“I’m no blessed.”
“You are still funny.” She walked forward. “Take my hand, like this.” She placed my open palm on the back of her hand, and it was like a fire went through me. No woman had ever touched me so candidly before. “And now you place your hand on his muzzle, as you would normally but with my hand between your skin and his fur.” I did as she asked. No doubt this was something totally innocent on her part but my heart was hammering fit to burst. Xus rolled his eyes and snorted through his nostrils, opening and closing them to take in this new scent mixed with mine. For a moment I thought he would rear but he let out a final snort and nodded his head, calmed. “See, now he will accept me,” she said. I was suddenly uncomfortably aware of the warmth of her body against mine. I stepped away and when I opened my mouth to speak I found my voice stifled by some unknown force. I was saved from making a further fool of myself by the stablemaster, Leiss.
“Country tricks are no way to work for a real stablehand. That beast needs a whip taken to it,” he said from behind me. He had the same squat body and unappealing features as so many others in Maniyadoc.
“Take a whip to Xus, Leiss,” I said, “and I will take that same whip to you, do you understand?”
“It’ll never learn otherwise.” His voice was sullen but his face full of challenge.
“Xus seems to learn well enough.” I pointed at Drusl, who was leading a calm Xus into his stall. “See?”
“Won’t last. Seen it before. Soon as you’re gone that beast’ll be back to its evil ways.” As he walked into the light I saw he was scarred about the face. At some point a mount had gored him, leaving a thick line of scar tissue across his cheek, jaw and forehead. My master always said a scarred stablehand should never be trusted alone with your mount, and I was inclined to agree with her. Leiss had an ugly cast to his eye that was nothing to do with his disfigurement. He looked at me like I was his enemy.
“You are to let Drusl care for Xus,” I told him. “I don’t want you to go near my mount.”
“Pleased to,” he said, and turned from me to walk into an empty stall where he started clattering around with shovels. Drusl gave me a nervous smile and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “what can you do?” and went into Xus’s stall.
“I have some business in the stables, Girton,” said Heamus. “Can you make your own way back?”
“Of course,” I said.
Walking back to the keep alone gave me the first time to think since we had been given our task. I did not realise how much I had missed thinking time; generally I had plenty while I plodded along behind my master and Xus. Deep in thought I passed strangely dressed women with squalling babes and gaggles of children who stared out suspiciously from the spoked wheels of the Festival Lords’ caravans. The task given to us seemed impossible. How to find who had requested an assassin? I tried to turn my mind to it but instead thought of the warmth of a hand under mine as I introduced a pretty red-headed stablehand to Xus.
That warmth fled as I entered the courtyard in front of the keep. To one side of the door stood a small group of people. Nywulf the squiremaster was there, as was a priest of Heissal in his white porcelain mask and hooded orange robes. They were having a quiet, if clearly heated, conversation. With them stood, Tomas, Aydor, Kyril, Borniya and Hallin, but it was not the people that made me catch my breath, it was the war dogs Borniya held on leashes. They were the same beasts used throughout the Tired Lands, huge animals with short sleek fur that showed off their thick muscles. They barked in excitement at anyone who passed, exposing teeth that could rip a man apart. Without thinking I changed direction and walked the long way around the water clock so my path would not cross that of the dogs. Borniya stared at me, a look of puzzlement on his face, and then he glanced from me to the dogs and back to me again, and a cruel smile spread across his bent face. He nudged Aydor and whispered something to him, behind them Tomas looked on thoughtfully while Nywulf and the priest simply watched.
I cursed myself as a fool. Never show weakness. How many times had that been drummed into me? But to change direction again would make me look foolish. I had made a decision and I must live with it.
Chapter 6
“Why do I have to wear a kilt?”
It seemed a fair question to ask. Kilts are vile pieces of clothing, too warm where you would be cool and too cool where you would be warm. Not to mention how the ridiculous fashion of swathing the upper body in material restricts movement. Worse, the kilt showed the bruises on my arms and legs that my master had covered in white salve, so I looked like the victim of some strange skin disease.
“You wear a kilt because you are of the blessed and it is expected of you at the feast to welcome the Festival Lords.”
“I could be a rebellious blessed set upon starting a new fashion.”
“And what new fashion—” she pulled a comb through my long brown hair “—would that be?”
“Not a kilt. Ow!” She loosened a knot by pulling out a tangle of hair at the root.
“No beauty without pain, rebellious young Girton,” she said and ripped out another chunk of hair
“Ow!” I dropped back into the Whisper-that-Flies-to-the-Ear. “How will we do this, Master?”
“Do what?”
“Catch an assassin’s client, how can we do this? I have been tumbling it through my mind and cannot find my feet.”
“Do not worry about that; I have set in motion the capture of our assassin already. You go through your days, watch and note everything and tell me it all at the end of each day.”
“And what will you do, while I do that?”
“The same, for now.”
“And we share what we learn?”
She looked at the floor and shook her head. “I do not want to pollute what you see.” She smiled up at me. “I will formulate my own theories, and you yours.”
“But we will not share them?” I was suddenly angry. “I stayed here with you when—”
“Yes, you did—” her words were quiet but forceful “—and you are free to leave at any moment, but if we are going to do this together we must do this my way. Do you understand?” I bit my lip but did not reply. Instead I nodded. “Good. Now, this evening I will present the story Why Xus the Unseen No Longer Shows his Face.”
“But that’s—”
“Ill omened, I am aware. The Festival Lords are important so the entire court will be there, and afterwards Adran will be meeting with the Festival Lords. We will be there too.”
“We will?” My bad mood sloughed away. “I have only ever seen them from afar and always wondered what they are like to talk to, or if they are even human under their—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course they are human! Sadly for you we shall not see them, as we will be hiding while the queen talks to them.”
I leaned in close to whisper, “Does she suspect them?”