“Numbwine. Yes. Not as good as a potion, but good enough. But you’re hardly a common soldier now, lady, and you might find you liked spiced wine.” Zinthys poured another mug full and passed it to her. Paks took it, and sipped. Zinthys watched her, his eyebrows raised. “Well?”
“It’s—very good.” She looked down, and sipped again. It was good, a red wine flavored with her favorite spices.
“Have you found any trace of our brigands?” asked Zinthys.
“No, sir, unless something I saw today—” She told him about the blazed tree, and answered his questions. She started to add what the Marshal had explained about the possible uses of such a blaze in setting an ambush, but remembered in time that Sir Felis probably already knew that. He nodded.
“Fresh blazes. There’s that merchant from Chaya in town now—wasn’t he planning to leave tomorrow, Zinthys?”
“That’s right. Master merchant Cobai Trav-something, and his gnome partners—”
“Gnomes?” asked Paks, sitting up.
“Yes. What is it, haven’t you seen gnomes before?”
“No. I’ve heard of them—” she remembered Bosk talking about gnomes, elves, and dwarves on her first trip south.
“Well, around here you’ll see gnomes fairly often. I’m surprised you didn’t see these at the inn today. Two of the gnome kingdoms are less than a three days’ ride from here. If you meet them, remember that they’re very strict.”
“Strict?”
Zinthys laughed. “They make a court judge look like a juggler, Paksenarrion. They are full of dignity, and pride, and the right way to do everything—Ashto help you if you laugh at a gnome, or fail to complete a contract.”
“They don’t like wizards,” said Sir Felis dryly. Paks glanced at him, and he grinned slightly, cocking his head at Zinthys. Zinthys flushed.
“It’s not that, Sir Felis—it’s that they’re so—so—” He waved his hands in the air. “Sober,” he finished. “Dead serious all the time, that’s gnomes.”
“Anyway,” Sir Felis went on, “there’s a west-bound caravan in town now—headed for the gnome kingdoms next, and then Vérella. And if that blaze is fresh, it could mean that the brigands are planning to attack.”
“It won’t do any good to tell gnomes,” said Zinthys.
“No, perhaps not. But I will send word to the caravan master. Not you, Paks—” he said, as she opened her mouth. “I don’t want you to ride with this caravan—you weren’t hired as a guard. If the brigands do strike, they should leave some trace you can follow to find their lair.”
Sir Felis agreed with the Marshal’s advice to ride out in other directions for the next day or so. Paks took this chance to look at his maps one more time, and fix in her mind the location of the ruined buildings he thought might harbor brigands.
The next morning when Paks went out to care for the black horse, she found the inn yard noisy and crowded. The day before she had been so excited about the blaze that she hardly noticed the new arrivals. Now teamsters were hitching teams of heavy mules to wagons. Paks realized that the short fellows she’d dismissed as someone’s boys were actually not human—gnomes, she assumed. They were not so stout as the dwarves she’d seen; they wore plain clothes of gray and brown. Sevri merely nodded to her, darting quickly from one stall to another as she finished her morning’s work. Paks decided to eat breakfast at the inn, after feeding the horses, so that she could watch the caravan leave.
It was not nearly so large as the one she had been with in Aarenis: seven wagons loaded with barrels and bales, with two guards besides the driver on each. The merchants—a blond human and two gnomes in sober colors but richer cloth than the gnome teamsters—rode saddle mules. Paks noticed that none of the gnomes smiled, though the human merchant grinned a farewell to Hebbinford, and promised to bring a barrel of “Marrakai red” on the way back. She went on with her breakfast, and was just washing down the last crumbs of it when Ambros appeared outside. She leaned out the window and called to him.
“I thought I’d come here,” he said, dismounting. “If we’re riding east today—”
“Just a moment—” Paks gestured to Hebbinford, who came to take her coins. “I know I’m late, but I thought I’d have time to breakfast before work today.”
“Don’t rush.” Ambros did not seem in any hurry. “Shall I saddle your horse for you?”
“No. I don’t know how he’d behave.” Paks hurried up to her room, remembering the Marshal’s injunction to wear mail every day. She was startled to see the black-clad man lounging in the upper passage. Had he been trying her door? But he smiled and nodded, as if glad to see her. Paks unlocked her door thoughtfully and latched it behind her. Everything seemed to be in place. She donned the lightweight mail the elfane taig had given her, pulled her shirt back over it, and caught up her old cloak. With that rolled into a bundle under her arm, she came back into the passage, and found it empty. She had heard no footsteps passing.
By the time she was back downstairs, Ambros had led his horse into the inn yard. He was munching a hot pastry, and grinned at her as she went into the stable. Sevri was busily cleaning out stalls; Paks thought of telling her about the black-clad man, but decided against it. She saddled the black horse without trouble, led it into the yard, and mounted. Ambros swung into his own saddle and they rode out, turning right onto the east road.
“How far out this way have you ridden?” he asked.
“Not very. I came in this way—on a trail that joins the road from the south.”
“I know the one.”
“I’ve ridden that far—no more.”
“Let’s go to the border, then,” said Ambros. Paks looked at him. He seemed happy and younger, like a child at a fair. She wondered what the life of a yeoman marshal was like.
“How far is that?”
“Oh—if we keep moving, we can be there and back by tonight. Late tonight.”
“Should we?”
Ambros grinned at her. “Probably not. But it would be fun. I grew up near the border; I know the country. We won’t get lost, and I don’t think anything this way will bother us.”
“Well, the Marshal said—”
“The Marshal said ride other ways than west. This is other. By Gird, Paks, I haven’t had a day to myself since—” he stopped suddenly, and ran his hand through his hair. Paks remembered suddenly that she had not brought her helmet, and felt stupid. What good was mail, when a head-blow could kill so easily? “Anyway,” he went on, more calmly, “I don’t see that it will hurt to ride all day. If we don’t make it that far by noon, then we’ll turn back. Why not?”
Paks wondered if he really wanted to visit his home. She did not want to ask. She wondered what Ambros would say if she turned back for her helmet. Would he think she was a coward? Was he even wearing mail himself? She tried to see, and could not tell. The mail from the elfane taig, she had found, did not jingle as her other mail shirt had; she thought perhaps good mail did not. In the end she said nothing, and they jogged on together, into the morning sun.
When nothing happened for some time, Paks quit thinking so much about an arrow in the head, and instead enjoyed the ride. A thin haze covered the sun, thickening to a gray ceiling as they rode. Ambros frowned at the sky.
“If that keeps up, we’d better turn back.”
“Why?”
“From that direction, it means rain, or even an early snow.” He sighed. “I might have known that Gird himself would shorten my leash, with the Marshal gone.”
Paks stared at him; he looked both unhappy and slightly worried. “Ambros, what is it?”
“I—I’ll tell you, Paks, but please don’t tell everyone. I’d hoped to—to go as far as my father’s farm. It’s been over a year, now, and it less than a day’s ride away. And I wonder if I’ll ever see them again.”
“But if it’s that close, why haven’t you—?”