“Company,” Anton said from behind her. “Friendly?”
Brenna moved closer to him. “We’ll know soon enough.”
Silent, they stood and waited for the dogsled to arrive.
Karl woke to find himself lying, fully clothed, in a strange bed. He felt a moment of panic, trying to remember where he was… then the events of the previous night came rushing back and he sat up.
He had a terrible taste in his mouth, an urgent need to relieve his bladder, and a strong desire for fresh clothes: those he wore had a definite horsiness to them.
In the Palace, he had an enchanted chamber pot that instantly whisked all wastes away in a flash of blue light. The cracked porcelain pot he found under the bed… didn’t. But it served the purpose. He closed it and put it at the foot of the bed, not knowing what else to do with it.
Then he went to the door and tried to open it. Rather to his surprise, it swung wide.
He’d had only a confused impression of the house the night before. He remembered climbing the stairs, and there they were, leading down; but he hadn’t noticed that this upper hallway went on a lot farther than he would have thought from the way the house looked from outside. There was no one around, and though hunger was now clamoring for a place at his mental table, he told it firmly to wait and went exploring instead.
He quickly figured out how the trick was accomplished. The farmhouse wasn’t just nestled against the hillside, as he had noted when they’d ridden up, it was attached to the hillside, the corridor extending not just under the slate roof that showed outside, but through an open door that (Karl confirmed) looked like a wall when it was closed. A secret door, a secret hallway, he thought. I could be in one of Verdsmitt’s mystery plays.
He walked into the underground portion of the hall. There wouldn’t be much point of a secret hallway if there weren’t also a secret exit out of it, and sure enough, at the end of the hall another door opened into a narrow staircase he presumed climbed up to the top of the hill
… though he could only presume it because, in the chamber at the bottom of those stairs, Jopps and Denson sat playing cards by the light of a lantern, a handful of small coins spread on the table between them. They glanced up.
“Um,” said Karl. “Just exploring.”
“Not this way, you’re not,” said Denson. He tossed a card on the table; Jopps swore and threw down his own cards. Denson scooped up the coins.
“That’s ten gelts you’ve won off me,” Jopps complained. “I’m beginning to think you’re cheating.”
“If I were cheating,” Denson said, “I’d have won a hundred by now.”
“What time is it?” Karl asked.
“Couldn’t tell you,” Jopps said cheerfully. “But getting on toward sunset, I’d say. You’ve slept the day away.”
Sunset! By now Falk would know Karl was missing. He’d probably even discovered that he’d gone through the Barrier… into the Common part of New Cabora.
Which means he’ll take it out on the Commons, Karl thought uneasily. That’s why they wanted me out of the city. But what will he do?
“Where’s Vinthor?” he said.
“Downstairs sipping wine with our host, I shouldn’t wonder,” Denson growled. “While we’re stuck up here with each other.”
“Shut up and deal,” Jopps said. “At least we’re inside. Them that are outside are envying us right about now.”
Denson shrugged. “There is that.” He shuffled the cards and started dealing.
Karl went back down the hidden corridor, into the “real” corridor, and down the stairs. Vinthor, it turned out, was not sipping wine with the matronly woman who had greeted Karl last night. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen. The woman was there, though, knitting by the fire; when she saw him she immediately put the needles and yarn aside. “And there you are, you poor frozen duckling,” she said. “I won’t ask if you slept well, since here it is getting dark again already and you just getting out of bed.” She reached out to tweak his rumpled clothes, tsking. “And you slept in your clothes. I should have undressed you while I was about it, poor lamb.”
Karl didn’t know how to respond to that. “I am grateful, Madame. ..?”
“Oh, don’t bother with the Madame, sweetie-pie.” The woman smiled. “Goodwife is good enough for me. Goodwife Beth.”
Karl blinked, not sure she was serious. Goodwife Beth was the name of a character from The Farmer’s Mother, a Verdsmitt one-act that was very popular with amateur actors because of its broadly comic characters. And now that he thought about it, Goodwife Beth in the play also called people “duckling” and “lamb” and “sweetie-pie.” Even the most inappropriate people, like powerful MageLords.
He laughed, suddenly. He couldn’t help it. And Princes, he thought.
Goodwife Beth-obviously that was no more her real name than Vinthor’s was Vinthor-smiled. “Does my heart good to hear you laugh, and you so pale and frozen when you came in last night. Well, it looks like no permanent harm was done, honeybuns. Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” Karl said. “But… I’d prefer some clean clothes, first. If there are any.”
Goodwife Beth looked him over with a critical eye. “I dare say I’ve got something your size. Come along.”
She led him into a main-floor bedroom whose most impressive feature was an enormous four-poster bed. She ignored the beat-up old wardrobe in the corner, instead moving aside a rug and pulling open a trapdoor beneath it. She disappeared down a ladder, and emerged a moment later with a handful of clothes. Stores for the Common Cause’s agents, he thought. I wonder what else is down there?
Goodwife Beth showed no inclination to give him a tour. She closed the door firmly behind her, then unrolled the rug over it again. She spread the clothes out on the bed; she’d brought up three shirts, two pairs of pants, even clean underwear-at least, he hoped it was clean. She held up the first shirt, tossed it aside, then held up the second and nodded. “There you are, moppet. Try that one on for size.”
She waited expectantly. Feeling a little awkward, Karl pulled his own sweat-stained shirt over his head. “My, what a well-built young man you are, chickadee,” Goodwife Beth said.
Karl felt himself blushing from forehead to navel, and quickly started pulling the shirt over his head. It was only half on when Vinthor stormed into the room. “That bloody bastard Falk has-” He stopped on seeing Karl, but only for an instant. “You’d better be worth it, you stupid, useless whelp!” Karl jerked the shirt down over his head and stepped back, bumping into the wardrobe, as Vinthor advanced on him. “Do you know what your rutting Minister of Public Safety has done?” He jabbed a finger at Karl. “Leveled New Cabora City Hall. And says he’ll destroy another building every day until someone tells him where you are. New Cabora City Hall has stood for almost two centuries. You’ve only been around for two decades. We should have killed you like poor Jenna tried to do. But, no, I went and asked the Patron!” He suddenly snarled and drew back his fist, and Karl threw his arms over his face… but the blow never landed.
“As you were required to do,” said Goodwife Beth, and she no longer sounded at all like the comic character from Verdsmitt’s play. Vinthor froze, fist cocked, as the tone registered. Then he dropped his hand and turned. Karl lowered his own arms and straightened, looking past him. Goodwife Beth seemed somehow to have gotten both taller and a lot… harder.
“Goodwife…”
“The Patron needs this young man alive more than the Patron does you,” Goodwife Beth said. “Which means you are to defend him to the death, if it comes to that. Do you have a problem with those orders?”
Vinthor’s face had gone somehow solid, as though it were carved out of marble. “No, ma’am.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And so will the Patron be, when next we speak.” And then, suddenly, the iron vanished, hidden away behind the smiling face of the simple farm woman who had welcomed Karl to her house the night before. “Now, then,” she said to Karl, “you just go ahead and try on those trousers and underwear. And don’t worry, mooncalf. I’m not going to stay and watch.” With a warm chuckle, Goodwife Beth bustled out of the room.