Karigan shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Something I can do for you?”
“I am Clatheas, Seer.” The woman spoke with an intensity that suggested many held contempt for her title. “Perhaps I can do something for you.”
“Sorry, I don’t want my fortune told.” Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have minded, but she didn’t possess the coin for something so frivolous.
“I won’t read your fortune. These cards merely mirror one’s thoughts.” Clatheas spread them across the table. Colorful pictures of kings, queens, knights, merchants, seafarers, and courtiers gazed back up at Karigan. Clatheas swept them back into a deck, nimbly shuffling them as she spoke. “The cards can read nothing. They simply reflect.” Her eyes, deep brown, focused on Karigan’s. “I’m more interested in the ghost that shadows you.”
Karigan half-stood, her chair scraping the floor. When she noticed other patrons watching, she reddened and slid back into her seat. The patrons turned their attention back to their games and conversations.
“You see—?”
“I see a young man in green. Too young to die, yet two arrows pierce his back. You know of him?”
“I—”
“He struggles to speak to you, and to me. He is speaking now, but we cannot hear. He hasn’t the power now.”
“Why do you tell me this?”
“Why should I not? You are more than you seem, though you try to conceal it. The ghost is warning you of something. If you know what it is, perhaps you can avoid it. If not . . .” Clatheas shrugged.
“Here you go, missy.” The servant slid a bowl full of steaming stew, a platter of sliced beef and mushrooms, bread, and a goblet of wine in front of Karigan. “Now don’t distract the girl from her vittles, Clatheas.” The servant left humming to herself. Clatheas scowled after her.
Karigan broke off a piece of warm, moist bread and offered it to the seer. She waved it off, her necklaces jangling. Without another word, Karigan shoveled succulent stew into her mouth, sucking in air when it burned her tongue. Her stomach growled voraciously, and the seer watched her take every bite. More tables filled up, and the noise level of the common room elevated as the minstrel played foot-stomping, hand-clapping, jig-dancing, boisterous music.
When Karigan had eaten her fill, she sank in her chair with a hand on her gorged belly. More than half the food still remained on the table, but her stomach, which had grown accustomed to so little food, would accept no more. She sipped lazily at the wine. At first it was a bit sour, but after a while, she was convinced of its fruity flavor.
Clatheas shuffled her cards and leaned toward Karigan so she couldn’t be overheard by others. “I find it interesting that a Green Rider should be searching for one who matches your description.”
Karigan sat up, all attention now. “My description?”
“There are some who know seers can be helpful. They will listen to seers and believe.” Clatheas frowned. “I saw only that Rider’s disaster when I looked at the cards.”
“She’s dead.”
“I warned her something terrible was going to happen. You know of her, then?”
“I saw her body.”
Clatheas clucked. “I didn’t learn her name, but she sought a girl and a horse. You wouldn’t know what it means, would you?”
“You’re the seer,” Karigan said.
“You don’t know either. Curious. A ghost follows you, you conceal who you are, and a Green Rider searching for someone of your description dies.” She cut the deck in half and turned over a card. The picture was a rider in green, on a red steed, fleeing arrows.
Karigan’s eyes widened. She had seen fortune cards before, but never this one. “How—?”
Clatheas’ brown eyes were fervent. “Were I you, Green Rider who-is-not, I wouldn’t linger in North. Heed the warning of the card, for it is the same one I saw when I read for that dead Rider.”
KING-HATERS
Karigan sat immobilized, and it was some moments before she realized Clatheas had left her to wander among other tables to offer the telling of fortunes. More people trickled into the inn. A group sat in a tight cluster at an adjacent table. Among them was a petite, titian-haired woman. When she spoke, her eyes afire, all others leaned in closer to listen. Karigan strained to hear, too.
“Tomorrow,” the woman said with a clipped Rhovan accent, “we shall hold the rally. The people will hear us and support us. It is the people who shall rule, not a man who thinks himself one among the gods.”
There was a murmur of agreement. “From North to Sacor City,” one man said above the others.
The woman smiled, dimples deepening on either side of her mouth, and Karigan saw how people could be magnetically drawn to her. She hushed the group. “And then the Lone Forest. We will go to the Lone Forest and answer to none but ourselves.”
A babble of approval circulated among the group.
“Pie, missy?”
Karigan jumped, startled out of her observations, and wrenched her attention away from the group to the servant. “I don’t think so.” She smiled with regret, for the pies had looked mouth-watering. “But maybe you could tell me who that woman at the next table is.”
“You thinking about joining their group?”
“I don’t know what their group is.”
The servant pushed a wisp of hair from her eyes. “Why, they’re the Anti-Monarchy Society.” She glanced over at them, then said in a whisper, “There’s some that call them the King-Haters. Their ideas are a trifle far-fetched, but they say things folks want to hear. That’s Lorilie, their leader. Rumor has it that she was Rhovan aristocracy until King Thergood cast her out of the country for her beliefs. Ever since, she’s been a thorn in Zachary’s side. Surprises me that the Greenie wasn’t looking for her the other day. Lorilie Dorran’s considered an outlaw in Sacoridia, but seeing as most everyone else in North is an outlaw, it doesn’t much matter. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her.”