without a sound on top of Seregil, knocking the breath out of him and impaling himself awkwardly on Seregil’s upraised blade in the process. Heaving the man off, Seregil rolled to his knees in time to miss being skewered by the third man on his side. The fellow overreached and Seregil got past his guard and stabbed him through the heart, getting a face full of blood for his trouble.
Scrambling to his feet, he wiped it from his eyes, pulled his sword from the body at his feet, and turned to help Alec.
Two others already lay in the mud in front of the younger man. Years of practice against the likes of Seregil and Micum Cavish had made a good swordsman of him, very nearly Seregil’s equal these days. But he was still fighting two at once and being driven back. Beyond them, more men were coming, attracted by the sound of the fight.
“Shit!” Seregil hissed between clenched teeth. “Run!”
And they ran, as fast as the mud allowed. They were both good at this, too. Dodging nimbly between shacks at random, they q
uickly left their pursuers behind.
“Bilairy’s Balls!” Alec gasped as they took cover in a deserted shanty and collapsed side by side against a wall, panting. Looking Seregil over, he let out a short laugh. “You’re a mess.”
Indeed he was, covered in mud and blood, and Alec wasn’t much better. Seregil wiped his hands on his muddy jerkin in a futile effort to clean off the worst of it. Alec had managed to avoid the mud, but his left shoulder was covered in blood. Blood that was running down to stain the arm of his filthy tunic. Too much of it.
Seregil pulled the oilskin cloak away from Alec’s shoulder and found the sleeve of his tunic cut open just below the seam, along with the flesh underneath. It was a shallow cut, fortunately, but it was still bleeding.
“It’s just a scratch, Seregil.”
“A bleeding scratch. Come on.”
The cleanest thing they had for a bandage was the scarf holding down Seregil’s hat. Somehow that had stayed free of mud. Seregil wrapped it tightly around Alec’s arm and tied it. “That takes care of that, but you’re still a bloody mess.”
“I’m fine,” Alec insisted, standing up. “As long as I keep my cloak on, no one will see. You, on the other hand—”
“Look like I live here now.” Seregil ripped a piece from the tail of his shirt to try to wipe away the worst of it.
They hunted a few hours more, but had no luck. As shadows began to lengthen across the slum they made their way back to the gate and headed for the Stag and Otter.
Ema and Tomin were in the steamy kitchen, helping the girls get the evening meal ready.
“I just scrubbed that floor!” Ema complained as they came in, dripping rain and mud.
“Sorry.” Seregil untied his cloak and tossed it onto the woodpile by the door.
“What happened to—” Tomin broke off, knowing better than to ask any questions. “Do you want the tub filled?”
“The sooner, the better!” Seregil exclaimed wearily, pulling off his sodden, cracked old shoes. “Alec, you stay here and have Tomin look at your arm. I’ll go fetch some clothes.”
Alec’s wound didn’t need stitching, so Tomin cleaned and dressed it with stinging horse salve and wrapped it in clean linen.
Leaving their filthy clothing for Ema to deal with, they washed and went up to their rooms. It was early dark and raining hard again, but the air was still too muggy for a fire. Everything in the room felt damp.
“I’d say it’s pretty clear that the raven people have something to do with the sickness,” said Alec, sitting down in his accustomed chair by the empty hearth to comb the knots from his wet hair.
“Yes, I think we can assume that.” Seregil stretched out on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. Ruetha appeared from under the sofa and curled up between his bare feet, purring as she began to wash. “How they’re causing it is the next question, and why? It’s not like they’re gaining anything of value for their trades, except to hurt someone else.”
“But the hair? Whoever these raven folk are, they could be using some sort of necromancy on whatever they’ve traded.”
Seregil raised an eyebrow as he considered this. “Or something like it. It’s interesting, this trading. What does that suggest to you?”
“That something stolen won’t work? That it has to be freely given?”
“Exactly. And the fact that the old woman could get close enough to those slum children to trade with them when we couldn’t means that she and whatever other folk of her tribe there are around aren’t seen as threats or outsiders by those they trade with. Our little friend who led us into the ambush pegged us as outsiders, and knew better than to get within arm’s reach of two strange men.”
“But an old woman would seem safe enough. We have to go back! Myrhichia—”
“I know, talí, but there’s nothing more we can do tonight. We’ll start again early tomorrow. And this time as something more harmless in appearance. We need to get our hands on some of those traded items.”
“We can’t just—just relax!” Alec exclaimed. “There must be something we can do tonight. A week at the most. That’s what that drysian woman down below said.”
Seregil sighed and sat up. “Hand me my boots.”
It was not late when they arrived at the Orëska, but they found Thero in his dressing gown.
The wizard frowned as he let them in. “How is it you always know when I’m about to finally get some sleep?”
“The sleeping death has struck in the Ring, and the Street of Lights,” Seregil told him, brushing past. “It’s Myrhichia.”
The wizard sank down on a stool by one of the workbenches. “I’m so sorry!”
“We think we may have found something about the sleeping death. There are strange beggar folk trading with people in the Ring and Lower City,” Alec told him. “People there call them the raven folk.”
“Given their taste in trades,” Seregil explained. “They barter for bits of hair, broken toys, and the like.
Thero raised an eyebrow. “Trades?”
Alec tried to rein in his impatience. “Yes. We’ve seen and heard of several children and some adults stricken with the disease, or magic, or whatever you want to call it. Many of them were known to have made a trade of some sort with the ravens.”
“I understand that. But—”
“We mostly see Reltheus and Malthus during the evening,” Alec rushed on. “And we haven’t heard from Elani in days. We may have fallen out of favor already.”
“I doubt that. But why are you here? Shouldn’t you be talking to Valerius?”
“He knows. He sent us into the Ring.”
“You’re working for him? Seregil—”
“We’ll keep up with our social life and any spying you need done by night, and look for the raven folk by day.”
“Prince Korathan wants this,” Alec added. “It’s a matter of—of—”
“Civic security,” Seregil finished for him. “If there’s a panic and this is a disease of some sort, then people will flee in droves, carrying it out to spread across the countryside. We have Kepi watching Reltheus for now.”
Thero rubbed a hand wearily across his eyes. “I don’t like this, especially now that they appear to be killing each other off.”
“There’s been another death?”
“Yes. Countess Alarhichia.”
“Her name hasn’t come up,” said Alec.
“No, but she’s a known friend of Duke Reltheus, and another member of the court. Considering the suddenness of her death, I think we should at least consider it another act of retribution. In the meantime, various nobles are retreating to their country estates.”
“Any of our conspirators?” asked Seregil.
“Marquise Lania and Earl Stenmir.”
“Do you think Korathan will send Elani away?” asked Alec.
“Not yet. I’m sure he knows that would start a full-blown panic. You must hurry.”
“I know, Thero, but we can’t abandon Eirual and Myrhichia, either, and we won’t,” said Seregil. “We’ll manage. Neither side seems to be doing anything very dangerous at the moment, anyway. I wonder if Korathan sending General Sarien away has had a chilling effect?”
“Possibly.” Thero seemed to be about to say something as they rose to go, but instead just shook his head. “Get hold of one of those traded items and bring it to me. I’ll see if I can make out anything from it.”
“Thank you,” said Seregil. “We mean to do just that.”
“What now?” Alec asked as they made their way down through the atrium.
“We’d better go see Eirual. Then we’ve got to catch a raven and see if we can make it talk.”
It was eerie to see the pink lanterns over the door of Eirual’s brothel dark, and no warm light spilling from the windows. She’d given out word that they had summer fever in the house, and Valerius had convinced Korathan not to raise the alarm yet, on the condition that the house remained closed to trade.
“How is she, Mani
us?” Seregil asked as the man led them through the empty salon to the stairs.
“Myrhichia is just the same, and the other girls are frightened,” the servant replied, lighting a candle for them. “We’re all frightened for Lady Eirual, too. She hasn’t left Myrhichia’s side for a moment, sleeps in the same bed with her, and hardly eats a thing.”
“Send up a tray of cold food. I’ll see what I can do.”
It had only been a few days since they’d seen Eirual, but the change in her was startling. Dressed in a plain dark gown, she sat curled in a chair by the bedside with a book open but ignored on her lap. Her dark curls were loose around her shoulders and her violet eyes had a sunken, bruised look. It had been years since Seregil had seen her without her face made up, and it saddened him to see the little telltale signs of age around her eyes and mouth. The look of hope in her eyes as they entered broke his heart.
“Anything?” she asked.
“No cure yet, I’m sorry. We just came to see how you both are.”
She gave a listless shrug. “As you see. I’m going to lose her, aren’t I?”
“Don’t say that!” Alec urged, kneeling beside her chair. “We think we may know what’s causing this sickness.”
She stroked his cheek. “Then where is the healer?”
“We hope to have proof for him by tomorrow,” Seregil said, bending over Myrhichia. She looked in better health than her mistress. There was still some color in her cheeks, her carefully braided hair shone, and her expression was peaceful.
“She takes a little broth,” Eirual told him.
Seregil took the bowl and spoon from the night table and trickled a few drops of cold broth between Myrhichia’s lips. After a moment she swallowed reflexively, but there was no other sign of life beyond the slight rise and fall of her chest.
Impotent rage rose in Seregil’s heart but he was careful not to show it.
“Can you stay until morning?” Eirual whispered.
“Of course. Come, lie down and try to sleep, love.”
Seregil settled Eirual in bed beside Myrhichia, then stretched out beside her, nodding for Alec to lie beside Myrhichia on the other side, as if surrounding the girl with their shared warmth and hope would be enough to save her. They lay like that all night, Alec and Eirual holding Myrhichia, and Seregil holding Eirual. Alec drifted off, but Seregil remained awake, watching the waxing moon sail past the window and the stars follow. The fifth day would soon dawn.