“But you healed—” Gird could not quite say it; his fingers wanted to make warding signs.
The man sighed. “Gird, we need to talk, you and I. You have done me a great service; so far I have done you only a small one, which you don’t yet realize. You do not trust me—and no, that’s not reading your mind; you smell of fear. But we should both leave this town, before we find more trouble than your strength or my powers can handle. Will you trust me for that?”
“I know I have to leave,” Gird muttered. “He said so, and—and I don’t know towns, that well. But I have tallies for two days more.”
“Which no one will be surprised if you use to get food for travel, and then leave. That’s what the sier would expect you to do. If you stay in Grahlin, they’ll begin to wonder if you have more people to meet.”
“Can I use the tallies again so soon?” asked Gird, staring at the ragged break on the end as if he thought it would speak to him. The old man chuckled, but it was a friendly chuckle.
“We don’t have to go to the same inn. Besides, the sier gives these tallies to many men—to anyone on his service that day. Didn’t you notice that the inn servant scarcely looked at you?” Gird had not noticed; he had been trying to see if anyone were following them. “You can use both tallies at one inn; tell them you want food to travel. They’ll be used to that.”
So it proved. His request brought no comment, and the servant handed over a cloth sack bulging with bread and cheese, and a jug of ale. On the old man’s suggestion, Gird had retained the bit of wood with the sier’s mark on it, left when the last of the tally was broken. That got him past the gate guards with hardly a glance. The old man had left ahead of him; Gird was tempted to go out the other gate, but felt it would not be fair.
The old man waited just out of sight of the gate, squatting in the windshadow of a tree beside the road. As Gird came alongside, he stood up and began walking with him, steadying himself with Gird’s staff.
“Let me start with what is strangest to you,” he said without preamble. “My powers and my knowledge.”
Gird grunted. He was trying to think how he was going to explain to the others that his foray into the town had been not only useless, but disastrous. They had lost their one contact; the sier knew his face. Worse, the sier knew he had active enemies. Yet they needed someone in this town; it was sitting right there where the trade road met the river road, and soldiers based here could ruin any plan he might make for the whole area. That might be more than a year away—he knew that—but still the town could not be ignored.
He jumped as the old man’s hand bit into his elbow. “Listen,” the old man said. “You need to know this.”
He did not need to know anything except how to get the old man to leave him alone, he thought sourly. They did not need a renegade priest of their enemy’s god who might revert to orthodoxy at any moment and turn them in. But the twinge of pain got his attention, and he listened unwillingly.
“I am a priest of Esea,” the old man repeated. Gird managed not to say that he knew that much. “You clearly think of Esea as a power of evil—from the way you reacted to my blessing. But Esea, in old Aare, where your lords came from, is the name we give the god of light. The sun is his visible form, but it is not the god.”
“Sunlord, Sealord, Lord of Sands and Chance . . .” muttered Gird, unwillingly.
“You learned that verse in childhood, no doubt. So far as it goes, it’s accurate enough. Our people worshipped Esea, the Sunlord—though only peasants called him Sunlord. Sealord, that’s Barrandowea. Ibbirun, the Sandlord—more feared than worshipped. And Simyits, god of chance and luck. We had other gods, many of them, including your Lady, Alyanya the fruitful.” The old man looked at Gird calmly, as a man might look at an ox he was thinking of buying. “Tell me, what do you have against Esea?”
“Esea’s the lords’ god. He brings droughts, dries springs, overlooks wells. The merin hate him, and he withers the flowers we bring to please them.”
“I see. Because you think of Esea as the Sunlord, and in dry weather you see more sun?”
Gird shrugged. “I’m no priest. But so the grannies said, in our village. If there’s a drought, never let a priest of Esea near the wells: they’ll call the sun’s curse on them, and the water will fail.”
The old man snorted. “Do they think priests need no water? That we need no food, so a failing harvest means nothing?” Then he shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. It’s natural enough, that you’d blame outlander gods for your troubles, and even more natural, when your rulers are as bad as they are.”
“Yes, but you—”
“I’m human. As human as you are: not a demon, not a god. I am of the old blood, of Aare—kin to your lords, if you look at it like that.” He walked on a few paces, glanced sideways at Gird, and said, “I see you do look at it like that. And no wonder. But there is much you do not know. The old Aareans had powers, all of them, which none of your people had. Now this cold land has thinned our blood, some say, or the gods of your people have sought vengeance. I think all that is ridiculous.”
Gird fastened to the little he had understood. “You are the same blood as the lords—as that sier, or my old count?”
“Not close kin, but of the same origin—from Aare across the sea.”
“But—I have seen no powers, in the lords.” Even as he said it, he remembered the uncanny light that had come to a dusty, dark storeroom when the sier willed it. “Except—”
“Except last night. First with me, and then with the sier.” He caught Gird’s hand as he was about to make another warding sign, and said, “Stop doing that. It won’t work, because I’m not what you think, but it is annoying. You’ll convince anyone on the road I’m an illwisher.” There was no one on the road, before or behind. Gird scowled. The old man sighed. “Gird, our people had power, and now most of them don’t, or they have little. I have, and the sier has, and of course I know about the sier—I have known him for years. We have talked together, dined together—I’ve been his guest—”
Gird struggled to break the grip on his wrist; the old man was feeble—had to be weaker than he was—but he could not get free. He yanked back again and again, panting, without success. The old man merely smiled at him, a sunny, friendly smile of perfect calm and joy. “Let—me—go!” Gird said finally, when force had not worked.
“When I’m sure you have understood what I’m saying. Not until.” The same quiet smile, but Gird felt the threat behind the words.
“Understood, or accepted?” he asked, still angry.
“Understood. Esea’s Light, Gird, if I had wanted to charm the wits from you, I could have done it any time.”
“Could you?” He glared at the old man, wondering if that had been the answer all along. Had he been charmed into thinking the man hurt, charmed into taking him into the city, charmed into going unarmed into that trap? That peaceful smile seemed to fill his eyes, as if the old man were suddenly larger; warmth and peace seeped into his mind, washing the anger away. But he clung to the core of it, stubborn as a stone in the earth: he might be shifted, but he would not be changed. The old man sighed, at last, and that imposed warmth and peace left him abruptly. He was shivering in a cold wind, aware of sleet beginning to sting the left side of his face.
“Well. Maybe I couldn’t, at that. Not now, anyway. The gods must know what they’re doing.” The old man shivered now, too. But he was still smiling, if ruefully.
Gird looked around. They were on a rise, where the wind could get at them from any angle, and the sleet bit into him. The road ran on eastward, past an outcrop of rock that offered no shelter. Downslope to the right, downwind, scrubby grass thickened to knee-high scrub, and he thought he could see trees in the distance. “I’m cold,” he said. “I’m going to find shelter, and if you won’t let go of me, you’ll have to come too.” He was sure he could drag the old man, if he couldn’t get rid of him.