Until the man turned over a tub of water, spilling it everywhere. “Mallt!” he called.
A woman in a neighboring tent, older, plumper, and surrounded by children, nodded. And sent the bevy of kids out into the path, churning up the mud, and adding dozens of footprints to our own. And then running up the street, laughing and playing, and hindering a group of fey coming this way.
The tent flap closed behind us, and what looked like a skin of water splashed the dirt at our feet. Pritkin, now back to normal, went to his haunches, head down, breathing hard. And looking like he might pass out.
But he didn’t get a chance.
“Under here,” the man told me. “Quickly!”
We crawled under a table strewn with dirty clothes, some hanging off the sides, waiting their turn for a wash. Baskets heaped with more were quickly shoved in front of us. And then the tent flap was pulled open again, leaving me peering out from between pieces of soiled laundry at the little bit of street I could see.
“Damn fey,” the man muttered. “You’d think it was their town!”
“They think it is their town,” the woman said, coming in. She was red-haired and red-faced from exertion, and picked a fussy carrot-topped baby out of a basket. “They say they protect it—”
“Rather protect it myself, and take my chances. They treat us like slaves, not men in our own land!”
“And what do y’think the Saxons would do?”
“The Saxons are men. You can outfight ’em, you can outlive ’em, or you can outbreed ’em.” He smoothed a hand over the baby’s fiery fuzz. “Or, worse comes to worse, you can mix w’ them and make a new people. What can you do with bastards that never die? They don’t belong here, and I’m not the only one sayin’ it!”
“Well, don’t say it so loud,” his wife said. “You’ll upset the babe.”
The man looked at Pritkin for support, who nodded, still breathless. “The fey . . . will protect us, but keep us exactly as we are . . . while the world goes on without us.”
The man looked at his wife. “Y’see? Bad times come, but sometimes they need to. Or you die anyway, of stagnation and rot. I know how I’d rather go out!”
“Would you stop that talk?” the woman hissed, hugging her child. “I want her protected!”
“And when they come for her? Who’ll protect her then?”
The woman looked at him fiercely for a moment, then deliberately pinched her child, I didn’t know why.
Until I saw two fey breaking off from the group to approach the tent.
I pulled back into the shadows.
“There!” the woman said, her voice annoyed. “What did I tell you?”
“What’s wrong w’ the child, anyway?” her husband’s voice demanded. “Have you lied to me, woman? Are you part banshee?”
She snorted. “More like you. Snore loud enough to wake the dead, he does,” she told someone.
“How would you know?” he demanded. “When do I get t’sleep? All night, it’s the same thing—loud as thunder, she is!”
The man had a point. The kid’s outrage was impressive. And I wasn’t the only one to think so. One of the fey I could now see was wincing in pain, while the other looked vaguely horrified.
“Picking up, good sirs?” the man yelled.
“What?” The first fey looked at him while the other started trying to push inside, I guessed to start a search.
But the cauldron the couple was using to boil clothes was in the way, bubbling merrily. The man plunged in a paddle, and steam erupted everywhere, causing the fey to jerk back. And then the woman was blocking the small avenue that was left, along with the human foghorn.
“Let me by,” the fey told her.
“What?”
“I said, let me by!”
“You’ll have to speak up,” she screamed, almost in his face. “She’s teething.”
“What?”
“Teething!”
The fey looked at the child in concern, as if it was some alien creature. A tiny, smelly, very loud alien creature. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder how often the fey dealt with babies, considering their birth rate.
Judging by his face, not a lot.
“Then what’s that smell?” her husband asked, leaning over.
“You’re right,” the woman said to him, peering into some sort of proto diaper. And releasing a stench worse than anything the dirty clothes were giving off. “I guess she’s not teething yet, after all.”
The fey’s look of horror intensified.
The man plunged another paddle into the water, giving off a cloud of steam like a dragon’s breath. “Picking up or dropping off?” he asked again, in a cheerful bellow.
“Neither,” the fey said, and fled.
The woman stayed outside the tent, to ward off any more interlopers with the terrifying child, while the man went around to the other side of the table, where Pritkin had already scrambled out. And pulled open the back flap of the tent, to look out over the open space between the towns.
“All right, then, Myrddin?” he asked.
Pritkin nodded. “Thanks to you.”
“Glad t’ help. But they’ll be back, when they don’t find anythin’ elsewhere. Best be gone by then.”
“Can you glamour?” I asked.
Pritkin shook his head. “Not now. Not for two.”
“Not two. One.” I pulled my hood up. “I’m going to the castle—”
“The castle?”
“I need to see Morgaine.”
“Why?”
“To ask her about the staff. She was the last to have it—”
“And why do you want it?”
The question was as hard as the hand suddenly wrapped around my wrist. I looked down at it in confusion. “Does it matter right now?”
“Yes!” He looked at me, green eyes searching. “The king caught up with me, after you disappeared, at a camp in the forest. I think he would have killed me, if there hadn’t been three or four covens’ worth of witches around!”
“I’m sorry—”
He shook his head. “I got away. But he is convinced there was a conspiracy between us to steal the staff. Either that, or that you were using me to get your hands on it for some nefarious purpose he won’t talk about—”
“And you believe him?”
“I don’t know what I believe! I saw what you did. I saw you save those children, back at camp, and then I saw you get taken by those . . . those magic workers. And then the king said—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes on my face, searching. “I don’t know what to believe,” he repeated. “But you’re not getting out of my sight until I get some answers!”
I licked my lips. I couldn’t tell him—he knew too much already. But I couldn’t not tell him, either, if it meant sitting here until the fey caught up with us. And he would—he was absolutely that stubborn.
“All right,” I compromised. “I’ll tell you what I can. But not here.”
“Where, then?”
“I told you.” I looked up, at the distant gray towers. “I need to get in there. Can you help?”
Pritkin thought for a moment, his eyes on the castle. And then they switched to something coming down the main road, next to the theater. The one leading to the walled city.
I couldn’t tell what it was; too much dust was billowing around. But I guessed Pritkin could. “I have a way in,” he told me. “But you may not like it.”
“Trust me. If it gets me in, I’ll like it.”
Chapter Forty-nine