James West - Queen of the North

Abyk snorted. “Even so, he’s still more of an ox than a man.”

Loro gave Rathe a bemused look, but in this Rathe could not help him. Truth told, all the fat Loro had lost trekking through the Gyntor Mountains had returned during their time in Iceford. It was not all Loro’s fault, as Fira, the fire-haired Maiden of the Lyre he had reunited with at Ravenhold, took great pains to keep him well fed.

Abyk looked to the ceiling, as if beseeching a helpful spirit stashed in the cobwebby rafters. “How does someone, even with my exceptional skill, change the unchangeable?” He dropped his gaze. “There’s nothing I can do for a … a man-ox , I say. Nothing at all.”

“I don’t need to suffer this horseshit,” Loro snapped, flinging a pair of silver pieces at the tailor and heading for the door. “Come along, Rathe, unless you want to hear more of this wrinkled bastard’s tripe.”

After retrieving his earnings off the floor, Abyk straightened. “If you want miracles,” he called after Loro, “then speak to the gods. Otherwise, find a curtain to wrap yourself in-better yet, a tapestry!”

“Piss on you, your gods, and your drapery!” Loro slammed open the shop door and strode out.

“You must overlook his manners,” Rathe said. “Loro doesn’t look it, but he’s sensitive .”

Abyk folded his arms across his chest and answered with a disparaging grunt.

Outside, the sun had dropped behind the rooftops, and the air was growing chillier by the moment. With most of the day’s chores ended, the villagers had retired to their homes to prepare supper. Rathe’s belly growled at the scents of roasting meat and baking bread. Alert as always for any indication of trouble, he was able to ignore his hunger.

Loro had no such mastery, and he made straight for an open-sided tent set up on the stoop of a butcher’s shop. “Master Kato!” he bawled.

Kato the butcher, caught in the final acts of packing up for the evening, glanced up from a huge cast iron brazier. A lonely haunch of roasted meat hung from a spit over the brazier’s ruddy coals.

“My friends!” the man called, offering Rathe and Loro a toothy grin. He was a huge man, easily twice Loro’s girth and several hands taller, with a mane of greasy brown hair that fell well below his sloping shoulders. “I feared you’d sailed without saying farewell.”

“Never think it, Kato,” Loro admonished, eyeing the spitted meat. “You’re the only merchant in this blasted town I enjoy seeing.”

Kato eyed Rathe and Loro’s new clothes. “You went to see Abyk, didn’t you, even after I warned you against it?”

“Aye,” Loro said ruefully.

“Ah, well, he’s the best tailor in Iceford, so what choice did you have?” Kato put on a broader grin than before. “Here, I’ve something special for you.” He took hold of a cleaver roughly the size of a battle-axe, and began sawing the haunch of spitted meat.

“What is it?” Loro asked, an eager gleam in his eyes.

“Bear seared in a blackberry glaze,” Kato said, thrusting the dripping meat into Loro’s waiting hand.

Loro took a bite, and his eyes widened in ecstasy. “Food fit for gods! Have some, Rathe.”

Seeing the clotted purple smears on Loro’s chin, Rathe declined. “Alas,” he said to Kato, who had already hacked off another chunk of meat, “I’ve already eaten.”

Kato’s grin never faltered. “I’ll wrap it for you,” he said, slapping the meat onto a square of cheesecloth. “’Tis just as tasty when cold.”

While Loro gobbled his food, Rathe fished a few coppers from his coin purse, and dropped them into Kato’s waiting hand.

“I’ll take that,” Loro said, snatching the packet of meat from the vendor.

“Just so!” Kato said, chuckling. “Just so! Be sure to come back on the morrow for my frost leopard stew.”

Loro made his promises, and they left a whistling Kato to his tasks.

As they walked along the quiet street, Loro licked his fingers clean. “Much as I appreciate Kato’s skill, I hope to find that Captain Ostre has his ship in order. I was ready to sail from Iceford a week ago. Too cold in these parts for our southern blood.”

“It is at that,” Rathe agreed.

As twilight deepened, Loro weighed the packet of meat in his hand, then unwrapped it. What was to have been Rathe’s meal vanished down his gullet in a few large bites. “Where do you think Nesaea’s sister is?” Loro asked, tossing a greasy bit of fat to a slat-ribbed dog nosing about a midden heap. The dog wolfed it down, then growled at him. In answer, Loro cocked his leg and broke wind, sending the mangy beast running down the alley.

“Seems best to head to Sazukford,” Rathe said, thinking of the last place Nesaea’s half-sister had been. “If necessary, we can call on Lord Arthard, of Dionis Keep.”

“I hope the girl has been sold off before we arrive.”

Rathe gave him a sharp look, and Loro explained further.

“Well, it’s not as if you and highborn get along well. If not for killing Lord Sanouk, we’d not be stuck here in Iceford. You kill another lord, and we might end up running to the far side of the world.”

Rathe could not argue the point. For the last two seasons, trouble with one highborn or another had turned him from being one of the most beloved warriors in Cerrikoth, to a hated and hunted man.

As they moved onto a short street populated with shabby taverns, gaming houses, and brothels, Rathe glanced down an alley and saw a shadow moving within a shadow. His heart sped up, his fist clenched around the hilt of his sword, but he kept walking, as if nothing were amiss.

“Did you see that?” he asked quietly.

Loro looked askance at him before fixing on a group of women laughing raucously on a rickety stoop. They were whores, but dressed nothing like their sisters of the south. The Iron Marches was no place for sheer garments. Here, thick wool hid and warmed flesh, rather than revealed it. Loro’s gaze shifted again, following Rathe’s eyes. The shadows had gone still.

“You’re not still on about that shadowy fellow, are you?”

“He’s still alive,” Rathe said, thinking he must have seen a hunting cat down the alley. “And if he hated me before, he hates me more now that I know his weakness.”

“Don’t fret over that pathetic fool and his fear of the light,” Loro advised. “I expect he scampered back over the Gyntors, and has holed up somewhere to lick his wounds.”

“Pride is a prickly thing,” Rathe said. “I’d wager I stung his sorely.”

They strode past the whores, ignoring their halfhearted invitations. The street slanted sharply downward, taking them toward the quays and the river. The smells of cold moss and old fish grew stronger.

“Have you heard from your spies?” Loro asked, laughter in his voice.

Rathe was not about to argue the merits of employing Stiny and his friends. “None of them have seen anything, save a few straggling merchants and Nina, the randy cobbler’s wife.” He hesitated. “I told them to stop looking.”

Loro nodded approvingly. “First sensible thing you’ve done since we got to Iceford.”

Rathe began to smell tarred pilings about the same time he heard the squeal of pulleys and booted feet clocking over wooden decks, punctuated by Ostre’s curses. A bend in the street abruptly put them in sight of the lone vessel moored at the quays. Dozens of lanterns hung from the ship’s spars, providing light for the bustling crew to coil lines and store cargo about the main deck of the fat-bellied cog.

“Looks like she’s ready to sail,” Loro said.

“The Lamprey has looked much the same for a fortnight,” Rathe said flatly. As far as he could tell, Captain Ostre seemed intent only on keeping his crew busy enough to stay out of trouble.