Paks shook her head. “No. And she won’t be carrying as much weight. I’ll be going toward Vérella, I think.”
“Umph.” He had one of Star’s feet up, then another. “I’d still say low caulks in front. It’ll frost before these wear out.”
By the time Star was shod and the shoes paid for, the tall man had grunted and groaned and shifted around on the stones. His eyes were still closed, though, and he had said nothing coherent.
“You wanted to help,” said the smith with a bit of his earlier belligerence. “Suppose you take him back to the inn for me. I’ll tell the watch about it, and Jos can ask me, if he wants. And look—” The smith bent down with a grunt and opened the man’s belt pouch. “You know he owes me for the shoeing of that devil there: see, I’m taking just what he owes.” Paks nodded, and the smith heaved the man upright and slung him over one broad shoulder. “Now, I think your pony would carry him better than his horse. Can you lead both?”
“Yes—” Paks was reluctant, nonetheless, to go out on the streets leading another man’s horse, with the man himself slung unconscious over her pony. “But don’t you think that—I mean, since you hit him, shouldn’t—?”
“A warrior like you doesn’t want credit for defeating him?” The smith’s voice was scornful, and his look more so. Paks reddened. Nothing and no one in this town had been what she expected. “I’d have thought,” the smith continued, “that such as you were quite used to hauling bodies around. Or did you just leave them?”
Paks opened her mouth and shut it again. There seemed nothing to say to that. But as the smith folded the man over Star’s back, the Gird’s Marshal walked into the courtyard. His glance rested on Paks, then on the smith and his burden.
“I heard, Master Doggal, that you had had a disturbance.”
The smith stopped, with a hand on the tall man’s back where he lay across the pony. “If you heard that, Marshal, you heard I needed no help.”
The Marshal glanced at Paks again. The smith caught the look and raised his voice. “No, and I didn’t need her, either. Is that it, is she one of your precious yeomen?”
“No. I merely wondered.”
The smith began tying the man to Star’s pack pad with the thongs. “Took you long enough. If I had needed help, I’d have been dead long since.” He turned to Paks. “Now, lady, just you work whatever magic you used on that horse, and take him and this fellow back to the inn for me.” Paks saw the Marshal give her a sharp look at the word magic, but he turned back to the smith as that individual kept talking. Paks started to move away, but the Marshal raised his hand to stop her.
“You seem to think, Marshal, that we’d have no order here without you Girdsmen. I’m not denying you’re a brave bunch, and useful when we have trouble too big for one man or two. But I can hold my own with any single man, and most two or three. As I was telling this lady—” Paks wondered why she had been promoted from “girl” and “female” to “lady.”
“As I said to her, the Maker’s hammer wielded by a faithful arm will stand over a sword any time.”
“Yet the Maker is said to have made many a blade, in the old tales,” said the Marshal, with a kindling eye. “And you, I know, have made most of the blades in this village—”
“Oh, aye, that’s true. When I have time. And it’s a test of the art, that it is, to make a fine-balanced blade that will hold an edge and withstand a hard fight. I won’t say against that. But I will say—”
“That you can hold your own in a fight. And I’ll agree to that, Master Doggal. But the captain did ask me to keep an eye on things, after that last trouble, and the Council as well—”
The smith had calmed down a lot, and the discussion seemed, to Paks, to be working over well-plowed ground. “That’s so. If it’s for the Council, then I might as well tell you all that happened. Saves seeing the watch. This fellow came to have his horse shod—that black one there—and quarreled with my price, after. The horse is vicious: doesn’t look it now, I’ll admit, but just you try and put a shoe on it. I charged more for it. Always do, as you know. If I’m to risk my head, I must have gain for it.” He paused and the Marshal nodded. “Well, then, he said as much as that I’d no way to make him pay. I tapped his arm to show I meant my words, and he drew on me. Then this lady—I’d not seen her come—she drew as well. I thought they were together, and raised a yell. Then it seemed she thought to aid me—but, you see, I’d already raised a cry—so I thought I’d let her fight, was she so eager to. They were well-matched. He’d the reach of her, and was heavier, but she was quicker and her blade had more quality. Then—well—it’s hard to stay out of a fight, so I broke his head with the hammer, after all.”
“Mmm.” The Marshal looked at Paks. “I’d have told you our smith can handle himself in a fight. It’s not well for newcomers to brawl in the streets.”
Before Paks could answer, the smith was defending her. “ ‘Tis not her fault, Marshal. I’d think you’d be pleased, even if she’s not one of yours. She thought she saw an old man—” he rumpled his thin gray hair, “—beset by an armed bully. She did well.”
“Hmm. Well, I suppose—if you have no complaint against her—” The Marshal was frowning.
“Not at all. Not at all. Suppose I had slipped and fallen? She was trying to help. And, you might notice, on the side of that law and order you praise so highly. I’ve no complaint. In fact—but go on, now, and get that lummox out of my yard.” He turned abruptly and dove back into the forge.
“I’ll walk with you to the inn,” said the Marshal to Paks in a neutral tone. Paks followed him down the alley, leading both animals. She kept her thumb firmly on the ring.
They were almost to the crossroad when the Marshal spoke again. “If I’d defended you,” he said without preamble, “old Doggal would be lodging a complaint to the Council somehow. He won’t agree with me on anything but smithing itself if he can help it.”
“Then—you aren’t angry with me for this?”
“For going to his aid? Of course not. You might wait, another time, to see whether your aid is needed, or someday you’ll be killed over some little thing, and nothing gained. I’ll just have a word with Hebbinford,” he said as they came to the inn door. “You take that horse around back.”
Paks found herself leading the tall black warhorse to the stable before she quite realized the Marshal had taken Star’s lead. She heard, behind her, the innkeeper’s voice and the Marshal’s, and the exclamations of the serving wenches.
9
When she came in to supper that night, the common room stilled. Someone dropped a dish, and it clattered on the floor. She could hear the rustle of cloth as someone bent to pick it up. Paks carefully did not meet any of the eyes in the room, but picked her way to an empty table. As she sat down, a muted hum resumed. She heard a phrase here and there, but tried to ignore the voices. They all knew, as she did, that the tall man lay unconscious in his room upstairs. She didn’t know what stories were going around, but obviously she was in them. She ordered the special dinner: roast beef, mushrooms, hot bread and pastry. She was halfway through it before she remembered that she’d thought of going to weapons-practice at the Girdsmen’s that evening. If she ate all that—she sighed and pushed the dishes away.
“Is something wrong with your meal?” asked Hebbinford, pausing by her table.
“No, not at all. I thought I’d go to the grange this evening, though, and drill—and not on a full stomach.”
“I see. Well, we can put that by for you, for when you get back, if you like.”
“Thank you.” Paks had not thought of that. “I’d like that—this food is too good to waste. If it’s not too much trouble—?”