Evening sunlight slanted flat and dusty through the hay door when I woke up. I climbed down from the loft, irritated with myself for sleeping so long in the daytime. I wondered if I'd slept through supper. The horses were gone though, and the wagon, which seemed to mean Finnigan was off somewhere, hauling something for someone. He probably hadn't eaten yet.
Whatever. It occurred to me I'd accepted about all the hospitality I should from the Finnigans. I'd gladly spend the night in their barn, but I shouldn't be putting my knees under their table again. So I stopped at the cottage and spoke to the oldest boy—asked him to tell his mother I was going to the inn, to eat supper, and learn what I could about the country off east. He nodded and said he'd tell her. I wondered if he'd remember, and what things looked like through those crossed eyes.
I didn't go straight to the inn though. My father was a constable, which in Aarschot was a job with status. And in what time she had between the kitchen garden, cooking, sewing, keeping house, my mother was a scribe, with a fondness and talent for words and poetry. And a love of the Church. So I'd been well brought up, and just then I was dirtier than I cared to be in a public place, given a choice. I walked to the river, and up it to a willow copse, where I took off my clothes, leaving them where I could keep an eye on them. Then I waded out into the water and bathed with the tin of soap from my pack.
I'd have washed my clothes too—soaked them anyway—if there'd been time to dry them. As it was, I rubbed myself partly dry and stood around naked for a while in what was left of the daylight, which wasn't much. Then I beat my clothes against a tree trunk to knock the worst of the dust out, and got dressed again. My hair was still wet, but it was cropped short enough that it didn't much matter.
The inn, made of planks, was at the upper edge of town a little way above the church. It was bigger than you'd expect for a village the size of Galway, probably from the crossroads being there and getting a fair number of travelers.
Altogether there were maybe fifteen customers inside. Ten or so of them looked like local people—not dressed for the road. There was an open space that seemed to be for dancing, but no musician just then. Most of the people were eating or drinking, and talking of course.
One was a tall, rawboned man, greasy-looking and swarthy, wearing a uniform—yellow breeches and green tunic, cavalry boots and a cocked hat. The jacket had brass buttons on it. He wore a saber, too, and two pistols stuck in his sword belt. And an arrogant, loose-lipped smirk beneath a big black mustache that needed more tending than he gave it. I decided he was someone I didn't want to know. He was standing, talking with a couple of locals. Actually he was doing the talking while they did the nodding.
The innkeeper had a girl of maybe thirteen, and a younger boy, helping him serve; children of his, I supposed. I went over to the bar and asked for a beer. While he drew it, I told him I was traveling east. "To the Ocean," I said, lying straight-out instead of being coy, and I asked him what the news was from that direction. It seemed to me an innkeeper would hear at least as much as Father Hannery, though he might be less careful about accuracy.
Handing me my mug, he shrugged. "Oi don't listen much to what's said," he told me. "Oi'm too busy. But oi do hear bits o' this and that." He shrugged again. "A man should be free to go where he wants, especially when he's young and has no family to care for. That's what youth is for, or part of what it's for. But east? Meself, oi wouldn't go much east of Galway Town if oi didn't have to. And oi don't. Nor would oi set foot east of Allegheny under any circumstances." He crossed himself. "It's one thing to die if ye go to Jesus. It's somethin' else if the Devil gets his claws in ye."
That wasn't the kind of information that helped much, and when he'd finished drawing a pair of mugs for his daughter to take, I asked him who among his customers might have come from the east. He motioned toward two men who looked like chapmen, sitting by a window, talking while they ate.
"Any others?"
He shook his head. "That's all oi know of. There's others here not from Connemara, but whether from east or west, south or north, oi wouldn't know. Ask around."
On an impulse, I asked, "How about him?" and thumbed toward the soldier in the green tunic. "The one with the pistols."
The innkeeper shook his head, his face going sour. "He's from the fort. He'd know nothin' but hearsay. And lie about that, oi have no doubt."
I went over to the chapmen then, one of them middle-aged, the other still young, both heavyset. They looked up sharply when I stopped at their table. My face isn't that ordinary, even at home, and their eyes reminded me that it didn't fit in around here, any more than it had, say, in Gorky. It's a narrow face with strong cheekbones, a face for someone slimmer than me. And dark, though my hair is light-colored. My nose is narrow too, and curved like an axe blade. Add to that eyes as blue as any you'll see anywhere—"the mark of the Vlaamsch," they call them at home—and I'm someone people notice, in Galway and most other places. In my profession that can be a nuisance and even a hazard.
"Excuse me, sirs," I said. "Have you come from the east?"
"Ve haff," said the oldest one. "Vhat iss your interest in us?"
Deutschers, obviously. "I plan to travel northeast," I told him, "and I wondered if you had information or advice you could give me. About the traveling there."
His eyes were blue too, paler than mine, and narrowed just now. They looked me over for half-a-minute before he said anything more. Then, "Ve von't giff you information," he said, "but ve vill sell you some."
I suppose I looked miffed at that. Anyway he laughed. "Ve von't charge very much for it. It's chust a matter of principle; selling iss how ve earn our breadt. But you are a man on der road, far from home. You, ve charge a copper only."
The younger grinned at me. "Paid in advance. And hope you get your money's worth. You vere not very exact about vhat you vant. Vhat ve have may not be vhat you need."
I dug a penny out of my pocket. The profile on it belonged to Johannes II, King of Mizzoo. A good one for them. Johannes, when he talked, sounded a lot like these guys, especially the younger one, whose accent wasn't as thick. The older one examined the penny curiously, showed it to his partner, then tucked it in a vest pocket.
They gave me more than my penny's worth. Like most people, they enjoyed talking to someone who was ignorant about things they knew well. Allegheny, they told me, claimed all the land east of the Susky Hanna River, and under King Choi they'd made the claim stick. But Choi's wife had killed him—the rumor was she'd caught him in adultery with a chambermaid—and the Assembly of Counts had elected Armand Boileau their new king.
To make a long story short, Armand had been a reasonably just king, and Allegheny had prospered under him for a dozen years. But he'd let the defenses go slack. So the Lanksters had crossed the Susky Hanna, and the report was they'd gotten most of the way to South Mountain. Wherever that was.
"How would it work if I swung off north and went around the war?" I asked.
They looked at each other. "You vouldt probably neffer see de Ocean," the older one said.
"Why?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "About dat, iss not all right ve talk. It iss dancherous, in more vays den vun. Dat much I tell you, and you could der rest figure out for yourself. Better you go sout' und den east."
His accent had gotten thicker just thinking about it.
Back in Mizzoo they'd barely heard rumor of the devils, or Lizards, but in Ohio they'd been a topic of conversation in the inns. Not that anyone there claimed to have seen one. There were different versions of what they looked like.
Bhatti and Soong had only said that they didn't look a lot different than anyone else. "Lizards in human form," Soong had called them. Beyond that, they'd been closer-mouthed than I was used to: I'd been given no briefing at all, nor many questions answered. A troublous start for a mission, at least for my taste. They didn't even say why they were being that way, just gave me a map, a purse of coins, and a few instructions, mostly to do with secrecy on the road.
I thanked the two chapmen and went back to my table. The innkeeper's boy came around for my order, and I asked for bread, cheese, and boiled cabbage. It wasn't the sort of meal you have to wait long for. It came and I worked my way through it, sipping what was left of my beer as I ate, and ordering a refill. It occurred to me that if Father Hannery was going to be back in a couple of days, I might do well to wait around and see what he could tell me. Meanwhile, maybe I could help Finnigan for bed and board.
I became aware then that the room had gone quiet, conversations cutting off. I looked up. Someone had come in who looked like a woman in man's clothes—man's clothes with a difference. I stared; I'd never imagined such a thing. She was a woman, without a doubt; no man filled a shirt the way she did. But she was nearly as tall as me—taller than most of the men there—and wore a scabbarded sword at one hip and a pack on her back. And her clothes were black, fine leather, and the breeches covered long, strong-looking legs. Her skin was black, too, or darkish brown actually, and she was as good-looking as you'd hope to see. People were staring at her, maybe as much for her color and looks as for her clothes and sword.
She was used to being stared at, I had no doubt. She crossed the room as if she ate there every evening, and sat down at a little table in a corner, by an open window. The location wasn't likely to have been an accident; from there she could watch everything and get out quickly if she needed to. Looking nervous, the serving girl went over to her, took her order and left. The soldier's eyes were stuck on her as if she was a magnet and he was iron. Pig iron. I found myself on my feet, going over to her, telling myself she might have come from the east. As I crossed the room, she watched like a cat watches.
"Good evening, ma'am," I said. "You wouldn't happen to be from Mizzoo, would you? A county called Mbabane?"
I felt like an idiot.
"A county called what?"
"Mbabane. It's in Mizzoo," I added, then realized I'd already said that. Double idiot. Besides, I reminded myself, Mbabane was a county where no woman would dress like that, or go to faraway Allegheny. On top of that, she talked Merkan as if it was her main, or more likely only language, while in Mbabane they talked what they called Tswana. Their Merkan, when they spoke it, didn't sound like anyone else's.
"Mbabane. Hmh! Never heard of it," she said. "I'm from Shy Free Town."
She was looking at me as if I was some kind of interesting new bug. I opened my mouth to say excuse me and go back to my own table. Instead I found myself saying, "I've heard of Shy. On one of the Sweetwater Seas. That's a long way from here."
"On the Sea of Mishgun. Sit down," she said, and pointed at the stool across from her. It wasn't an invitation; it was an order. My knees bent and my hand reached back and pulled the stool under my rear.
"Did you eat?" she asked me. "Or was that plate on your table somebody else's?"
I nodded. "I've eaten." Gentle Jesus! I wondered if she could tell me who all, in the room, had an empty plate in front of them. From just walking through it once.
She got up and spoke quietly as if to keep our conversation private. "My name's Jamila," she said, pronouncing it Jah-MEE-lah. Then she reached across the table and we were shaking hands! "Jamila Smith. What's yours?"
For a minute I didn't know what to do. Ordinarily women don't shake hands with men, and when one does, she doesn't grip down, even if she splits the family firewood, wrings the family wash, helps shuck corn, and has a grip like a blacksmith. This Jamila, though, had shaken hands like a man. A real man. I couldn't believe how strong her grip was! Callused, too, like a farmer's. Or more likely a swordsman's.
"Mine's Luis," I told her. "Luis Raoul DenUyl." I followed her lead and spoke quietly. Besides, my mouth had gone dry.
"Luis." She smiled, white teeth flashing. "Nice name." Then: "Mizzoo's got to be as far from here as Shy is."
"Could be. It's pretty far." I said it as if nothing was wrong with me at all.
"Traveling through?" Her eyes pinned me down, or that's how it seemed to me.
"Uh, yes."
"And headed northeast, right? I've heard things aren't too good up that way."
"That's what I've heard too." How did she know, or guess, that I was headed northeast? I was nervous now, and she knew it, and thought it was funny.
"Might be a good idea not to travel alone," she said.
What in the world am I doing, I asked myself, sitting here talking with this woman as if she were a man? I was here because I'd shown I could handle bad situations, but this Jamila was something I wasn't prepared to deal with.
"I'll get by," I told her. "I'm used to traveling alone. I've traveled alone all the way from Mizzoo."
The serving girl brought her supper, and Jamila ordered a beer for me. I was pretty sure the stains on her right sleeve were blood, whether of deer, calf, human, or what have you. I wondered if she could actually use that sword—with any skill, that is. I suspected she could. I had no doubt at all that she was strong enough.
Then, pulling out a sheath knife from somewhere below the table top, she cut off a slice of bread and a slab of cheese, and broke down the sausage into about a dozen large bite-size chunks. It all took her maybe three quick seconds, the knife going zip! flick flick flick!
"From what I've heard," she murmured, "from Mizzoo to here is the easy part of the trip." She speared a bite of sausage with the stiletto, tucked it between strong white teeth, and chewed, the muscles in her brown cheeks and jaws working smoothly. "You need a traveling partner for mutual security," she went on, "and it so happens I'm going northeast too."
I got up from the table. "Ma'am," I told her, "I don't know when I'll be leaving Galway Town, or even for sure if I'm leaving." I turned my back on her, not wanting to risk those eyes again, and started toward my own table without waiting for the beer she'd ordered me. As I crossed the room, I noticed the soldier watching me. Two more had joined him, one chesty and strong-looking, one long and lean. The lean one looked the most dangerous of the three.
There seemed to be something going on beneath the surface here that I'd do well to stay clear of, and I decided to leave. But first I'd finish the beer I'd left at my own table; damned if I'd run off leaving something I'd paid for.
I'd sat down and lifted the mug, intending to drink what was left of it in a couple of swigs, when someone else came into the inn and caught my attention. It was a man—an overgrown farmer boy actually—my height and with thick beefy shoulders about a meter wide. And maybe a dozen whitish hairs on his chin; he was seventeen years at most. By his farmer clothes, reddish-brown hair and freckled pink face, he was local. His eyes reached the soldiers, stopped there for a brief moment, then dropped; he went over to the bar and ordered.
I turned my attention to the three soldiers again. None of them was looking at me now, or at Jamila. Their attention was all on the farmer boy. The first one said something to the other two and they all laughed, looking like three wolves that had picked out their calf for the evening.
"Hey! Glynn!" the first soldier shouted, and the farmer boy turned to look at him. The soldier said something in the local language then, and the boy, blushing furiously, left the bar, walking slowly, unarmed, toward the soldiers. I tasted bile. Something ugly, really ugly, was going on here.
The soldier stood waiting for him, leering, and drew his sword as the boy approached. The boy stopped, heavy fists at his sides, and the soldier said something more, maybe two or three short sentences. His buddies laughed; otherwise the room had gone dead quiet. A glance showed me the innkeeper's face grim and angry, but he was keeping clear of this.
The boy stopped a couple of meters from his tormentor. "Don't speak our tongue!" he shouted in Merkan. "Ye foul it with yer foreign accent and yer filthy mind!"
The soldier's smirk remained, but his eyes narrowed. His sword moved, found a button in the boy's shirt, and flick! The button flew. "All right. In Merkan then!" the soldier said. "Would you like me to undress you here the way we undressed your sister? You'll have to buy your own whiskey though." The other two soldiers haw-hawed at that.
The boy paled. Another sword flick, another button flew.
"Well!" someone said loudly. "I never heard words come out of an asshole before!"
It was me that had said it! I was on my feet, my sword in my hand, and for that moment I was so mad I was shaking. But my voice seemed as even as could be. I began to walk over to them, calming with every step, "You use that sword pretty well for cutting buttons off an unarmed boy. I wonder if you've got the guts to step over to the dance floor and dance a round with me."
And suddenly there was enough hate in his face to fill Hell with. "Gladly!" His voice was hoarse with it. "And there'll be no quick death for you," he gritted. "I'll cut pieces off you like wolves do a cow, and listen to you sing! Starting with your balls!"
He half-backed his way to the dance floor then, keeping his eyes on me. I followed. When he got there, he waited, sword ready, near enough to where I'd enter that I'd have no chance to maneuver when I stepped out. So at the last moment I snatched an empty stool and slung it at him hard. He fended it off with his free arm, but it sent him back a couple of steps, putting him off his guard, and I was at him.
I had no intention of leaving him alive, but I wasn't in any hurry to finish him, either. Which was kind of stupid; Soong would have chewed me out good. Anyone who's a bully with a sword is going to be at least pretty good with it, He was, too, by most standards, but not by the Order's. I parried and thrust, pinked him a couple of times, then saw my chance and his belt parted, dropping his pistols on the floor. He launched a flurry of darts and slashes then, which I parried without riposting, and then I let him back me around the floor until he knew! Knew I could do anything I wanted with him. Basically I was a lot better than he was, and a lot quicker, and on top of that, I could see he wasn't used to lefties.
Panting and sweating, he stopped. "I'm a soldier of the count," he husked. "Kill me and you'll be hunted down like a dog."
"I'll be doing you a favor, killing you," I told him. "If I leave you alive, they'll laugh you out of the county and love every minute of it."
I'd hardly said it when I heard scuffling behind me and gave a quick glance back, at the same time jumping to my right, away from his sword-arm side. The farmer boy had grabbed one of the other two soldiers from behind: the husky one, who had his sword in his hand. They were crashing around into things. I got only a quick glimpse, though, because the one I'd been fighting was lunging for me. I threw myself out of his way, landing on the floor and rolling, came up slashing, and took him through the waist to the backbone. Blood sprayed. He screamed and fell. At almost the same instant there was another scream. I turned to look. The thin soldier was doing a sort of spinning-in-place dance with his right hand behind his back, and Jamila, pack slung over one shoulder, was beckoning me to follow her.
As I started in her direction, the farmer boy let go the husky soldier, who dropped to the floor like a sack. I grabbed the boy's shoulder as I passed, and pushed him along in front of me; he was whiter than bread dough. By that time the thin soldier had stopped his dance and fallen too, on his face. I could see a knife handle sticking out between his shoulder blades; I bent and snatched it out, wiped it on his breeches, then left.
No one tried to stop any of us. I suppose they were scared. But I'm also pretty sure that most of them wanted us to get away. We'd just taken care of three guys they were well rid of.
We paused outside the door and I handed Jamila back her knife. "Thanks," she said. The farmer boy didn't say anything, but I could see him shaking. Actually shaking. He'd killed his man too, I had no doubt; probably crushed his rib cage.
"My pack's in a barn a little way from here," I said. "We'll get it and then get out of town."