Struggling with despair, Briony sent the scout back to Eneas’ camp and began to make her way down the hillside.
The sun was gone and the air suddenly turning cold when she reached the outskirts of the camp in the fields. She watched for a moment from a hedgerow and saw that there were still people walking in and out along the makeshift roads the troops had built, but far more were coming out than going in. She did not have much time if she wanted to be unnoticed. Briony joined a small group of peddlers a hundred paces from the guard post, doing her best to walk like an older, frailer woman as Feival had taught her—back and neck bent, head well forward, steps small and careful. The camp was too big to be fenced but four or five sentry posts stood within Briony’s view, each staffed with bearded soldiers in pointed helmets, all of them armed with spears or curved swords. She did her best not to hurry as she trudged past the observing gazes of the nearest guards, leaning her weight on the stick she used as a cane, holding her breath in fear that she would be called back, but no one seemed to pay her any attention.
She waited until she was out of sight of the original sentries before speeding her pace a little. The tents spread out on all sides of her, and now she could smell food cooking, spicy scents like nothing she had experienced since she had been driven out of Effir dan-Mozan’s house. The soldiers, as far as she could tell without making her staring too obvious, seemed to be of many different types, most (but not all of them) much darker-skinned than she was. Many wore a sort of uniform of baggy breeches and leather harnesses, but she saw other kinds of costumes as well, long, loose white robes that reminded her of the Tuani folk, colorful arrangements of scarves and brass ornaments that looked like something a jester might wear, and even one tall, pale-skinned man wearing black with a snarling white dog as his insignia; except for his pointed Xandian battle-helmet and diamond-shaped shield, he could have been a Marchlander.
The pale soldier, who was talking to a group of smaller, darker Xixian soldiers, noticed Briony watching him and stared back at her. She quickly dropped her gaze and walked on, so flustered that she remembered to limp only after she had taken her first few steps, but when she stole an anxious glance back at him he was talking to the Xixians again.
“He’s a bad one,” a voice said just beside her, startling Briony so that she almost stumbled and fell. “A Perikali fighting for the autarch, can you imagine? And do you think he’d throw me a copper crab for pity? Not only didn’t he, he kicked me, too.” The voice came from a small, hunched shape warming its hands over a tiny oil lamp. Briony thought it best to ignore whoever it was and walk on, but the figure called after her, even louder. “Wait! You didn’t rub my head. You don’t even have to give me any money. We have to stick together, our kind! Wait!”
Every impulse told her to hurry on, but the big, pale-faced soldier was looking in her direction again, as were the Xixians beside him. Briony stopped, then bent with careful gravity, pretending to pick something up from the ground before turning back to the small shape.
“Why are you shouting at me?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Because you didn’t rub my head, dearie duck. I can tell you’re not one of those Xixies, are you?”
Briony had no idea what that meant. She was trying to watch the soldiers without being obvious, but they were still glancing over from time to time, although laughing now. She hoped that was all they wanted out of her, a little amusement. She squatted down beside the small figure as though they knew each other and were passing the time. “Why?” she asked. “What would the Xixies want with you, anyway?”
For answer, the bundle rolled back the saggy hood that had obscured most of its head, revealing a little round face that looked like a child’s, but wasn’t. “They like to touch my head. They think dwarfs are good luck.”
Briony was surprised and spoke before she could think about it. “You’re a Funderling!”
The little woman looked surprised. “Well, if I didn’t know you weren’t a Xixy from the way you talk, I’d know it now,” she said. “Usually folk out in the country only know the old stories, but they don’t truly know any of us. Did you live in the city, my pigeon?”
“I… once, yes.” Briony risked a glance. The soldiers were still there. She considered just walking on. It was almost dark now, which meant that the hour for sunset prayer was almost here, the planned moment for Eneas’ attack on the garrison.
“He’s one of them White Hounds,” the woman told her. “That big fellow there in black. Captured and raised by the autarch as children, they are. He breeds them and trains them like hunting dogs. Said they’re the cruelest soldiers in his whole army.”
Briony wanted nothing to do with the White Hound or any other Xixian soldiers, and the longer she stayed here, the greater the chance that something would happen. “I have to go,” she said, bracing herself on her stick as she stood, doing her best to look like an old woman with aching legs.
“You’re not from around here,” the Funderling woman said, “—and now that I see you close, you’re no one’s gammer, either. I don’t know what your kinch is, mortlet, but it’s not worth it, you know. Cheap? These southerners can squeeze a silver swan until it quacks. I’ve been here three days, and all I’ve made is this.” She pulled over a cap with a half dozen coppers in it. “See? Tight as Perin’s bung, the lot of them.”
Briony laughed at the blasphemy despite herself. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“I’m called Little Molly.”
“That’s not a Funderling name.”
“No, it’s not.” She gave Briony another sharp, inquisitive look. “What’s yours?”
“Just by a rare chance, they call me Little Molly, too.”
Now it was the small woman who laughed. “Well, from now on they’ll have to call you Big Molly. But you’ll have to find another pitch, dear. This is my spot. See that? That’s the beer tent, over there, and they gamble there, too. They’ll come and throw in a copper and rub my head to keep the dice rolling.”
Briony had an idea. “Can you walk?”
“Good as you!” Little Molly was indignant. “Just not fast. Legs are too short, and… and I’m a bit lame.”
“Then come with me and I’ll give you…” she thought about what she had brought with her,”… say, five coppers. How’s that?”
Now the Funderling woman looked suspicious. “What do you want from me? And where did you get so much money?”
So much money! Briony almost wept. Little Molly, despite her cheeky attitude, was very thin and pale, as if she had not eaten well in some time. “Never you mind. Just come with me—I’m tired of those soldiers standing so close.”
The Funderling lifted herself to her feet and together they walked down the main track. The little woman went gingerly, as though she were showing Briony how it truly looked to have fragile, weak legs. “Broke them when I was little and they never healed right,” she explained. “That’s why everyone mistakes me for a dwarf.”
“What else can you tell me about the camp?” Briony asked. “Are all the men here or in the middle of Southmarch city? How long have they been firing on the castle?”
“A tennight, more or less,” Little Molly said. “But they were here for days before that.” She looked around, although at the moment they were in the open and more or less on their own. “They say that the autarch, he met with that Linden Tolly fellow in secret, face-to-face. Some sort of deal they were making, but it fell apart. Then the cannons started firing.” She shrugged. “Do you know what you want to know yet? I need to sit for a bit.”