I wrenched my arm away. “Do sheriffs not breakfast before interrogations? Bartolome can take rightful pride in his fare, and it is always such a pleasure to spend time with you.”
Though he didn’t touch me, the sheriff backed me into the soot-stained wall, propping one hand against the wall on either side of my head. “I ask you again. Do you know where they are?”
“They?”
“Either of them. The one you came here to find or the one that seems to have the whole countryside in pursuit of him—the weak-minded servant.”
“A servant? How could I know anything of servants? And why would I care? I despise weak-minded people… and devious ones.” I ducked under Rowan’s arm and proceeded down the alley at a brisk pace until I emerged in another busy street.
The sheriff was close at my shoulder. “What of the other one, the small, dark, odd-looking man? You remember, the one who’s looking for his prized horse, but can tell me nothing but that the horse is white; he’s also disappeared. But then you know that already. Bartolome says he was in his common room last night and rushed out shortly before I arrived, only moments before I met you hurrying out the same door. You told me it was the priests that frightened you. Did they frighten him also?”
“This has nothing to do with me.”
Rowan was forced to let a well-guarded flock of geese pass by and then shove his way through its trailing mob of anxious buyers to catch up with me again. “This has everything to do with you,” he said, anger snapping like sparks on a frosty night. I had never seen him display such intensity of feeling. “I learned also of the messenger that came here yesterday, asking after the man who sought his stolen horse. The messenger was a freckled boy who limped. I’m no idiot, madam, despite what you think, and I don’t forget that Jacopo would be the only person in Dunfarrie I told of the strange little man who didn’t fit his impersonation.”
I threaded my way through the crowd that was rapidly filling the streets, and stepped around a shapeless beggar who had crawled into the muck-filled ruts and had the lack of consideration to die there. “Coincidence,” I said. “If you must know, I’m here to see if the local dyeshops will buy some of my plants. Several of them grow only on Poacher’s Ridge.” A glimpse over my shoulder twisted a knot in my stomach; the dead beggar was a woman, her thin face an artwork of bruises and sores, sculpted by starvation and the brutal world. She might have been twenty or seventy. Wasted life. Useless death. I wrenched my attention back to my companion. “As you’ve so often noted, I’m accustomed to living better than I do at the moment.”
Rowan did not yield. He stepped in front of me and halted, forcing me to look him in the face. “In no measure would this be coincidence, and in no way do I believe a word of your story. I’ve learned enough in these ten years gone to know when you tell the truth. You’ve said yourself these priests are not what they claim. That I do believe. Who is this man they seek? It’s someone you know, isn’t it?”
He knew… curse the man forever, he knew that Aeren was a sorcerer. A fiery heat that had nothing to do with the growing sunlight coursed through my veins. “Why ever would I tell you? And how dare you judge my truth? I think you know very little of truth.”
“I will find out, you know—or someone will who’s even less to your liking. There have been other inquiries about this ‘groom.”“
“I’ve no need of your concern.”
Our voices had risen through the conversation, but Rowan’s next words were spoken quietly. Only their edges were hard. “Ah, but others might. Jacopo and Paulo have no noble relations to protect them from the consequences of their actions. If you have any feeling for them—if you are capable of feeling—you should consider your course carefully.”
As the threat hung in the air like smoke from summer grassfires, the sheriff took my arm again, and steered me down the road to a stable where his horse stood saddled and waiting. “Time to go home, ”Cousin,“ ” he said, gesturing me toward his horse. “No more foolish playacting and no more sneaking about Grenatte. You will take yourself and your young accomplice back to Dunfarrie, and you will remain there until I return.”
“You’re not planning to drag me back yourself? What if I, in my fiendish perversity, dare to disobey?”
“No, you go alone. I’ve business in Grenatte today. You’ll swear to me that you’ll do as I say, and I’ll believe you. But of course if I should find out you’ve disobeyed me, you’ll spend the rest of the week in the gaol.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“You’ve told me many times that your rank has made no difference in your punishment. I live by your words.” Rowan unslipped the reins from the tether rail and stuffed them in my hand. “Take Thunder. He’ll carry both you and Paulo. I’d rather not have to dig any more graves in During Forest tomorrow, and mounted travelers are at less risk. Tell Paulo to bring Thunder back to me first thing tomorrow morning and I might not whack him for tormenting his gram.”
I wanted to refuse any gift tainted by Rowan’s hand, but simple reason curbed my tongue. Amid all the confusion of the sheriff’s motives, one thing was certain. Aeren and his friend must be long gone before Rowan’s return. If riding the cursed sheriff’s horse helped that happen, then, by holy Annadis’s sword, I would ride.
We made good time on our return journey. Baglos had his own mount and rode skillfully. I was unable to question him along the route as I had planned, for he raced north along the dusty road as if the doom of the world were indeed riding with him.
When we turned onto the narrow track that led up to the meadow, we had to slow, for the track was all dry gouges and ruts, left from some long-ago year of harsh rains. “Is it much farther, woman?” asked Baglos, his voice reflecting my own anxiety.
“No. Just over that rise.”
“Is it a safe place? A large city, a village? This village I have visited before?”
“It’s only a cottage. Dunfarrie is an hour’s walk.”
“Are there trees, then?”
I thought the question curious. “A whole forest of them. Aeren—D’Natheil—sleeps under the trees. And when the light was so strange, he took us into the wood, but we never saw anyone.”
Baglos brightened considerably. “So he knows to go to the trees. Perhaps he’s not forgotten as much as you think.”
The drought-starved meadow was just as I had left it the previous day, an ocean of limp gray-green rippled by the hot breeze, cheered here and there by a clump of stareye or stately stalks of pink and silver lupine. The cottage sat squat and peaceful in the middle of it.
Paulo gave a whoop and let Thunder race the last distance across the meadow. Jacopo came out of the house to meet us and steadied me as I slipped from the saddle. “So Paulo has brought you home riding, eh? He’s quite a boy, wouldn’t you say?”
Paulo grinned and led the horses off toward the copse and the spring.
“Where’s Aeren?” I said.
“He’s been poking about the woodpile all morning. A strange one, he is. Never know whether he’s going to break your neck or shake your hand.” Jaco peered over my shoulder at my companion, who was straightening his tunic and straining his eyes about the meadow. “Looks like you’ve been successful in your business.”
“Yes, this is Baglos, a friend of Aeren’s. Baglos, this is my friend Jacopo…”
Aeren strolled around the corner of the cottage carrying a forearm-sized piece of wood. At the sight of us, he increased his pace straightaway. Giving Baglos not so much as a passing glance, he planted himself just in front of me and, with unpleasant grunts and most explicit gestures, expressed his displeasure at my long absence.
Before I could respond, Baglos crowded in between us. He dropped to his knees, grabbed the young man’s hand, and kissed it. Aeren growled and jerked his hand away, waving the kneeling Baglos aside. When a confused Baglos failed to move, Aeren snarled and raised the piece of wood over the man’s dark head.