"Me too. Doesn't make any sense until it's too late, does it?” He scowled contemptuously. “We need a change of plan. The thugs are probably on their way to Suss and the festival now, but there's no point in us going to Filoby. We certainly can't risk Thogwalby after this.” He eyed Eleal shrewdly. “And we can't take you to Suss, either, can we?” He had guessed about Dolm Actor.
"Wouldn't I be safe if I took refuge in Tion's temple?"
"Would you? Would the priests let you? Besides, we must stop soon—the dragons can't take this heat.” He was looking at Sister Ahn, though, who had slumped over again in abject exhaustion.
"That only leaves one choice, sir, doesn't it?” Gim said calmly. “We go to Ruatvil."
"There's nothing there!” Eleal protested, and then realized that no-thing might be a very good thing under the circumstances.
T'lin cocked a coppery eyebrow. “Know it, do you?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Nowhere to stay?"
"Well, yes. There's a hostelry."
"And do you know the Sacrarium?"
"Of course,” she said, relieved that he had asked something easy.
"Good. Then let's zaib!"
The big man rose to his feet and headed for the dragons before Eleal had a chance to find out why T'lin Dragontrader should want to go sightseeing. It seemed out of character.
It was not true that there was nothing at Ruatvil. There were ruins, and trees, and hummocky pasture. As Eleal explained to Gim while they were riding in—repeating what Piol Poet had told her two years before—much of mighty Ruat had been built of clay bricks, and those parts had collapsed to mud once their roofs had gone. The stone buildings stood as isolated walls, broken towers, and stark, useless arches. Some families dwelt in shanties within these relics, in constant risk of death from storm or earth tremor. Other cottages had been constructed from fallen masonry and then roofed with turf, so that goats grazed on them. The result was a strangely widespread settlement, a village scattered like seed corn over the grave of a metropolis.
"I think I could have worked all that out for myself,” Gim said, looking around disparagingly.
"If you win the gold rose, the priests will make you shave off your mustache."
"What has that to do with anything?"
"I've been meaning to ask you the same question."
They were all weary. None of them had slept much in the previous night, and the journey had been hard.
Ruatvil was not completely abandoned. The main street was still wide, although its paving lay buried in grass and heaved by tree roots. A few inhabitants were going about their business—herding goats, bearing loads of food and charcoal. They all paused to stare at the dragons.
Eleal directed T'lin to the hostelry, which he would doubtless have found quite easily by himself. It brought back memories for her, yet it was smaller than she remembered. Once the building must have been some rich man's mansion or a public edifice, and the walls still stood three stories high. Now only the ground floor was in use, and sky showed through the empty arches of the windows, for the roof had long since vanished. The entrance was an imposing portico, but the doors themselves had cooked meals for persons long dead, and only their rusty hinges remained.
Piit'dor Hosteler was a large, ruddy-faced man with a gray-streaked beard and a prominent wart on his nose. Playing his role in traditional fashion, he rubbed his hands gleefully when T'lin flashed gold, gabbling at length how he anticipated an invasion of refugees from Filoby, and how the civic authorities of Ruatvil would require him to provide them with shelter, but if the noble guests were already in residence, of course, then they would not be disturbed, and fortunately his very best accommodation was still available ... and so on.
Gim was already unbuckling the straps that held Sister Ahn in her saddle. T'lin eased him out of the way. “Civic authorities!” he muttered under his breath. “Ten to one they're his brother."
He lifted the old woman bodily in his arms, her sword dangling. Piit'dor Hosteler flinched with astonishment. His joviality vanished, and he backed away until he stood squarely before the steps to his front door, all the while staring hard at that sword.
"Something wrong?” T'lin demanded.
The hosteler began to mutter about evil omens.
"All of us or none! Which is it?” T'lin was still holding the old woman as if she weighed nothing. He rolled forward menacingly.
"She is ill?"
"Merely fatigued."
Obviously unhappy, Piit'dor faltered. Daughters of Irepit must be rare in Ruatvil, but visitors with real money would not be common either. He forced an ingratiating simper. “Oh, my lord is most welcome, and all his companions. The reverend lady shall be fittingly attended.” He scurried up the steps muttering, “My wife..."
"I'll bet the ceilings leak,” Gim said.
"Yes, they do.” Suddenly Eleal began to yawn. She was too weary to relate how much it had rained on her previous visit. It had not seemed funny at the time. She thought that even a cloudburst as bad as that one would not waken her tonight, once she found somewhere to lie down.
Hayana Hosteler was even larger than her husband, boisterous and motherly, with a matching mole on her nose. She knew all the traditional business of her role—the smear of flour on the forehead, the fast shuffle on flat feet, the wiping of hands on apron—and she arrived with an entourage of several adolescent assistants. Displaying no superstitious dread of a Daughter of Irepit, she bemoaned the poor sister's distress, saw her laid on a mattress, and then chased the men away.
Furnished with a bucket of water of her own in a corner of the big room, Eleal set to work to remove the sediment of her journey. Although her inclination was just to fall over and sleep, she could not do so until Hayana and her brood stopped fussing around Sister Ahn. They were to share the same bedchamber. That mattered little; there would have been ample room for a couple of the dragons as well.
Sunlight poured in two huge empty window arches, so there was no privacy—and no security either, for anyone could approach through the woodland outside. The roof was partly composed of the original beams and upstairs flooring, now sagging badly. Where it had collapsed, the holes had been patched with tree trunks. The beds were oddly placed, obviously in the driest locations, for much of the mosaic floor was grimed by dry watercourses, relics of rain.
She had no garment other than the smock Embiliina Sculptor had given her, and it was red with dust. With her hair still damp and her feet still bare, she found herself hustled off to eat. Gim was already doing so, sitting in lordly solitude in a vast room furnished with rough-hewn tables and benches. Faded fragments of frescoes clung to the walls. His hair was as damp as hers, but he did have a clean smock. There was no sign of T'lin, who was probably fussing over his precious dragons.
Lunch—or perhaps dinner, or maybe supper—comprised heaps of fruit and hot bread and goats’ milk cheese. Gim, his new cleanliness emphasizing his sunburn, tried each sort of fruit in turn, demanding to know its name. Eleal told him, making up suitable noises when she wasn't sure. Apart from that, neither spoke much.
Eventually she could keep her eyes open no longer, although she knew the sun would not set for a couple of hours yet. “I am going to bed!” she announced firmly.
Gim donned a superior, tough-male expression. “I am going to practice my lyre, unless Dragontrader needs me."
"You can practice drums and you won't keep me awake,” Eleal said, and headed off to her room.
A mattress in one corner was invitingly empty. Another near the center bore a snoring Sister Ahn. No matter! Eleal would sleep if—Eek!