She felt her dislike softening.
She knocked on the door, and heard a voice call out to her. “Coming!” When the door opened, the woman with the kind voice was standing there. She was wearing an old dress and apron, and her hair was done up in a farm wife’s bun.
“Oh!” she gasped in genuine shock. She took a step back and then caught sight of Arling peering at her over Aphen’s shoulder. “Oh, my goodness, child—it’s you! Are you all right?”
Arling nodded, smiling uncertainly.
“Thank goodness! I’m so sorry for what we did. We didn’t know. Sora said you needed medical care and we didn’t have any to offer. Not even here, in our village. No Healer, not even a midwife. But look at you! You seem fine. And your sister and her friend have bought you safely back. I’m so relieved.” She glanced from face to face. “Come in, come in. I have hot tea on the stove.”
They stepped inside, where the girls were ushered to seats at a tiny kitchen table. There were only three chairs, so Cymrian declined the offer of the third and said he would stand, moving off to warm himself in front of a small stone fireplace. The woman poured them each a mug of tea and then joined the girls at the table.
“Sora had business at the tavern, but he should be back soon.” She seemed genuinely pleased that they were there. “He will be so surprised. How did you find us?”
Then she saw something in Aphen’s face and hesitated. “What’s the matter? Something’s wrong, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve come. Something’s wrong.”
Aphen nodded. “My sister was carrying a silver stone when you found her. It was taken while she slept but before she was given over to the men on that Federation warship. Do you have that stone?”
The woman stared. “A stone? No. I never saw a stone. It was taken, you say …”
She trailed off abruptly, and right away Aphen could tell what had happened. “Your husband has it, doesn’t he?” she said.
The woman was trembling. “He’s a good man, really. But he thinks things should belong to him just because he’s found them. He’s been trying to sell something in the village for several days now. When he left today, he said he thought he had a buyer. I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. Mostly, it never comes to anything, even when he thinks it will.”
She shook her head, flushed and angry. “But stealing! I’m so sorry. I would have made him give it back if I had known.”
She was crying freely now, her face streaked with tears.
Aphen and Arling exchanged a quick glance. Arling looked at if she might cry herself.
Not so Cymrian. “Where can we find him?” he asked.
The tavern was a single room with a bar, some stools, a few tables and chairs and not much more. It didn’t even have a fireplace. What heat there was emanated from a small wood-burning stove in one corner and from the bodies of the men clustered about the tables and pressed up against the bar. Tankards of ale were being passed around, and voices were loud and insistent.
But the voices died into mutterings and the eyes of the patrons shifted to the doorway when the Elessedil sisters and Cymrian entered. They were Elves in a community populated mostly by Southlanders who had drifted west to find a better life and only found more of the same. There was a Dwarf in one corner, bent over his drink. There were a handful of Rovers at another table. But no Elves.
A Borderman leaning against the bar a few feet away from her took one look at her black Druid robes, pushed away from the bar, and left without a word. Another, a hunter dressed in leather, followed him out.
At a table near the back of the room, Sora was seated with a pair of men. Another four stood just behind the two in what appeared to Aphen to be a protective circle. As she watched, Sora counted coins from a stack that had been shoved in front of him, taking his time, not even bothering to look up from his task when they entered and the noise level dropped.
But as Aphen and her companions started across the room, one of the men seated said something to Sora, who looked up, saw who was approaching, quickly produced the leather pouch in which the Ellcrys seed had been placed, and shoved it across the table to the man who had spoken. The man snatched up the pouch and tucked it into his jacket.
“There, now,” Sora said, rather too loudly, “our business is concluded! I must be on my way. A pleasure seeing you.”
He scooped the coins off the table and into his pockets and rose hurriedly, nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to move away.