So for most of the time, even to Maja using her extra sense, Striclan seemed to be exactly what he said he was. Of course he asked a lot of questions and was always taking notes—a rich eccentric scholar was paying him to find things out, wasn’t he? And of course many of them were about magic stuff because that was one of the things his employer was interested in. But almost anything they told him might bring the notebook out. Only at certain times, perhaps with no visible outward sign at all, Maja would sense that stir of inward interest in something that had been said.
He insisted on taking over almost all of the cooking, saying it was a way of repaying Saranja for protecting him against demons. In fact he obviously loved to cook and did it very well. He decided—or perhaps Ribek had persuaded him—that Maja was too thin, and fretted because she didn’t seem to be putting on weight, and was obviously tiring herself too much, and falling asleep in the saddle, and so on.
Usually he managed to produce luscious meals from the very ordinary ingredients available at the way station stalls and spices and herbs from his saddlebags, but one morning he took a detour to a village they passed and came back with a fresh chicken and a couple of flasks of local wine, catching them up as they rested out the midday heat. That evening—maybe it was the wine that helped—he got Saranja talking about her time among the warlords, and then kept her going with just the right question or comment at just the right moment. Maja didn’t notice him doing it at first, because Saranja’s stories were so fascinating. She told them well, as if she’d been there herself, fought in that siege or made that desperate journey. Maja had never seen her like this, so animated, so clearly enjoying herself, with all her inward furies for the moment sleeping. And then…
“Some Sheep-face merchants came to Bilabi Gey and gave him a lot of fancy gifts and said if he let them run his copper mine at Sansan for him they would get a lot more copper out of it and he’d end up with a great deal of money. Tarab Arkan and Arda Gey hadn’t realized that copper was actually worth that much—if it had been silver one of them would have grabbed the mine long before—so of course they wanted Sansan and the Sheep-faces’ money for themselves. Either of them could easily have done it, except that the Sheep-faces decided to back Bilabi Gey, and that’s how they finished up fighting the warlords. And then they ran up against magicians. Tarab Arkan had a pretty good one…”
Ribek touched Maja’s wrist and pointed surreptitiously toward Striclan. He looked completely as usual, as if all his mind were engaged in paring paper-thin slices from a strong, hard cheese that he liked to sprinkle onto his food. But really his inner self was fully awake, not just interested, as though what Saranja was telling him was seriously important.
As if he was anxious not to force himself on them too much, Striclan usually left them soon after they’d finished their evening meal, and slept in another part of the way station. That night, as soon as he was out of earshot Ribek said, “Either of you two pick up what our friend made of all that? Maja, Benayu?”
“I wasn’t noticing,” said Benayu. “It’s too much effort with him, anything beyond the surface. He’s got a way of closing that part of his mind off.”
“He sort of puts it to sleep,” said Maja. “But it really woke up when Saranja started talking about the copper mine. Do you remember, when you told him about the copper in the water at that other way station…? And he was very cunning about keeping Saranja talking, asking just the right questions.”
“There’ve not been a lot of people in my life who I’ve really liked,” said Saranja quietly. “But he’s one of them. I thought. What does it matter if he’s a Sheep-face spy? It’s nothing to do with us, really. In a way we’re on the same side. We both want to get rid of the Watchers. But if he’s just pretending all the time…
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” she added, so sadly that they all fell silent, sharing her disappointment like a shared vibration, mournful bells. It reminded Maja of what it had been like only a short time ago, just before Ribek had touched her wrist, the same kind of sharing, but that time chiming cheerfully together, all five of them. Striclan too, as Saranja told her stories and they listened. Hadn’t there been something extra about Striclan’s enjoyment?
“I think he likes you too,” she said.
“Oh!”
Maja managed to pinch Ribek just in time to stop him laughing.
CHAPTER
13
The next five days, outwardly, at least, might have been any other uneventful five days in their long journey. Ribek, Striclan and Benayu kept the conversation going—though perhaps there was a difference, in that they stayed completely off the subject of magic. Saranja was very silent, but then she often was. Maja, with Ribek’s help, managed to keep her end up—awkwardly, she felt, but her feelings were confused by her knowledge of the inward awkwardness between the rest of them. Striclan seemed to feel it too. He was as helpful and affable as ever, clearly enjoyed his kick-fighting sessions with Ribek, saw that Benayu and Saranja practiced each evening with their quarterstaffs, made a wrist-sheath for Maja’s knife so that she could hide it up her sleeve, and taught her how to slip it out unnoticed and how and where to strike a stronger attacker. But he must have been aware that something had changed that evening, because he didn’t ask Saranja to tell him any more about the warlords—she was both relieved and hurt, and seemed to have lost all her usual confidence in dealing with him—and in general he asked far fewer questions and hardly produced his notebook at all.
On the fifth evening he said, “Well, it is only a couple of days now to Farfar, and we have encountered no demons. Perhaps the danger is less than I feared, and I no longer have my excuse for enjoying your pleasant company, and we should part there. I will have my report to prepare and send, which will take me a day or two, and you will be anxious to proceed on your journey.”
Ribek was about to say something when Saranja interrupted.
“Let’s get to Farfar and see.”
The sixth day was different. There was practically no one on the Highway, as most other travelers preferred to take the longer way round through Agadal, a small hill town which happened to be holding its famous seven-yearly firework festival. Magical fireworks were strictly against the rules, so Striclan decided he wasn’t interested. Thus it was that there were no other travelers in sight, either before or behind them, when they walked into the trap.
It was midmorning. The Highway wound between ragged hills, and they were walking five abreast along it, with Sponge at Benayu’s heels and the mule and horses quietly following, when four men rushed out from behind the broken wall of an old roadside shed and barred the way. There was nothing magical in their sudden appearance. Maja and Ribek had been telling each other a story, taking turns to carry it forward and picking up wherever the other one left off, so she hadn’t been paying attention to the little inherent magics in her surroundings.
The men were carrying short, improvised spears, or heavy, broad-bladed slashers and hatchets. They swaggered toward the travelers. Instinctively Maja turned to run, but three more men had appeared in the road behind them. She remembered just in time to slip her knife into her hand in the way Striclan had taught her, and hold it there, hidden in her clenched fist.
“Hands above your heads, then,” snapped the man at the center of the group in front. “No trouble, and you won’t get hurt.”
Ribek already had his arms raised and palms held slightly forward in a gesture of appeasement. He took a careless pace toward the men, as if he truly didn’t believe they meant him any harm. A pike lowered to point at his chest.