The Spirit Stone. Katharine Kerr

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СКАЧАТЬ not, and I thank the gods for that. An unfortunate sort of lad, Tirro. I’m taking him along as a favour to his father, naught more.’

      ‘I see,’ Nevyn said. ‘Giving him a taste of the merchant life?’

      Wffyn started to speak, paused, had a sip of ale, frowned into his tankard, started once more to speak, then sighed. ‘Well,’ he finally said, ‘I didn’t mean to go telling tales, but truly, I wouldn’t mind a little help with keeping an eye on the lad. He had to leave Cerrmor, you see, and sudden like.’

      ‘Stealing?’ Nevyn said.

      ‘Worse.’ Wffyn hesitated briefly. ‘He’s somewhat of a loricart, if you take my meaning.’

      ‘I don’t,’ Nevyn said. ‘Cerrmor cant-words are beyond me.’

      ‘Well, now, I’ve heard this sort of man called hedge creepers in other parts of the kingdom, or lobcocks.’

      ‘I’ve heard those, too.’ Gwairyc cleared his throat and spat into the straw on the floor. ‘He means men who fancy little children.’

      ‘That,’ Nevyn said slowly, ‘is truly disgusting.’

      ‘It is all of that,’ Wffyn said. ‘There was a lass name of Mella, a pretty little thing but not more than six summers old, and Tirro got a fair bit too friendly with her, if you take my meaning. Her father and her uncles were going to beat the cursed wretched young cub to a bloody pulp, but fortunately they saw reason when I said I’d take him away on caravan.’

      ‘I gather there was no doubt that the lad was guilty.’

      ‘None. On top of everything else, he gave the poor child his ringworm.’

      Nevyn made a profoundly sour face. ‘But you’ll take him with you?’

      ‘Well, now, I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help him, but I owed his da a fair bit of money, if you take my meaning.’

      ‘I see. So he’s erased the debt now?’ Nevyn said.

      ‘He has,’ Wffyn glanced at Gwairyc. ‘But if you see Tirro hanging around some little lass during our travels, tell me, will you? I can’t be everywhere at once.’

      ‘Gladly,’ Gwairyc said. ‘Have no fear of that.’

      Wffyn raised his tankard in salute and smiled his thanks.

      ‘What’s going to happen when you get back to Cerrmor?’ Nevyn asked.

      ‘Tirro will be shipping out for Bardek,’ Wffyn said. ‘His father has a friend with a ship, you see, but he’d left harbour before this thing happened – the ship’s captain I mean, not the father. He’ll come back late in the summer and then make the last run over to winter in Bardek. Tirro will be going with him, and good riddance.’

      ‘I see,’ Nevyn said. ‘Exactly where is the ship going, do you know?’

      ‘Myleton.’

      Nevyn nodded, as if merely acknowledging the information, but by then Gwairyc knew him well enough to see that something had troubled him. Later, when they were alone, he asked the old man about it.

      ‘Bardek is a very strange place,’ Nevyn said. ‘There are men there who share Tirro’s particular vice, and some of them are rich and even powerful. They pursue their prey in the shadows, because most Bardekians are decent folk, but at the same time, in the larger towns, there are brothels where they can satisfy their wretched cravings in safety.’

      ‘That’s loathsome!’

      ‘Indeed. So I was wondering if I could send a message to some friends of mine there, to suggest they tell the archons to keep an eye on this unfortunate cub. Alas, they live on Orystinna, nowhere near Myleton.’

      ‘A pity. This Orys-whatzit – it’s another island?’

      ‘It is. Most likely Tirro will alert the archons to his presence on his own, by doing some wretched thing too openly. He strikes me as more than a little dim-witted. I wish I could prevent it, but alas, like our good merchant, I can’t be everywhere at once.’

      ‘Indeed.’ Gwairyc shook his head in disgust. ‘Ye gods, if the lad was as hard up as all that, he could have gone after a sheep. It would have been cleaner.’

      ‘True spoken.’ Nevyn managed a twisted smile at the jest.

      Gwairyc realized that for this moment at least he and his master, as he always thought of Nevyn, had found a common bond of sorts in their disgust. It would be a good time to bring up a matter very much on his mind.

      ‘There was somewhat else I wanted to ask you,’ Gwairyc said. ‘About these bandits, my lord. I can’t defend the caravan with my bare hands.’

      ‘Ah. You want your sword back, do you?’ Nevyn considered, but only briefly. ‘Very well. I’ll give it to you. Just don’t go drawing it on anyone but the bandits.’

      ‘I won’t, I swear it.’

      The return of his sword raised Gwairyc’s spirits more than anything else could have, except perhaps the chance to kill a bandit or two with it. Unfortunately to his way of thinking, though not to anyone else’s, the ride through the mountains proved hot, tedious, and uneventful – except for a strange accident.

      It happened on the steepest part of the road up to the main pass. In the sticky summer heat the caravan made slow progress that day and camped early when they found a reasonably flat area off to one side of the dusty trail. Lined with some sort of shrubby tree that Gwairyc couldn’t put a name to, a muddy rivulet ran nearby, flowing out of the forest cover and heading downhill. The hot day had exhausted everyone. The stock had to be tended and fed, exhaustion or no, but no one spoke more than they absolutely had to. With his share of the work done, one of the muleteers pulled off his boots, rolled up his trousers, and trotted off to soak his aching feet downstream from their drinking water. Gwairyc had just turned Nevyn’s mule into the general herd when he heard the man scream. Without thinking he drew his sword and ran just as a second agonized shriek rang out to guide him.

      In the spotty shade the muleteer was lying sprawled with one leg held high in the air. It was such an odd posture that it took Gwairyc a moment to notice the blood sheeting down the muleteer’s leg. The fellow had stepped into a wire snare and tripped it. Now the thin wire was biting ever deeper into his unprotected ankle as he flailed his arms and screamed.

      ‘Hold still!’ Gwairyc put all his noble-born authority into his voice. ‘You’ll be hurt worse if you don’t.’

      The fellow looked his way, sobbed once, and fainted. Gwairyc trotted over and considered the wire. He had no desire to blunt his blade by trying to cut it. His inspection showed that the thin strand forming the noose had been knotted repeatedly over a much thicker wire, reinforced with rope, that formed the long portion of the snare and anchored the whole contraption to a nearby sapling. By then another muleteer and Wffyn himself had come at the run. With a cascade of foul oaths the muleteer set to work untwisting the strands whilst the merchant supported the injured man’s leg.

      ‘I’ve never seen such a cursed strong snare,’ Wffyn remarked. ‘What was the hunter after, I wonder? A bear?’

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