Still, their passage did not go unobserved. “We’re being followed,” the Painted Man said at one point when the boardwalk street was wide enough for him to come up alongside the cart. “One of the guards has been drifting along in our wake since we left the gate.”
Rojer looked back and caught a glimpse of a city guard’s uniform just before the man ducked behind a vendor’s stall.
“What should we do?” he asked.
“Not much we can do,” the Painted Man said. “Just thought you should know.”
Rojer knew the mazelike streets of Angiers well, and took them on a circuitous route through the most crowded areas to their destination, hoping to shake the pursuit. He kept glancing over his shoulder, pretending to look appreciatively at passing women or vendors’ wares, but always the guard was there, just on the edge of sight.
“We can’t keep circling forever, Rojer,” Leesha said at last. “Let’s just get to Jizell’s before it starts to get dark.”
Rojer nodded and turned the cart directly for Mistress Jizell’s hospit, which quickly came in sight. It was a wide, two-story building, made almost entirely of wood, as were all the buildings in Angiers. There was a small visitors’ stable around the side.
“Mistress Leesha?” the girl minding the stable asked in surprise, seeing them pull up.
“Yes, it’s me, Roni.” Leesha smiled. “Look how you’ve grown! Have you been keeping to your studies while I was gone?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” Roni said, but her eyes had already flicked to Rojer, and then drifted on to Gared, where they lingered. Roni was a promising apprentice, but she was easily distracted, especially by men. Fifteen and full-flowered, she would already be married and raising children of her own if she had grown up in the hamlets, but women married later in the Free Cities, and Leesha was thankful for that.
“Run and tell Mistress Jizell we’ve arrived,” Leesha said. “I didn’t have time to write, and she may not have room for all of us.”
Roni nodded and ran off, and before they were done brushing down the horses, a woman shouted “Leesha!” Leesha turned, only to find herself smothered against Mistress Jizell’s prodigious bosom as the older woman swept her into a tight hug.
Just shy of sixty, Mistress Jizell was still strong and robust despite the heavy frame under her pocketed apron. A former apprentice of Bruna much as Leesha was, Jizell had been running her hospit in Angiers for more than twenty years.
“It’s good to have you back,” Jizell said, pulling back only after all the air had been squeezed from Leesha’s slender frame.
“It’s good to be back,” Leesha said, returning Jizell’s smile.
“And young Master Rojer!” Jizell boomed, sweeping poor Rojer into a similarly crushing embrace. “It seems I owe you thrice! Once for escorting Leesha home, and twice more for bringing her back!”
“It was nothing,” Rojer said. “I owe you both more than I can repay.”
“You can help work that off by playing your fiddle for the patients tonight,” Jizell said.
“We don’t want to put you out if there’s no room,” Leesha said. “We can stay at an inn.”
“The Core you can,” Jizell said. “You’ll all stay with us, and that’s final. We have a great deal of catching up to do, and all the girls will want to see you.”
“Thank you,” Leesha said.
“Now, who are your companions?” Jizell asked, turning to the others. “No, let me guess,” she said when Leesha opened her mouth. “Let’s see if the descriptions in your letters do them justice.” She looked Gared up and down, craning her head back to meet his eyes. “You must be Gared Cutter,” she guessed.
Gared bowed. “Yes’m,” he said.
“Built like a bear, but with good manners,” Jizell said, slapping one of Gared’s burly biceps. “We’ll get along fine.”
She turned to Wonda, not flinching in the least at the angry red scars on the young woman’s face. “Wonda, I take it?” she asked.
“Yes, mistress,” Wonda said, bowing.
“It seems the Hollow is full of polite giants,” Jizell said. She was by no means short by Angierian standards, but Wonda still towered over her. “Welcome.”
“Thank you, mistress,” Wonda said.
Jizell turned last to the Painted Man, still hidden in his hooded robe. “Well, I guess you need no introduction,” she said. “Let’s see, then.”
The Painted Man’s loose sleeves fell to his elbows as he reached up to draw back his hood. Jizell’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of his tattoos, but she took his hands and squeezed them warmly as she looked into his eyes.
“Thank you for saving Leesha’s life,” she said. Before he could react, she hugged him tightly. The Painted Man looked at Leesha in surprise, awkwardly returning the embrace.
“Now, if the rest of you can tend the horses, I’d like a few minutes to speak to Leesha alone,” she said. The others nodded, and Jizell escorted Leesha into the hospit.
Jizell’s hospit had been home to Leesha for several years, and still held a warm familiarity, but somehow it seemed smaller than it had just a year earlier.
“Your room is the same as you remember it,” Jizell said, as if reading her thoughts. “Kadie and some of the older girls grumble about it, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s your room until you say otherwise. You can bed there, and we can put the others in spare cots in the patient wards.” She broke into a smile. “Unless you’d like one of the men to share your room.” She gave Leesha a wink.
Leesha laughed. Jizell hadn’t changed at all, still trying to find Leesha a match. “That’s quite all right.”
“Seems a waste,” Jizell said. “You told me Gared was handsome, but you shorted him even so, and half the Jongleurs and Tenders in the city whisper that your Painted Man may be the Deliverer himself. Not to mention Rojer, a fine catch by any girl’s standards, and we all know he shines on you.”
“Rojer and I are just friends, Jizell,” Leesha said, “and the same goes for the others.”
Jizell shrugged and let the matter drop. “Just good to have you home.”
Leesha put a hand on her arm. “It’s only for a short time. Deliverer’s Hollow is my home now. The village has swollen into a small city, and they need all the Herb Gatherers they can get. I can’t stay away long; not ever again.”
Jizell sighed. “Bad enough I lost Vika to the Hollow, but now you, too. If the place is going to keep stealing my apprentices, I might as well sell the hospit and set up shop there.”
“We could use the extra Gatherers,” Leesha said, “but the town’s got threefold more refugees than we can feed. It’s no place for you and the girls right now.”
“Or the place we’re needed most,” Jizell said.
Leesha shook her head. “I expect you’ll have refugees aplenty in Angiers, before long.”
CHAPTER 17
KEEPING UP WITH THE DANCE
333 AR SPRING
“OPEN UP, IN THE name of the duke!” a voice barked shortly after dawn. The shouted command was accompanied by a loud pounding on the hospit door, still barred for the night.