Guy Kay - Sailing to Sarantium

Not so far to the next bed, however. A steady pace through the steady rain, with only a brief halt for a midday piece of cheese and bread and a flask of sour wine at a smoky, mitten-smelling tavern in a hamlet, brought them by late afternoon near to the next Imperial Inn. The rain had even stopped by then, the clouds breaking up to south and west, though not over the woods. He saw the tops of some of the mountains. The sea would be beyond. He might have sailed, had the courier come in time. A wasted thought.

He might still have a family, had the plague bypassed their house.

Behind them, as he and Vargos and the mule went through another cluster of houses, the sun appeared for the first time that day, pale and low, lighting the mountain slopes, underlighting the heavy clouds above the peaks, glinting coldly in pools of rainwater in the ditch by the road. They passed a smithy and bakehouse and two evil-looking hostelries in the village, ignoring the scrutiny of the handful of people gathered and i coarse invitation from a gaunt whore in the laneway by the second inn.

Not for the first time Crispin offered thanks for the Permit folded in the leather purse at his belt.

The Posting Inn was east of the village, exactly as indicated on his map. Crispin liked his map. He took great comfort in the fact that as he walked places appeared each day when and where the map said they should. It was reassuring.

The inn was large, had the usual stable, smithy, inner courtyard, and no piles of rotting refuse in the doorway. He glimpsed a well-tended vegetable and herb garden beyond a gate towards the back, sheep in the meadow beyond and a sturdy shepherd's hut. Long live the Sarantine Empire, Crispin thought wryly, and the glorious Imperial Post. Smoke rising from broad chimneys offered the promise of warmth within.

"We'll stay two nights," Linon said.

The bird was on the thong around his neck again. She hadn't spoken since morning. The blunt, sudden words startled Crispin.

"Indeed? Why? Your little feet are tired?"

"Mice and blood. You are too stupid to be allowed out of doors without a nursemaid. Remember the calendar and what Zoticus told you. You're in Sauradia, imbecile. And tomorrow is the Day of the Dead."

Crispin had, in fact, forgotten, and cursed himself for it. It irritated him, however unreasonably, when the bird was right.

"So what happens?" he demanded sourly. "They boil me into soup if I'm found abroad? Bury my bones at a crossroad?"

Linon didn't bother to reply.

Feeling obscurely at a disadvantage, Crispin left Vargos to see to the mule and his goods while he strode past two barking dogs and a scatter of chickens in the sodden courtyard. He walked through the doorway into the front room of the inn to show his Permit and see if a hot bath could be had immediately for coinage of the Empire.

The entranceway was encouragingly clean, large, high-ceilinged. Beyond it, through a door to the left, the common room had two fires going. A cheerful buzz of speech in many accents drifted out to him. After the wet, cold road all day it was undeniably alluring. He wondered if someone in this kitchen knew how to cook. There had to be deer and boar perhaps even the elusive Sauradian bison in these woods; a well-seasoned platter of game and a halfway adequate flask or two of wine would go some way to easing him.

It occurred to Crispin, looking around, noting the swept, dry tiling on the floor, that this inn might indeed be a perfectly decent place to rest his feet for two days and nights. Zoticus had been unambiguous in advising him to stay in one place and indoors on the Day of the Dead. For all his sardonic attitude to such things, it wouldn't do to be foolish merely to win a battle with an artificial bird. If nothing else, he thought suddenly, Linon was proof that the half-world was real.

Not an entirely comforting reflection.

He waited for the innkeeper, blessed Permit in hand, letting himself relax already into the sensation of being dry with the near prospect of warmth and wine. He heard a sound from the back of the inn, behind the stairs, and turned, a civil expression ready. He was aware that he was hardly distinguished-looking at the moment, nor did travelling on foot with one temporarily hired servant commend him as affluent, but a Permit with his name elegantly written upon it-or Martinian's name-and the privy Seal and signature of no less a figure than the Imperial Chancellor could make him instantly formidable, he'd discovered.

It wasn't the innkeeper who came from backstairs. Only a thin serving girl in a stained, knee-length brown tunic, barefoot, yellow-haired, carrying a stoppered jug of wine too heavy for her. She stopped dead when she saw him, staring openly, wide-eyed.

Crispin smiled briefly, ignoring the presumption of her gaze. "What do they call you, girl?"

She swallowed, looked down, mumbled, "Kitten."

He felt himself grinning crookedly. "Why that?"

She swallowed again, seemed to be having trouble speaking. "Don't know," she managed finally. "Someone thought I looked like one."

Her eyes never left the floor, after that first naked stare. He realized he hadn't spoken to anyone, other than some instructions to Vargos, all day. Was odd, he didn't know how he felt about that. He did know he I wanted a bath, not to be making talk with a serving girl.

"You don't. What's your proper name, then?" She looked up at that, and then down again. "Kasia." "Well, Kasia, run find the "keeper for me. I'm wet outside and dry within. And never dream of telling me there are no rooms to be had."

She didn't move. Continued to stare at the floor, clutching at the heavy wine jug with both hands beneath it. She was quite young, very thin, wide-set blue eyes. From a northern tribe, obviously. Inicii, or one of the others. He wondered if she'd understood him, his jest; they'd been speaking Rhodian. He was about to repeat his request in Sarantine, without the witticism, when he saw her draw a breath.

"They are going to kill me tomorrow," was what she said, quite clearly this time. She looked up at him. Her eyes were enormous, deep as a forest. "Will you take me away?"

Zagnes of Sarnica had not been willing, at all.

"Are you simple?" the man had cried the night before. In his agitation he had pushed Kasia right out of the bed to land sprawling on the floor. It was cold, even with the kitchen fires directly below. "What in Jad's holy name would I do with a bought girl from Sauradia?"

"I would do anything you like," she'd said, kneeling beside the bed, fighting back tears.

"Of course you would. What else would you do? That is not the point." Zagnes was quite exercised.

It wasn't the request to buy her and take her away. Imperial Couriers were used to such pleas. It must have been her reason. The very immediate, particular reason. But she'd had to tell him… otherwise there was no cause at all for him to even consider it, among all the usual requests. He was said to be a kindly man.

Not enough so, it seemed. Or not foolish enough. The courier was white-faced; she had given him a genuine fright. A balding, paunchy man, no longer young. Not cruel at all, merely refusing prudently to involve himself in the under-the-surface life of a Sauradian village, even if it involved the forbidden sacrifice of a girl to a pagan god. Perhaps especially so. What would happen if he reported this story to the clerics, or at the army camp east of them? An investigation, questions asked, probably painful questions-even fatal ones-for these were matters of holy faith. Stringent measures to follow against resurgent paganism? Fulminating clerics, soldiers quartered in the village, punitive taxes imposed? Morax and others might be punished; the innkeeper could be relieved of his position, his nose slit, hands cut off.