he said. “My father’s dead. A letter, you say?” He inspected them one by one. His eyes lingered longest on Dustfinger’s face.
“Yes, a letter from Ombra,” replied Dustfinger, glancing up at the mill. “Why isn’t it grinding?
Don’t the farmers bring you their grain anymore, or have you run out of miller’s men?”
The miller shrugged. “Someone brought us damp spelt to grind yesterday. The bran gummed up the millstones. My man spent hours cleaning them. What kind of letter is it? And who’s it to?
Don’t you have a name?”
Dustfinger looked at him thoughtfully. “So is there a letter here?”
“It’s for me,” said Meggie, stepping forward beside him. “Meggie Folchart. That’s my name.”
The miller inspected her at length – her dirty dress, her matted hair – and then he nodded. “Yes, I have it inside,” he said. “I’m only asking because a letter can be dangerous in the wrong hands, can’t it? Go on in, I’ll just load up this last sack.”
“Fill the water bottles,” Dustfinger whispered to Farid, slinging his backpack over the boy’s shoulders. “I’ll catch that damn marten, pay for the chicken, and as soon as Meggie has the letter we’ll be off out of here.” Before Farid could protest, he had disappeared into the mill. With Meggie. The boy passed his arm over his dirty face and watched them go. “Fill the water bottles!”
muttered Farid as he climbed down the bank to the river. “Catch the marten! Does he think I’m his servant?” The mill boy was still sitting on the steps as Farid stood in the cold river, holding their gourds under water. There was something about that boy that he didn’t like. Something in his face. Fear. Yes, that was it. He was afraid. What of? It’s hardly likely to be me, thought Farid, looking around. Something was wrong, he could smell it. He’d always been able to smell it, even back in his other life when he had to stand guard, spy out the land, follow people unseen, go scouting ahead – oh yes, he knew what danger smelled like. He put the water bottles in the backpack with Jink and scratched the sleepy marten’s head.
He didn’t see the body until he was about to wade back to the bank. The dead man was still young, and Farid had a feeling that he’d seen his face before. Hadn’t the man thrown a copper coin into his bowl in Ombra, during the celebrations at the castle? The body was caught in the branches bending low above the water, but the wound in its chest was clearly visible. A knife.
Farid’s heart began to race so suddenly that he could hardly breathe. He looked at the mill. The boy sitting outside it was clutching his own shoulders as if he feared he might fall apart with terror. But the miller had disappeared.
No sound could be heard from the mill, but that meant nothing. The rushing water would have drowned out everything screams, the clash of swords ..
Come on, Farid, he told himself sharply. Slink up there and find out what’s going on. You’ve done it a hundred times – no, even more often. Ducking low, he waded through the river and climbed up onto the bank behind the mill wheel. His heart was in his mouth as he leaned against the wall of the mill, but that was nothing new, either. A thousand times or more he had slunk up to a building, a window, a closed door, with his heart beating hard. He leaned Dustfinger’s backpack with the sleeping marten in it against the wall.
Gwin. Gwin had run inside the mill. And Dustfinger had gone after him. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. Meggie was with him, too. Farid looked up at the mill. The nearest window was a good way above his head, but luckily the wall was rough textured. “Keep silent as a snake,” he whispered to himself as he hauled himself up. The windowsill was white with flour dust. Holding his breath, Farid peered in. The first thing he saw was a pudgy fellow with a foolish face, probably the miller’s man. Farid had never seen the other man beside him before, but unfortunately he couldn’t say the same of his companion.
Basta. The same thin face, the same vicious smile. Only the clothes were different. Basta was no longer wearing his white shirt and black suit with the flower in his buttonhole. No, Basta now wore the Adderhead’s silvery gray, and he had a sword at his side. With a knife in his belt, too, of course. But he was holding a dead chicken in his left hand.
Only the millstone stood between him and Dustfinger the millstone and Gwin, who was crouching in the middle of the round stone, staring longingly at the chicken as the tip of his tail twitched restlessly up and down. Meggie was standing close to Dustfinger. Was she thinking the same as Farid? Did she remember Fenoglio’s deadly words? Perhaps, for she was trying to entice Gwin over to her, but the marten took no notice.
What am I to do? Farid wondered. What on earth am I to do? Climb in? Nonsense, what use would that be? His silly little knife couldn’t prevail against two swords, and then there’d be the miller and his man to deal with, too. The miller was standing right beside the door. “Well, are these the folk you were waiting for?” he asked Basta. How pleased with himself and his lies he looked.
Farid would have loved to use his knife to peel that sly smile off his lips.
“Yes, they are!” purred Basta. “The little witch and the fire-eater in the bargain. It was well worth the wait. Even though I’ll probably never get that damn flour out of my lungs again.”
Think, Farid. Go on. He looked around, let his eyes wander, as if they could find him a way of escape through the solid masonry. There was another window, but the miller’s man was standing in front of it, and a wooden staircase led to the loft, where they probably stored the grain. They would tip it through the wooden hopper sticking up through the floor of the loft, and then it would fall on the millstone. The hopper! Yes, it rose through the ceiling of the mill like a wooden mouth right above the stone. Suppose he . .
Farid looked up at the mill. Was there another window higher up? Yes, there was, hardly more than a hole in the wall, but he had crawled through narrower openings before. His heart was still in his mouth as he hauled himself farther up the wall. The river flowed fast to his left, and a crow stared at him from a willow as suspiciously as if it were about to give him away to the miller at any moment. Farid was breathing heavily as he forced his shoulders through the narrow aperture in the wall. As he set foot on the wooden floorboards of the loft, they creaked treacherously, but the river drowned out that telltale sound. On his stomach, Farid inched over to the hopper and peered down through it. Right below him stood Basta. And Dustfinger must be standing opposite him on the other side of the stone, with Meggie. Farid couldn’t see him, but he could imagine only too well what Dustfinger was thinking of: Fenoglio’s words telling the tale of his death.
“Grab that marten, Slasher!” Basta told the man beside him. “Go on, do it.”
“Do it yourself. You think I want to catch rabies?”
“Come here, Gwin!” That was Dustfinger’s voice. What was he doing? Trying to laugh his own fear in the face, the way he sometimes did when the fire bit his skin? Gwin leaped off the stone.
He would be sitting on Dustfinger’s shoulder, staring at Basta. Stupid Gwin. He didn’t know about the words. .
“Fine new clothes, Basta!” said Dustfinger. “When the servant finds a new master he must wear new clothes, mustn’t he?”
