He had not bought their intelligence because he did not need to. And he let them know by his manner, since they were no fools, that he had his own ways of information. Reinforcing the shamans' reputation for uncanny, timely knowledge never hurt.
As sunset touched the tops of the tents with a sanguine glow, another visitor reached the encampment of the Shin'a'in, but this visitor had no interest in selling her information. Not to folk of the People of the Plains. not when her own son rode with them, adopted into the Clan of Tale'sedrin by marriage.
This scarlet-clad visitor was welcomed within the newly-pitched tent with jokes and news; the brazier was fired for her, and cakes and sweet tea were offered and accepted. And when all the civilized amenities were completed, and only then, did rug seller Dira Crimson say what she came to say.
She, Kra'heera, and Tre'valen sat comfortably on overstuffed cushions, placed on a carpet any of the rug traders would have offered their firstborn offspring for. "There is a girl," the woman said, her plump, weathered face crinkling with a smile as she arranged the folds of her scarlet skirt about her feet. "She is a stranger, and speaks with an accent that I would not know, had I not journeyed once into Valdemar with the Clan-where we had much profit, the gods be praised." Kra'heera's lips curled up in his own smile, and he filled her cup with more tea. "I think that the gods had less to do with that than your own wit and fine goods, trade-sister She waved the suggestion aside. "Na, na, one does one's best, and the gods decree the rest. So. There is a girl. There is a young man with her. She looks for Tale'sedrin. He watches her with the eyes of a young dog with his first bitch." Kra'heera laughed at the old woman's simile. There was no repressing Dira; she told things as she saw them, and if anyone objected, why, she felt they need not listen.
"Young men are ever thus. What of this girl of Valdemar, who seeks the Children of the Hawk?" he asked.
"Well, it is said that she comes from Kerowyn, on whom be peace and profit, if such a thing is possible for one whose livelihood is by the sword. It is said that she bears the mage-sword given her from the hand of Kerowyn as a token of this." The old woman's black eyes peered at him sharply, from within a nest of wrinkles. "This is the sword of Clanmother Kethryveris, the blade called"Need."
"It is said?" Kra'heera pondered the information. "You have seen this?" Dira shook her head. "No, not with my own eyes. Nor have I heard her claim this with my own ears. I have spoken with her but briefly, a few words at most. She seems honest. That is all I can say." Kra'heera nodded, and Dira smiled her satisfaction. No Shin'a'in ever moved on purely hearsay evidence. No Shin'a'in dared move on hearsay.
But Dira had reported what she knew, and Kra'heera would not be caught by surprise.
The last of the light faded, and Tre'valen lit the scarlet lamps that marked the tent as priestly and not to be disturbed. They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and Dira took herself back to her own tent, somewhere in the labyrinthine recesses of the rug seller's bazaar.
Kra'heera nodded to his apprentice to take her place beside the brazier. The elder shaman sat in thought while his apprentice seated himself. "Will you do nothing about this Outlander?" Tre'valen wondered aloud. "Will you seek her out?"
"Perhaps." Kra'heera studied the bottom of his paper-thin porcelain teacup. "Perhaps. She may be of some use to us, whether she speaks the truth or no. But we have a more urgent appointment, you and I."
"We do?" Tre'valen asked, surprised, his black brows arching upwards in surprise. Tre'valen was one of the pure-blood Shina'in-by no means the majority among the mixed-blood Clan of Tale'sedrin. His iceblue eyes were startling to an outsider, set beneath his raven-black hair, in an angular, golden-skinned face.
"Surely you did not think that we came riding over the Plains in the heat of summer for the pleasure Of it?
Kra'heera responded wryly. C'If that is so, you have an odd notion of pleasure." Tre'valen flushed a little but held his tongue. Kra'heera's wit sometimes tended to the acidic, but his apprentices had to grow used to it.
That was part of becoming a shaman; to be able to face any temperament with calm.
"We go out now," Kra'heera announced, standing up from his crosslegged position with an ease many younger men would envy. That took Tre'valen by surprise; the apprentice scrambled to his feet awkwardly, just in time to follow his superior out into the night. To Kra'heera's veiled amusement, Tre'valen first turned toward the bazaar, and only altered his steps when he realized that the shaman was heading into the Old City.
And not just the Old City, but the oldest part of the city. The city swallowed them, wrapping them in a blanket of sound and lights.
Kata'shin'a'in did not sleep in trade season; business went on as usual after nightfall, although the emphasis shifted from the general to the personal, from the mundane to the exotic. In the bazaar the perfume sellers, the jewelers, the traders in mage-goods would be doing brisk business. In the Old City, within the inn walls, food, drink, and personal services were being sold. Kra'heera wondered if his apprentice felt as odd as he did, moving silently between walls, with the sight of the land and much of the sky blocked out by masonry. The wind could not move freely here, and the earth beneath their feet had been pounded dead and lifeless by the countless hooves of passing beasts.
Yet the Shin'a'in had once known cities-or rather a city, one that had once stood in the precise middle of the Dhorisha Plains. Once, and very long ago, that had been the home of the Kaled'a'in.
Kra'heera led the way confidently between the walls of alien stone' through the scents and sounds that were just as alien, the evidences of Outlanders conducting further business-or pleasure. He moved without worry, for all the fact that he wore a sword at his back, for the rule of the bazaar did not apply to Shin'a'in; not here, in their own city, where they only visited, but never lived.
The deeper they went into the core city, the darker and quieter it became-and the stranger grew the scents and the sounds. Voices babbling in chaos became voices chanting quietly in unison; raucous song became the sweet harmony of a pair of boy sopranos. The mingled scents of perfume, wine, and cookery gave way to the smoke of incense and the fragrance of flowers. This was the quarter of the temples, and the doors spilling forth yellow light yielded to those with lanterns on either side, held invitingly open for the would-be worshiper.
Yet these were all Outlander places of worship, not places that belonged to the Shin'a'in. Kra'heera continued past them as Tre'valen gazed about in interest. The lanterns at the temple doors became fewer; the doors, closed and darkened, until there was no light at all except what came from the torches kept burning at intervals along the street.
Sound faded; now they heard the dull scuff of their own boot soles along the hard-packed dirt of the street.
Finally they reached their goal, near where the street ended in a blank wall; a single, closed door, with a lantern burning low beside it. ir m'heera knocked in a pattern long familiar to his apprentice as the beginning of one of the drum chants.
The door opened, and Kra'heera again hid his amusement to see Tre'valen's shock. She who opened the door for them was Kal'enedral, Swordsworn-and at first glance, she looked to be garbed in black, the color of blood-feud.