This underground hallway was cleaner and smelled better than the jailer's office.

Bardon sniffed the damp but pleasant air. Someone else must be in charge of this area. Someone else must be in charge of this area.

The hall branched off several times, but the tumanhofer kept walking. The underground path ended in a room with one door in front of them. A heavy padlock hung from a metal latch.

Bortenmiffgaten stopped and looked up at them, a smile on his face. In the flickering flame, Bardon thought the flash of yellowed teeth looked evil.

"I'll let you in," said the jailer, "but you have to leave your boots, coats, and that basket out here. Can't have you carrying in weapons."

N'Rae twisted her face as she slipped out of her shoes and placed her folded shawl atop them. Her toes wriggled against the cold flooring. Bardon left his sword, boots, tunic, and knife. He plucked his bag of coins out of the tunic to carry with him. Although the jailer had shown goodwill in admitting them, Bardon doubted the tumanhofer would be able to resist the temptation of an unguarded purse.

"You got food in that basket?" Bortenmiffgaten asked, licking his lips.

"No," whispered N'Rae.

The jailer frowned. "What then?"

"A doll."

"A doll?" He stomped over. "Let me see."

N'Rae slowly undid the little cord that held the lid shut and opened the basket.

Bortenmiffgaten looked inside and snarled. "A lot of fancy stuff for a rag doll." He headed for the door with his key in his hand. "Leave it here."

N'Rae sighed and carefully put the basket next to her shoes and shawl. She smiled tentatively at Bardon.

He glanced at the jailer, relieved that the man had his back to them.

This is absurd. N'Rae practically shouts she is lying about the doll with her sigh of relief. The jailer is dishonest. Despite his sudden change of heart, I don't trust him. He has a hundred keys, and I could have bashed him on the head at anytime. I still could and instigate a jailbreak. I must get Granny Kye out of this place. I'm tempted to tie up Bortenmiffgaten in his own cell and leave him there. But have I ever seen Sir Dar circumvent the law? No. How frustrating!

The door creaked open. Inside, not one but three cells banked the walls. Women occupied them all, Granny Kye in the middle one.

N'Rae rushed in and flung herself against the bars making up the wall between her and her grandmother. "Oh, it's like being in a cage!" she cried.

Bardon stopped at the door and bent to whisper to the jailer. He allowed a growl to underscore his words, a trick he had learned from the meech dragon Regidor. "If any of our things are missing when we come out, I will have to retrieve them from your pockets, since there are no other pockets to search."

"Shh! Shh!" Granny Kye hushed a wailing N'Rae. "You'll wake the children." She sat on the floor with several urchins around her. One slept in her lap. Another rested his head on her knee.

"Are you all right?" whispered N'Rae.

"Oh yes. Dinner was a bit sparse and underseasoned but adequate."

"What did you steal, Grandmother?" N'Rae sounded curious and not in the least bit condemning.

"The children were afraid to take the food from the forager bin. Not a very tidy forager bin at all, but holding plenty of good vegetables and fruits. A few bits of bread and pastries, too."

"So you took them and passed them out?"

"Yes, and the owner of the produce stall came yelling and fussing. Said it wasn't a forage bin at all but his garbage, and he sold it each day to a pig farmer...and I was stealing. stealing." Granny Kye patted a child who stirred. "Imagine that, N'Rae. Apparently, they don't follow Paladin's edict to feed the poor in this district. The constable told me no one sets out food for the orphans."

Bardon shifted in the doorway. He'd been listening but also keeping an eye on the jailer. He glanced at the ragged group of children and counted. Six. He'd have to get them out of jail, as well. "Will you be all right for the night, Granny Kye? Do you need more food? Fresh water? Blankets?"

"Blankets would be nice. The floor is clean, but hard. Quite a nice jail, in fact. The women workers who were here earlier in the day were a nice lot, proud of their work and cheerful."

Bardon shook his head. "How many jails have you been in besides this one?"

"None," she replied. "But I have imagined imagined a prison on several occasions, and I didn't imagine that they would be as nice as this." a prison on several occasions, and I didn't imagine that they would be as nice as this."

"I'll take N'Rae back to the inn and bring blankets. Anything else?"

"Bardon, dear, will you be able to get the children out of here when you free me?"

"I think I can."

"And"-she looked up at him with tears in her eyes-"we can take them with us when we go on our quest, can't we? They've no place to stay and no one to take care of them."

"No!" The word exploded from his lips.

"Shh!" said N'Rae as Granny Kye frowned, shook her head, and said, "Quiet, dear."

Bardon glared at them both.

Granny Kye smiled, the expression lifting the worry from her brow. "You can think about the children, Squire Bardon. Consult Wulder and your principles. I know you will come to the right decisions."

"I'll be back in an hour," he said. "Come on, N'Rae."

On the street, he hailed a horse-drawn cab. The dark streets prohibited their walking to the inn. Once inside the small, enclosed carriage, N'Rae opened the basket.

"What do you think of all this?" she asked the minneken.

Bardon snorted. "Yes, what do do you think?" you think?"

"I think it is very undignified to lie in a lump like a rag doll," she answered. "But we are all called upon from time to time to do things we do not want to do."

.19.

TAKING CARE OF NECESSITIES.

The four-poster bed where Holt had last been seen was empty. Bardon sighed his relief.

"I'm going down to the kitchen," he said to N'Rae and Mistress Seeno. "I'll get some food to take to Granny Kye and the children. I'll also get those blankets to take back."

Jue Seeno gestured for him to lean close so she could be heard. "You better take food for the women in the other cells, or Granny Kye will just give hers away."

"Right!"

He bought blankets from the innkeeper and also a basket filled with cheese and bread, fruit and boiled eggs.

"That ruins my plans for breakfast, young man," said the cook. She threw a couple of handfuls of flour into a large bowl, then doused it with a big splash of milk.

Bardon winked at her. "I have every confidence there will be a splendid repast on the table tomorrow morning."

"You do talk fancy." Without measuring, she used her fingertips to sprinkle salt over her concoction, then added sugar.

"Have you seen or heard of Holt Hoddack's whereabouts, Cook?"

"Aye! He came down asking for a potion to settle his stomach." She didn't look up from her work, where she kneaded the mixture into a stiff dough. "Likely he needed something for his head, I'm thinking. I gave him water I'd boiled the vegetables in. Of course I added a generous tablespoon of vinegar and mixed it up good. He said it tasted nasty enough to do some good."

"Did he say anything about finding a ship for us to book passage on?"

"He didn't." She turned her head to holler over her shoulder. "Bim and Toa, come help the squire carry this to the jail for the granny. Maybe you'll earn a pip."

Bardon smiled as the twin kitchen boys scrambled out from under a table against the back wall. No dirt ringed their necks. They smelled of soap. Only a spattering of freckles darkened their identical faces. They resembled the cook-clean, round, and cheerful. Green pants came down to midcalf. Brown shirts covered a tight-fitting undergarment of printed material. Their scruffy hair hung in their eyes, but it didn't hide their eagerness to be off on an adventure an hour after they'd been ordered to bed.

The cook grinned. "They're ten, sturdy and willing." Her wide smile revealed her obvious pride in her boys. She waved them toward the supplies on her kitchen table. "You each grab a stack of those blankets, follow the squire, and mind you, do exactly as he tells you."

"You'll earn a pip apiece," Bardon said. "One more thing, Cook. Do you know where the Hoddack fellow is now?"

"He refused a good meal and went out again. No good will come of that." She smacked the dough with the palm of her hand, and her sons looked knowingly at each other.

Bardon tucked the rest of the blankets under one arm and grabbed the basket with the other hand. "Thanks again, Cook. I'll have your boys back in an hour."

She nodded and glanced at her sons. The look said they had better be a credit to her, and both boys nodded with understanding.

They went through the inn to the front. Bardon wanted a buggy to take them to the jail. If they were set upon by footpads in the night, he would be hard pressed to defend them all with his arms loaded down.

As they approached the vehicle, Bardon glanced at the southwestern sky. He could see the Wizards' Plume above a housetop.

That's not good. We're running out of time. I could move so much faster if I didn't have to take N'Rae and Granny Kye along. Of course, I would be making great time to an unknown destination. I'm not sure the granny knows where it is from all her tidbits of information she's gathered. I don't know if Bromptotterpindosset can get us there. From all appearances this is a wild-goose chase.

The boys' excitement at riding in the horse-drawn vehicle amused him. So did their sober expressions as they watched the jailer's ritual of retrieving the proper key. But amazement touched his heart as he watched them push the blankets through the bars and compassionately hand food to those in all three cells. They spoke softly to the children on the other side of the iron door.

Bardon placed a hand on each head and roughed their hair as they walked back up the stark corridor. He would be sure to tell Cook how graciously they did their task.

When he reported the incident, she beamed and scooted them back to bed.

She stood with her hands on her hips, a berry-stained wooden spoon poking out of one fist.

"They're good boys," she said. "Their father's a sailor and gone too much, but I teach them the ways of Wulder, not like most in this province. And their father tells them the wonders of Wulder he's seen all over the world. They know the truth, they do. They'll be all right in this life."

Bardon next reported to N'Rae that her grandmother was more comfortable. Then he sought his narrow room, his narrower bed, and a time of reflection. His thoughts became a long petition to Wulder to make right the chaos into which his life had fallen.

[image]

Gray clouds obscured the morning sun. N'Rae already waited at the bottom of the stairs when Bardon came down. She carried Jue Seeno's basket on her arm.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"We have three appointments on our agenda today," he answered, heading for the common room where breakfast would be served. "We must see to securing a place on a ship going north. We must find a reliable transport of my dispatch to Paladin. And we must free Granny Kye and the children from the jail."

"The last one first, please."

Bardon patted her shoulder and then turned her toward their breakfast. "Fortunately, all those problems may be solved by one man, if he is willing."

"Who?"

"The harbormaster."

"He can do all that?"

Bardon nodded and pointed to a table with two chairs. "Along the coast of Amara, the harbormasters wield great power."

They sat, and Bardon handed N'Rae a basket of small, fragrant, sugary breads.

"I'm not hungry," she protested.

"I am."

"We must hurry."

"We won't be able to get anything done until the clock strikes nine and the business day commences."

"If this harbormaster is so important, will he see us? We aren't very important at all."

"No, we aren't. But Sir Dar is, and I'm his squire. Hopefully, that will open some doors for us."

N'Rae picked at her food, but Bardon ate a hearty breakfast and told Bim, or maybe it was Toa, to tell his mother she had lived up to his expectations.

A light rain greeted them as they peered out the front door of the inn. Bardon sighed. "Well, we'll take a carriage once again. I have walked less in this town than in any other I have ever visited."

"Is that bad?"

"You get to know a town and its people better when you stroll through the streets." He laughed.

"What?"

"Sir Dar loves to explore, and he has led me on many a merry chase in towns to the north of here. He is a hard one to keep up with."