Not sure if it was the right thing to do, I offered her the brand. Her face went hard and she took it.
Alleg didn’t seem to understand what was about to happen until she had the hot iron against his chest. He shrieked and twisted but lacked the strength to get away as she pressed it hard against him. She grimaced as he struggled weakly against the iron, her eyes brimming with angry tears.
After a long minute she pulled the iron away and stood, crying quietly. I let her be.
Alleg looked up at her and somehow managed to find his voice. “Ah girl, we had some good times, didn’t we?” She stopped crying and looked at him. “Don’t—”
I kicked him sharply in the side before he could say anything else. He stiffened in mute pain and then spat blood at me. I landed another kick, and he went limp.
Not knowing what else to do, I took back the brand and began heating it again.
There was a long silence. “Is Ellie still asleep?” I asked.
Krin nodded.
“Do you think it would help for her to see this?”
She thought about it, wiping at her face with a hand. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “I don’t think she could see it right now. She’s not right in her head.”
“The two of you are from Levinshir?” I asked to keep the silence at arm’s length.
“My family farms just north of Levinshir,” Krin said. “Ellie’s father is mayor.”
“When did these come into your town?” I asked as I set the brand to the back of another hand. The sweet smell of charred flesh was becoming thick in the air.
“What day is it?”
I counted in my head. “Felling.”
“They came into town on Theden.” She paused. “Five days ago?” Her voice was tinged with disbelief. “We were glad to have the chance to see a play and hear the news. Hear some music.” She looked down. “They were camped on the east edge of town. When I came to get my fortune read they told me to come back that night. They seemed so friendly, so exciting.”
Krin looked at the wagons. “When I showed up, they were all sitting around the fire. They sang me songs. The old woman gave me some tea. I didn’t even think . . . I mean . . . she looked like my gran.” Her eyes strayed to the body of the old woman, then away. “Then I don’t remember what happened. I woke up in the dark, in one of the wagons. I was tied up and I . . .” Her voice broke a little, and she rubbed absentmindedly at her wrists. She glanced back at the tent. “I guess Ellie got an invitation too.”
I finished branding the backs of their hands. I had been planning to do their faces too, but the iron was slow to heat in the fire, and I was quickly growing sick of the work. I hadn’t slept at all, and the anger that had burned so hot for so long was in its final flicker, leaving me feeling cold and numb.
I made a gesture to the pot of oats I’d pulled off the fire. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” she said, then darted a look toward the bodies. “No.”
“Me neither. Go wake up Ellie and we can get you home.”
Krin hurried off to the tent. After she disappeared inside, I turned to the line of bodies. “Does anyone object to my leaving the troupe?” I asked.
None of them did. So I left.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE
Dreams
It was an hour’s work to drive the wagons into a thick piece of forest and hide them. I destroyed their Edema markings and unhitched the horses. There was only one saddle, so I loaded the other two horses with food and whatever other portable valuables I could find.
When I returned with the horses, Krin and Ellie were waiting for me. More precisely, Krin was waiting. Ellie was merely standing nearby, her expression vacant, her eyes empty.
“Do you know how to ride?” I asked Krin.
She nodded and I handed her the reins to the saddled horse. She got one foot in the stirrup and stopped, shaking her head. She brought her foot back down slowly. “I’ll walk.”
“Do you think Ellie would stay on a horse?”
Krin looked over to where the blonde girl was standing. One of the horses nuzzled her curiously and got no response. “Probably. But I don’t think it would be good for her. After . . .”
I nodded in understanding. “We’ll all walk then.”
“What is the heart of the Lethani?” I asked Vashet.
“Success and right action.”
“Which is the more important, success or rightness?”
“They are the same. If you act rightly success follows.”
“But others may succeed by doing wrong things,” I pointed out.
“Wrong things never lead to success,” Vashet said firmly. “If a man acts wrongly and succeeds, that is not the way. Without the Lethani there is no true success.”
Sir? A voice called. “Sir?”
My eyes focused on Krin. Her hair was windblown, her young face tired. She looked at me timidly. “Sir? It’s getting dark.”
I looked around and saw twilight creeping in from the east. I was bone weary and had fallen into a walking doze after we had stopped for lunch at midday.
“Just call me Kvothe, Krin. Thanks for jogging my elbow. My mind was somewhere else.”
Krin gathered wood and started a fire. I unsaddled the horses, then fed and rubbed them down. I took a few minutes to set up the tent, too. Normally I don’t bother with such things, but there had been room for it on the horses, and I guessed the girls weren’t used to sleeping out of doors.
After I finished with the tent, I realized I’d only brought one extra blanket from the troupe’s supplies. There would be a chill tonight too, if I was any judge of such things.
“Dinner’s ready,” I heard Krin call. I tossed my blanket and the spare one into the tent and headed back to where she was finishing up. She’d done a good job with what was available. Potato soup with bacon and toasted bread. There was a green summer squash nestled into the coals as well.
Ellie worried me. She had been the same all day, walking listlessly, never speaking or responding to anything Krin or I said to her. Her eyes would follow things, but there was no thought behind them. Krin and I had discovered the hard way that if left to herself she would stop walking, or wander off the road if something caught her eye.
Krin handed me a bowl and spoon as I sat down. “It smells good.” I complimented her.
She half-smiled and dished a second bowl for herself. She started to fill a third bowl, then hesitated, realizing Ellie couldn’t feed herself.
“Would you like some soup, Ellie?” I asked in normal tones. “It smells good.”
She sat blankly by the fire, staring into nothing.
“Do you want to share mine?” I asked as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I moved closer to her and blew on a spoonful to cool it. “Here you go.”
Ellie ate it mechanically, turning her head slightly in my direction, toward the spoon. Her eyes reflected the dancing patterns of the fire. They were like the windows of an empty house.
I blew on another spoonful and held it out to the blonde girl. She opened her mouth only when the spoon touched her lips. I moved my head, trying to see past the dancing firelight in her eyes, desperately hoping to see something behind them. Anything.
“I bet you’re an Ell, aren’t you?” I said conversationally. I looked at Krin. “Short for Ellie?”
Krin shrugged helplessly. “We weren’t friends, really. She’s just Ellie Anwater. The mayor’s daughter.”
“It sure was a long walk today,” I continued speaking in the same easy tone. “How do your feet feel, Krin?”
Krin continued to watch me with her serious dark eyes. “A little sore.”