L. Modesitt - Arms-Commander

“Do any of the younger ones make plays for Daryn?” she asked, more to indicate she wasn’t about to press than to seek information Hryessa wasn’t about to provide.

“Not more than once,” replied the captain with a laugh.

If so many of the guards hadn’t been so badly beaten and abused, or disliked men in general, the problem would have come up even sooner. In a way, Saryn was surprised, in hindsight, that it hadn’t surfaced before, but then some of the emotional scars were fading, and some of the junior guards had come to Westwind as young girls with their mothers. They’d been young enough that they didn’t have quite the same level of negativity as the older guards.

All that just reinforced Istril’s concerns about the need to change matters with regard to men, and that was likely to result in more tension between Saryn and Ryba. Yet Istril was right, and Hryessa’s comments just reinforced that concern.

Still, there wasn’t anything Saryn could do at the moment, either about Dealdron or men in general. She had to admit, for all of her initial skepticism, that Dealdron seemed to be a good person…but there was something about the way he looked at her when he didn’t think she was watching, not that she felt anything wrong or negative…but…still…

She shook her head, then scanned the road ahead, but she sensed no others besides those from Westwind.

By mid afternoon on twoday, Saryn and first squad were out of the hills, past the smaller hamlets, and riding down a gentle grade between meadows and recently planted fields. Just before Saryn and Hryessa rode Xanda, one of the junior guards. She carried a standard bearing a parley flag since Saryn didn’t want anyone thinking the squad was the forerunner of an invasion force, especially with the possibility that the Suthyans might have spread that sort of false rumor. She just hoped that the locals recognized the white banner with the blue circle for what it was.

Ahead was a kaystone rising out of the green early grass that would brown under the summer heat. Saryn had to squint to make out the words once engraved in the stone and almost weathered away. HENSPA-3 K.

“Ayrlyn said something about this place.”

“Good or bad?”

“Good.”

“Let’s hope it’s still that way.”

Just beyond where the road flattened out ahead was a low hill on the right side of the road. On the mostly level ground between the road and the slope rose a holding of some sort, with a large barn and several outbuildings, and three small houses. Beyond the holding, the road curved to the northwest around the hill. Two men and a boy were working on a stone wall of a corral beside one of the smaller outbuildings. The boy pointed, and the men turned. Then one said something, and the three watched, stone-faced, as Saryn and the guards rode past.

Once they were halfway around the curve, Saryn could see where the brown clay road straightened and led into the town. A scattering of huts or cots, set almost haphazardly on small plots of land, flanked the road for about a kay. Beyond them were more regularly placed stucco dwellings. Once most likely white, the houses were tinged a brownish tan, with gray-tile roofs.

“More of the black sheep.” Hryessa pointed to a small flock to the right of the road, tended by a small barefoot girl and two scruffy dogs.

Closer to the town proper, under a porch of slanted planks on a rough timber frame, a graying woman struggled with laundry in a wooden tub held together with woven bark strips. Several chickens pecked in the dirt beside the hut. The light breeze carried various smells to Saryn, and she wouldn’t have wanted to look into the source of any of them.

No one actually closed shutters, and that did happen, Saryn had heard, although she hadn’t seen it on her one previous trip to Lornth. Two bent and graying men, standing outside a smithy, stared. From inside came the sound of a hammer on metal, and the faint odor of hot iron and charcoal drifted around Saryn.

The square in the center of Henspa was anything but impressive, with a modest pedestal and a weathered statue in the center, surrounded by a low brick wall that needed so much repointing that it appeared likely to collapse in a strong wind. Of the buildings around the square, the only two that had received much care were the chandlery, where the two crossed candles had been recently repainted yellow, and the inn, the next building west of the chandlery. The inn boasted a signboard with the glossy black image of a well-endowed bull. By comparison, the cooperage across the square from the inn and the chandlery was so dingy that Saryn couldn’t even tell what sort of finish might once have graced the plank siding and the drooping shutters. Even the pair of display barrels flanking the door were stained from rust oozing from their hoops.

“Angels!” boomed a loud voice. The man who stepped out from under the shade of the inn’s porch was a giant, but his mahogany hair and well-trimmed beard were tinged with streaks of gray. He looked directly at Saryn, who signaled for the squad to halt.

“You’d be one of the angels, I take it?”

“Yes. We’re traveling to Lornth to meet with the regents.”

“I’m Essin. I run the Black Bull here. My ma, it’s half hers, she said anytime any angels came to town, she wanted to talk to ’em. Been that way ever since…well…a good ten years. Be a good thing, especially now. We don’t have enough rooms for all of you, but you can have the stable, and you and the other angel there, you can have the big room.”

“We couldn’t pay for all that,” Saryn said with a smile.

“Oh…there’d be no charge for the rooms, just for any meals.”

Saryn sensed the man’s honesty, but she didn’t understand why he’d make such an offer.

“Not my idea. It’s Ma’s, and she pretty much still runs Henspa.” He shrugged. “I do as she wants. Anyway, you spend time talking to her, and you get the stable and the rooms.”

Saryn offered a smile. “That’s the best offer we’ve had on the whole journey.”

“You really headed to see the regents?” His eyes moved to the parley flag.

“Yes. They need to know some things.”

“As if that’d be anything new.” Essin shook his head. “If you’d have the stable, it’s behind the inn. Take the lane there.” He pointed. “Once you’ve got your…folk…settled, if you’d not mind, Ma would enjoy talking with you here on the porch.”

Saryn turned to Hryessa. “If you and the squad would check out the stable…”

“Yes, ser.”

For a time, neither Saryn nor the innkeeper spoke.

“You don’t see many of the local lord-holder’s armsmen here, do you?” she finally asked.

“Haven’t seen any of Lord Jaffrayt’s men in years, except for the ones that come every harvest with the tariff collector. Pretty much leave us alone, and we like it that way.”

“What about traders?”

“Not many. We get some factors around harvesttime, looking for spare grain or cattle, or black ewes. Not interested in much else that we have here. Except there were some Suthyans here an eightday or two back. Only one trader and a bunch of armsmen. Talked to a few folks, and Ma, then left.”

“What did they say?”

“Ma would have to tell you. I wasn’t there.” Essin shook his big head. “Don’t much care for traders in fancy clothes. Means they cheated someone.”

“So what pays for the inn?”

“Didn’t say we didn’t get travelers. Mixed bunch. Enough. Sometimes not enough, but Ma put enough aside for the rough times, what with the rents from her other lands.”

“How do people make a living here?”

“Like folks everywhere. Some farm. The bottomland west of the river fetches up good maize, and the higher land does oats and wheat-corn pretty good. Wool from the black sheep brings a fair price, and we got a tin mine a bit south. Slow going there, but it helps.”