"Why, yessir," gawped the nearer guard. "Has yer lordship been learning magecraft, then? Bassip's only just come his round, bein' at the tailors shop last, and I think he be at the kitchen right now."
"Come along, then," said Wotheng between his teeth. "I've much to say to that man, and I intend he shouldn't wiggle away before I've said it."
"Er, Lord Wotheng," Sulun put in, looking pale. "If you intend to put the man to—to torture, I beg our leave to retire."
"Pshaw, not now." Wotheng almost laughed. "Torture's no good for wrangling the truth from any man, I learned well enough from my father. Cause pain enough, and the pained will say whatever he thinks the questioner wants to hear. No, 'tis clever questions—and p'raps a well-timed lie or two—will get the story. But that's a tedious business, and no sense to trouble you with it. Pray, go dine with my wife while I front this wagoner. I'll speak to you soon enough."
He strolled off, whistling between his teeth, with his guardsmen shambling after. Sulun, Eloti, and Zeren looked at each other.
"Doshi's inside," Zeren told them. "He and his horse are rested well enough, he can ride whenever we want. Where do we go next?"
"To lunch, as our host said." Sulun shrugged. "I think the investigation is out of our hands now, and if we've had little rest, we may as well have food."
"Besides," Eloti added, half to herself, "I've much to discuss with Gynallea—such as what, precisely, we must do about these pesky Yotha priests."
Wotheng laid his plans with some care, pausing to make a few quiet arrangements before strolling into the back of the kitchen where Bassip the Wagoner lounged against the doorpost and chatted with the cook.
"Ah, the good wagoner!" Wotheng chirped, coming up on the burly ox driver as if by accident. "What luck! Pray lend me your whip a moment."
He snatched that item out of the startled wagoner's belt and carried it back into the kitchen, whistling merrily as he uncoiled the whip's tail from its usual resting place about the handle. Bassip, both curious just what Wotheng intended and unwilling to let his primary tool get out of his sight, trotted after his lord into the kitchen. Behind him, two guardsmen quietly eased through the kitchen door, closed and barred it after themselves, and followed.
Wotheng went to a long wooden table, pulled a heavy cleaving knife off a rack above it, and—before Bassip's horrified eyes—chopped the body of the whip cleanly off the handle.
"Ah, don't fret so," Wotheng soothed the man's wailing outrage. "I'll give you a far better one soon enough." He reached for a plate that lay nearby, set the chopped whip handle upright on it, and began unbraiding the leather straps that bound the handle's core. "I confess, I've always yearned to know what lies under all this leather. Is it bone, horn, or wood? Aha, 'tis whittled bone. From an ox's thigh, perhaps? Ah, and what's this pale stuff?"
Patches and streaks of off-white powder appeared on the unbraided leather and the bone beneath, lying in little pockets where the straps had overlapped and a quick wiping hadn't reached them.
Still whistling tunelessly, Wotheng took a small paring knife and began scraping the whitish powder off the leather and bone, into the dish.
Bassip chewed his lip, mumbled something about seeing if his oxen had enough water, and began to back away.
The guards standing silently behind him clamped restraining hands on his arms.
Wotheng scraped all the available powder into the dish, cast the remains of the ruined whip aside, took a few drops of water from a nearby kettle on the tip of his knife, and mixed the thin powder and water into a flat dough.
"This odd powder on your whip stock interests me." He smiled at the now trembling Bassip. "How came it there, eh? And what is it? I daresay, I've a way to learn. Ey, cook, pray fetch me a squab from the dovecote."
The cook scurried off. Wotheng continued to roll the thimbleful of dough about the plate until it dried and compacted into small pills. The cook came back with a young pigeon hooting mournfully in a tiny cage, set it on the table, bowed quickly, and withdrew to watch.
"I've always had a fancy for stuffed squab," Wotheng commented as he seized the bird handily by the neck, pried its beak open, and began shoving the pills of dough down its throat. "But how does the bird care for the stuffing, I wonder? These creatures are greedy enough for wholesome bread, I've seen. Let us see how this fellow enjoys his, hah, 'drover's meal.'"
Bassip's knees quivered and almost dropped him to the floor. The guards obligingly held him up.
Wotheng finished feeding the bird the last of the dough, tossed the dish in a wash basin, sat down at the bench, and called for a cup of beer, which the cook hurried to fetch. The guards said nothing, only watched impassively. Bassip, sweating now as if he stood next to a furnace, couldn't seem to pull his eyes away from the bird.
"Have you ever noticed," Wotheng remarked cheerily around his beer, "that the smaller a creature may be, the faster it seems to live? Butterflies live but a season. Yet what they lack in time they appear to replace in speed. A bird, for example, eats and sleeps and sings and plays enough in a day that, were he a man, would satisfy for a seven-night. His food seems to pass through him, depositing its virtue, in scant moments. A bite of oilcake at dawn shows its sheen on his feathers by breakfast time. I'll wager this little fellow will show the good of his bread crumb feeding here within the half hour, if not sooner."
Bassip just once tried to pull away from the guards and run. Their grip loosened not a hair's width.
"Oh come, fellow, let's have no impatience," Wotheng purred. "Your oxen, being large and slow-living beasts, will surely wait. Pray, humor me? I've a fancy to learn just how much flour goes out the baker's door on the clothes and tackle of the baker's wagoner—even unto the handle of his whip. Now, by the gods, what ails that bird?"
The young pigeon was showing definite signs of distress, flapping its clipped wings, tossing its head over it back, squawking in short and high-pitched bursts.
"Why, I'd swear from looking," Wotheng commented, "that the poor creature was ill. Yet it was quite well before it ate that flour, wouldn't you say?"
Bassip moaned and sagged in his captors' grip. The squab fell on its side, kicking, as if in sympathy.
Wotheng set down his cup, stretched, and got to his feet. "Well, Bassip," he said. "Who paid you to mix the black mould into Tygg's rye flour?"
High Priest Folweel sat calm and composed before his guests, as if he received the Lord of Ashkell and a delegation of alien priests every day. Not a hair of his long beard was out of place, not a fold of his gold-embroidered red robe was wrinkled, not a single be-ringed finger trembled. Sulun stared, fascinated, at the enemy he'd never before met. However the man's thoughts inclined, he was neither foolish nor easily frightened. A learned intelligence operated behind those opaque black eyes, and a formidable will.
And the house was a well-staffed fortress, and they sat at its very heart.
"Not the least intriguing event in this case," Wotheng was saying, as calmly undisturbed as his host, "was the appearance of the Yotha fire on the hill facing Deese House. I noted, as I rode past it, that it formed the shape of the sigil of Vona." His voice hardened. "My family's patron god."
Wotheng paused a moment to let that sink in. Folweel raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"I wish to know," Wotheng continued tightly, "why you priests burned Vona's sigil into the turf on my land."