The boy listened to another flow of whispers from the hooded depths, then turned to Theron again. “He says he doesn’t have any leppersy. He was dead. The gods brought him back. That is no illness, he says.”
Theron made the sign of the pass-evil, then remembered his position and changed it into the sign of the Three. “He talks nonsense. The dead do not come back. Only the Orphan, and he was the gods’ favorite.”
Both Theron and the child waited for some reply from the hooded man but he stayed silent, looking out across the darkening valley and the murky silver ribbon of the Pellos.
“Well, I can’t stand here forever,” the caravan master said at last. “Nice to talk with you and all,” he added, remembering the exorbitant fee the man was paying. “If you haven’t had any of the turnip stew, I recommend it. Few pieces of mutton in there, down at the bottom—don’t make a fuss and nobody’ll notice. But I should be on my way. Still a great deal to be done.” Including, he suddenly remembered, exhuming his wine flask from his travel chest. The thought gave him a warm feeling. He might not be as devout as he had once been, but he was still doing the gods’ work. Surely they looked on him with favor—surely they wanted only good things for Theron the pilgrimer, son of Lukos the potmaker. Look how high they had already raised him!
The cripple pulled something from his robe and held it out, waggling his clublike, bandaged hand until the boy took it from him. After a whispered instruction the child brought it to Theron.
“He says it is all he has left. You may have it all.”
Theron stared at the dirty-faced boy for an uncomprehending moment, then took the sack. It was heavy, and by the time he tipped its contents into his palm Theron’s hand was shaking, not from the weight but from his sudden realization of what he would see.
Gold coins. At least a dozen. And silver and copper to the amount of another two or three dolphins. He looked up in astonishment, but the crippled man was staring silently out across the valley again, as if he had not just put a sum great enough to turn someone like Theron from a comfortable but hardworking caravan master into a gentleman of leisure with a house, land, livestock, and several servants.
“What is this for? Why does he show it to me?”
“He says he must go to Southmarch,” the boy said after a short, whispered convocation. “That is why the gods have brought him back. But he cannot go without someone who knows the way—he cannot find the way, even… even with me.” The boy scowled as he said it; clearly the words stung. “His eyes are still seeing the world of the dead as much as the world of the living. He fears he’ll get lost and arrive too late.”
Theron realized his mouth was hanging open, like a door someone had forgotten to close. He shut it, then immediately opened it again. “Late?”
“After Midsummer. Then he will be too late. On Midsummer’s Night all the sleepers will awake. He heard this when he was in the gods’ lands.”
The caravan master could only shake his head. When he spoke his words bumped against each other. “L–let me… understand, boy.” He had never imagined holding so much money in his hands and doubted any of the other pilgrims had, either. They were all good, gods-fearing folk as far as he knew, but he didn’t want to test their honesty too harshly. “Your master wishes to pay all this money… for what, exactly?”
After a short conversation with the hooded shape, the boy said, “To get to Southmarch. To be led there, and protected along the way. To be fed and to have a horse to ride.” He turned back at some urgent murmuring from the crippled man. “Not just Southmarch, the country, but Southmarch Castle. In the middle of the bay.”
Even with this incredible bounty in his hands, Theron still hesitated—not at the idea of deserting the pilgrims, but at the prospect of crossing the lands to the north, full of unknown dangers, and traveling right into the midst of what was said to be a war between the Marchfolk and the fairies out of legend. The weight of the gold in his hand, though, made a powerful argument.
“Avidel!” he called. “Come here!”
Theron slid the coins back into the sack and tied it to his belt with an extra knot, just to be sure. His apprentice was about to become a caravan master.
The procession that moved down the corridors behind the Guild Hall was a large one. Briony, Eneas, and the prince’s guards were led by Highwarden Dolomite and several other guildsfolk—including, Briony was pleased to see, at least one Guildswoman—and wrinkled little Whitelead, who it turned out was a sort of priest. Whitelead was accompanied by two huge acolytes—huge by Kallikan standards, in any case—who walked behind him carrying an object made of pots and sagging leather pipes, the whole thing steaming gently. When Briony asked politely what it was, Whitelead cheerfully told her it was a ceremonial replica of the Sacred Bellows.
“Sacred Bellows?”
“Ah, yes.” Whitelead nodded vigorously. “The god used it to create all earthly life.”
“Which god?”
He looked at her gravely for a moment, then smiled and winked. “I’m not allowed to say it out loud, Highness… but the Syannese celebrate him every year during the Kerneia.” He winked again, even more broadly, just to make certain she understood.
The strange parade wound its way down what seemed at first to be only a series of corridors behind the Guild Hall, but Briony soon noticed that the bends and turns were not tight enough to be confined within the space of a normal sized building, even a large one. Also, in many places the passage sloped down at a distinct angle.
Eneas had noticed also. “How far does this go, I wonder? ” he said quietly to Briony. “Some of my ancestors tried to prevent the Kallikans from digging in the stone underneath Tessis, but it seems they did not do a very good job of stopping them. They must have been at this for years!”
Indeed, it was clear that the walls, which near the Guild Hall had been paneled in dark wood, were now naked stone, beautifully polished and carved, sometimes inlaid with many different types of rock, work Briony could tell even by lamplight was exceptional.
“By the Three Brothers,” Eneas said wonderingly after they had walked even farther, “have they burrowed all the way to Esterian?”
“Don’t say anything to them!” Briony pleaded, then felt ashamed. “I’m sorry—I have no right to tell you how to treat your subjects, but it was me who forced them to take us here. I would hate to think I’ve repaid them with trouble.”
Eneas laughed, but he did not seem happy. “Fear not, Princess. I will not make myself a troublesome guest, but it does set me wondering. If the mild Kallikans can flout us so, right under our noses, what other surprises will I find on the day it becomes my task to put Syan’s house in order?”
Staring at his face, so sharp and intent in the lamplight, Briony was taken again by a strange, contradictory impulse.
Ferras Vansen. Were you real? Did I see what I thought I saw—did I see your feelings as clearly as I felt I did? What if it was only a phantom of my own mind? And even if not, she asked herself, what about this man, Eneas, this good man struggling to be fair? He cared for her—he’d said so—and he was exactly what Southmarch needed just now… It was too much to think about. Her feelings were as confused as the bubbles in a boiling kettle, first this one rising, then that one, then both at once and a dozen more.