“Ha, ha, Wilmy,” he said, wobbling this way and that down the street. “You let me see now, y’hear? Y’let me, an’ we’ll have good fun.” They disappeared down an alley. The woman’s giggles echoed back out to the street, were followed by silence, then delighted squeals.
After a time, Karigan caught up to, and followed behind, a horse cart. Something large and heavy bumped on its wooden bottom as the wheels jolted over ruts in the street.
“Hey, Garl,” said a man who leaned against a hitching post. “Watcha find?”
The cart driver hauled on the reins and whoaed his horse to a halt. “Remember that Greenie that come by the other day, asking all those questions ’bout some girl? I found her over by Millet’s Pond, two arrows in ’er.”
“Just as well,” the hitching post man said. “We’ve no need for those types ’round here.”
Karigan went cold. Another dead Green Rider? With two arrows in her? She rode by the cart, The Horse’s head lowered as if he knew a dead Green Rider lay in it. Karigan didn’t want to look, but could not avoid the glint of light from a nearby inn on the Rider’s gold hair. She lay half on her side, one gauntleted hand stretched out, the fingers slightly curled. The other hand lay across her stomach. She looked as if she might be asleep, except for the two black arrows protruding from her chest. The drinking song issuing from the inn made a grotesque dirge.
Karigan urged The Horse on, and the Rider’s gold-winged horse brooch shimmered in the corner of her eye. Shaken, she stared straight ahead, the conversation and laughter of the two men fading behind her. Didn’t they care that a woman lay dead next to them? Didn’t they know that Green Riders were brave and deserved more than being thrown into the back of some dirty horse cart?
A somber mood took Karigan. She dismounted in front of The Fallen Tree, the inn Abram had recommended. The carved sign above the door showed an ax embedded in a tree stump. No mistake about what this town was known for.
A stableboy came to claim The Horse. “Is there room for the night?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Then I’ll see to my horse myself.”
The boy shrugged. It wasn’t what guests usually requested, but she didn’t want to chance anyone seeing her gear close up. She led The Horse through an alley to the rear of the inn where a stable and small paddock stood lighted by lanterns. Karigan hitched The Horse to a railing and untacked him there. Once free, he trotted to the center of the paddock for an enthusiastic roll in the mud. Karigan chuckled despite herself.
The stableboy watched The Horse grunt and rub his neck and side into the ground. “Where’d you find the horse?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“I saw his scars. A Green Rider was asking after such a horse the other day.”
Karigan had to bite her tongue to regain her composure. The Green Rider had been looking for The Horse? “Are you implying I stole a horse, boy?”
“Why—” The boy looked at her with big eyes.
“I bought that horse from a mercenary, at a fair price, too.” Karigan used as stern a voice as possible, and it was working. She blessed her fast thinking. A mercenary’s horse would be prone to scars, too.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the boy said.
Karigan smiled. Now the boy addressed her with the proper tone of respect, and eyed the saber girded at her side with trepidation.
He thought I was some runaway, she thought. Then remembered that she was. “I don’t want any slack on his grain. Give him a good rubdown, and make sure there isn’t a fleck of dust on him come morning.”
She fished for a coin in her pocket. Her father always insisted on tipping stableboys. He claimed they were always underpaid. It hurt to part with a copper—a night at the inn would drain her resources as it was—but she needed to put the stableboy’s mind on something other than scarred horses and Green Riders. The boy received the coin enthusiastically, and reassured her that her horse would be well cared for.
Karigan caught up her gear, the bridle slung over her shoulder and the saddle over an arm, and entered the inn from a side door. She was struck by the aroma of broiled meat and fresh baked bread. Her mouth watered over a table of cooling pies and a cauldron of stew with chunks of beef, potatoes, and parsnips simmering over a hearthfire. She hadn’t eaten a true meal since Seven Chimneys. Servants dashed in and out of the kitchen through a swinging door, balancing platters heaped with, or depleted of, food.
“Out-out-out!” An imposing, rotund woman brandished her ladle at Karigan. “I won’t put up with horse leather in my kitchen.”
Karigan rushed through the door, narrowly dodging a servant with a tray of empty tankards. She stepped away from the doorway to avoid further collisions.
The common room was clean and quiet—a good sign. Only a handful of tables were occupied. A woman sat by the stone fireplace reading fortune cards for a burly man, and an equally burly woman. They guffawed at whatever predictions the fortune-teller had told them. A single musician tuned his lute in a corner. It was hardly what she expected to find in North after what she had seen already.
“Do you have a request, lady?”
The musician gazed at her intently. She had seen the same expression on Estral’s face often enough, and knew that minstrels missed very little.
“Uh, no. Not right now.”
The man, perhaps middle-aged, bowed his head gracefully and turned his attention back to his lute. For a warm-up, he plucked a quiet song.