George Martin - Rogues

“We will wait,” said Raffalon, softly, “until daylight, then find our way back to the road to Port Thayes.”

“Agreed,” said Fulferin.

“I, too,” said the second rescued. Raffalon was not surprised to hear the tones of a young woman. His hands, earlier moving over her torso as he helped her up the rope, had encountered two parts of her that, though smaller than he preferred, were inarguably female.

“I will take first watch,” he said. He listened to their breathing settle and thought that if he had to abandon anyone to the Vandaayo, he would prefer to leave Fulferin behind.

The little god read his thoughts. The voice said, I must do as I must.

At first light, they heard the Vandaayo moving off but waited in the tree until midmorning. They descended and made a thin breakfast of water from the stream, then set off up the watercourse. The part-men would be anxious to replenish their stolen larder, Raffalon told the others. Trails and tracks were their preferred settings for ambush. Besides, the sound of the moving water would disguise the noise of their movements.

They walked in silence and single file for a time. Then the thief felt a tug on his sleeve. Fulferin said, “That is my satchel slung across your shoulder.”

“Opinions are divided on that matter,” said Raffalon. “I found it abandoned, which entitles—” but even as he spoke, he saw that his treacherous hands were unslipping the strap and handing the leather bag to the other man.

Fulferin threw open the cover flap and delved into the satchel. He came out with the puzzle box then issued a yelp of unhappy surprise as he saw its secrets exposed and its velvet-lined inner compartment empty.

He looked a sharp question at his rescuer, but the voice in Raffalon’s head was already saying, Give me to him. The thief complied without reluctance, glad to be his own man again, but he watched Fulferin carefully as the little sculpture changed hands. Actually, he noted that hands were not equally employed on both sides: the lanky man did not touch the wood but instead held out the box so that Raffalon could snug the eidolon into its former place. Then he carefully slid the cover back into position and restored the hidden locks.

Raffalon heard the other man’s sigh of relief. While Fulferin slung the satchel’s strap over his own shoulder, the thief studied the man he had saved. He was interested to compare the reality before him with the image the little god had put into his mind. They did not match. Physically, Fulferin was as advertised, tall and spare, with long spatulate fingers and knobby protrusions at knee and elbow. But the face was different. Raffalon had been shown a wide-eyed visionary; the visage he now saw was that of a man who calculated closely and went whichever way his sums dictated.

The exchange had been watched by the young woman, whose manner indicated that she found little to choose between the two men and, despite having been rescued by one of them, would not have gladly elected to spend time with either. For his part, Fulferin ignored her, all his concern fixed on the box and its contents.

Raffalon studied the woman as frankly as she had him. She was well past girlhood, but not matronly, sharp of eye and even sharper of nose, with a thin-lipped mouth that easily fell into a mocking twist. She was dressed better than a farmer’s girl though not so richly as a merchant’s daughter. When his gaze rose again to her face, their eyes met. He said, “I am Raffalon, already known to you as a man of resource and valor. He is Fulferin, a god’s devotee. What is your name and station?”

“Erminia,” she said. “My father is an innkeeper—the Gray Bird at Fosseth.”

“How did you come to be taken by the part-men?”

“My father sent me to pick morels for the Reeve’s banquet.”

Raffalon’s brow wrinkled. “When the Vandaayo were ahunting?”

The corners of her mouth drew down. “The inn’s license comes up for renewal next month. My father weighs the value of his possessions by his own scale.”

“We should get on,” Fulferin said, clutching the satchel to his chest. His chin indicated the stream. “Where does this lead?”

The thief shrugged. “I have seen maps. It parallels the forest road. Somewhere ahead it flows through an old estate that was abandoned after Olverion’s slight miscalculation. If we can find it, it would be a good place to stay under cover until we are sure the Vandaayo have gone home.”

“I must get to Port Thayes as soon as I can.”

Raffalon gestured eloquently at the thickets that lined the stream on either side. Fulferin subsided, but the thief saw a flicker of calculation in those definitely-not-otherworldly eyes and surmised that the same thought about having someone to leave for the anthropophagi had just crossed Fulferin’s mind. The god’s man gestured in a way that invited his rescuer to lead them on.

An hour’s more walking brought them to a weir that cut across the stream at a place that must have been the beginning of a stretch of rapids before the barrier was put in place. When they scrambled up they saw that the weir had created a long and narrow lake. On one of its shores, surrounded by weed-choked gardens and orchards of unpruned fruit trees, stood a moldering agglomeration of vine-draped stone walls, spiral towers, cupolas, colonnades, peristyles, and arcades.

They explored and found that one of the towers had been built with defense in mind—probably some generations ago when the Vandaayo were only an inchoate nuisance. It had a stout door and hinges so well greased that they had not rusted. In the basement, the stored food had long since rotted, but the wine in one of the butts was still potable.

Erminia said that she would gather fruit from the orchards if someone would come and keep watch. Raffalon volunteered. Fulferin said that he would climb to the highest point of the tower and stand sentry, calling out if he spied any Vandaayo coming their way. The thief doubted that the god’s man would make so much as a squeak, and when he and the woman reached the fruit trees he climbed the highest and kept a lookout.

Erminia found apples, persimmons, karbas, and blood-eyes, wrapping them up in her shawl. She called up to Raffalon, who climbed down to rejoin her. The thief thought this might be an opportune moment to test the extent of the young woman’s gratitude for his having delivered from the Vandaayo cooking pot. She was not his type, but she was here.

A moment later, face smarting from a hard-handed slap and hip aching from a knee that he had avoided just in time, he understood that Erminia drew sharply defined limits. Angered, he briefly considered enlisting Fulferin’s help in mounting a concerted assault on the innkeeper’s daughter’s virtue. But the thought of any cooperative endeavor with the god’s devotee gave him more qualms than did the concept of forcing her acquiescence.

He showed Erminia two palms in token of surrender and accompanied her back to the tower, where they bolted the door and climbed the spiral staircase to the top apartment. Here they found Fulferin, not on the alert but at ease amid the dust, sprawled on a grimy divan, drinking from a wineskin he had filled from the ample supply downstairs.

The windows were glassless, but the season was mild. Raffalon cleared a table and Erminia spread her harvest on it. They found chairs and Fulferin came to join them, bringing the wine. The young woman went to rummage in a sideboard and came back to the table with a stout cook’s knife. But instead of using it to cut the fruit, she showed the point to each of the men in a meaningful way, then tucked the blade into her kirtle.

They ate in silence, passing the wineskin around. The liquid had a tinge of the vinegar to it but was otherwise drinkable. Finally, his stomach full and his blood warmed by the wine, the thief pushed himself back from the table and regarded the god’s man.