Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Faila The Leather Bottle Inn, on the Dromin Road, in the Lescari Dukedom of Carluse, 24th of For-Autumn of For-Autumn

She leaned back and closed her eyes. Stretching out her legs, her mud-spattered skirts hung heavy around her booted ankles. The settle in the parlour was unpadded, high-backed and narrow-seated. She didn't care. Her head ached with tension aggravated by every thud and shout from the bustling courtyard outside.

"I've paid for this parlour and the two bedrooms up above." Nath kicked the door closed and dropped their bags. "I don't think that woman believes we're map-makers," he observed, lighting the half-burned candles on the mantel with a taper he'd been given. "Or brother and sister, come to that."

Failla opened her eyes and glared at him. "So leave the door ajar so no one can imagine scandal."

"If we don't want to be fodder for local tittle-tattle, why stop at an inn at all?" Nath demanded, as if they hadn't already had this dispute on horseback. "Or spend good coin on rooms we'll be abandoning at midnight? We can't leave it any later and still hope to meet this Artificer at first light. Won't riding out with the rising moons give the gossips hereabouts something juicy to chew on?"

"Duke Garnot has his dogs hunting for Woodsmen on the byways, not the high roads. An inn this busy sees people coming and going at all hours. No one will notice us." Failla was counting on it. She closed her eyes again so she wouldn't have to look at Nath as she lied to him. "There's no need for us both to go to this shrine. You meet this man Kerith and bring him back here. I have those letters to read and answer and Drianon's mercy, I'm tired and I'm filthy. I want a bath and some sleep in a real bed," she said petulantly.

"You don't think I'd like the chance to brush the muck off my clothes?" Nath snapped. "Or to wash? I smell worse than my horse!"

It was unlike Nath to lose his temper. Failla hid her alarm. "Forgive me, I know you're tired, too. You and this traveller should both come here to rest, before we go onwards."

Nath was untouched by her apparent concern. He carried a candle over to the parlour's indifferently polished table and dropped heavily into one of the wooden chairs. "Are any of those letters that saddler gave you for me?"

"I think so." Business was as good a way to distract him as any other. Failla sat up to find she had stiffened even in those few minutes sitting down. She grimaced as she bent to unbuckle her travelling bag. "Could we have some wine?"

"We can ask." Nath wearily rattled the brass bell standing on the table.

Failla sorted through the letters passed to them by the guildmasters' most recent courier. Uncle Ernout's friends hadn't let them down yet. "This is Sorgrad's writing."

Nath flexed his grimy hands, rubbing them on his breeches. "Where are they?" he wondered with savage exasperation. "Halfway through For-Autumn and there's no sign of them coming down from the hills."

"Hush." Failla tossed the letter to him and went to the door, just in case there was anyone in the passage to overhear. There wasn't. "Maybe that letter tells us."

"This is cracked." Nath was studying the wax seal closely.

Alarmed, Failla went to see. "Has it been opened?"

"No, just roughly handled." Nath ripped it open, infuriated. "How many days have we lost, waiting for news to pass from hand to hand like this? There's no chance this side of the Otherworld that I'll be home for Equinox."

Nath spoke of his family often enough and Failla was glad of it. Devotion to his absent wife meant he'd never once looked at her with speculative eyes. She only hoped homesickness was the reason for his uncharacteristic ill-temper.

"Everything will move more quickly once this Kerith joins us. We'll be able to get word to and from Vanam much faster." She examined her own letters. "There's no sign that any of these have been interfered with." Snapping the wax seal, she unfolded the first one.

"Is there anything I should know?" Nath asked sourly. "Or anything you're allowed to tell me?"

"I don't like keeping secrets, but my uncle won't have it any other way." She looked at him with carefully judged anxiety. With luck he would think all her secrets were concerned with safeguarding the guildmasters and their fellow conspirators. "You've seen how keen Duke Garnot is to run the Woodsmen to earth."

Nath stared at his letter. "I hope this Kerith can tell us why. Do you suppose Charoleia knows what's stuck a burr under Duke Garnot's saddle?"

"I hope so." Failla said honestly. Travelling through Marlier to distribute Reniack's broadsheets had been nerve-wracking enough, where no one knew her beyond a few of Duke Ferdain's servants. Back in Carluse, with Wynald's Warband riding the roads in search of unknown rebels, she was as tense as an overwound harp string. But she and Nath had found so many willing ears for their message. She could almost believe this crack-brained plot stood half a chance of success.

She hid her other concerns. If this Artificer's enchantments could see into someone's thoughts, would he use them on her? Better not arouse his suspicions and give him cause to try. Which only left her with tonight. As long as Nath agreed to ride on alone, curse him. How would she persuade him in his current mood?

An elderly woman in a worn black dress looked round the open door. "I heard the bell. Can I help you, Master? My lady?"

"A jug of wine and two goblets, if you please." Nath's voice was still harsh with strain.

"Of course." The woman bobbed a half-curtsey, an amiable smile on her hook-nosed face.

Failla saw her keen eyes taking in their baggage, the letters on the table and their travel-stained clothes. Inn servants were always nosy. Hopefully hearing her and Nath squabbling should convince the old crone that they were indeed brother and sister.

She returned to her letters. Unravelling the Ashgil glover's circumlocutions wasn't easy. Finally she was satisfied that he'd done his best to persuade his fellow craftsmen that standing aloof would be their safest course if, by some unimagined chance, warfare returned to Carluse.

"You wanted wine?" A different maid, neatly aproned, soon appeared with a tray.

"Yes, thank you." Nath raked his fingers through his tangled hair. "Draw the curtains and close the door, if you please."

Failla didn't look up, opening her next letter with her belt knife. All the better to convince the servant there was nothing lover-like between them.

The maid poured some wine and pocketed the coin Nath gave her, the latch clicking behind her.

He sprang to his feet. "They want maps of Sharlac as soon as possible." Kneeling by their baggage, he unstrapped his writing case. "As many as we can draw up. And everything we can tell them about the state of the roads in Carluse, and Marlier after that."

"Why?" Failla's fingers tightened, creasing the letter.

"Why do you think? It's finally starting." Nash leafed through some parchments. "Let's see what we can do to bring it to a swift conclusion. I surveyed a good deal of Sharlac last year." He quickly set pens, inkwells and paper on the table. "Let's hope nothing much has changed."

Failla moved the wine jug. "Where are they, Sorgrad and Gren? And Tathrin?"

She would so much rather be travelling with him, even at the price of the Mountain Men's escort. She stifled fleeting recollections of their walks in Vanam, their easy conversation about places and people they both knew.

"We meet them the day after next." Nath emptied his goblet with a single swallow. "Six leagues out of Abray on the Great West Road at a tavern called the Pipe and Chime."

"I don't know it." Failla could only hope that meant no one would know her.

"We can spend this evening making fair copies until we have to leave to meet Kerith." Nath unscrewed his metal flask of ink and carefully filled the wells. "Then we can cut along the forest road from the shrine to reach the highway."

Failla had long since learned to tell when a man wasn't about to be gainsaid. "Very well."

"You take the main highway maps." He began trimming a quill. "The byways are more complicated, so I'll do those."

Failla reluctantly took a sheet of paper and chose a pen. How could she get away from Nath now? As she drew careful lines, she thought furiously.

They worked in silence until the third chimes struck. Nath scowled as he saw how few sheets she'd copied. "Can you work any faster?"

"Not if you don't want them blotted." Failla continued working, her hand steady. She still saw no solution to her own problem, though.

Nath bent over his own work. "I could do with some supper."

"I'll see what the kitchen can offer." Failla set down her pen with a snap.

She found the kitchens at the rear of the long building. The older woman who'd answered their bell was nowhere to be seen but the aproned maid was talking to a cook kneading dough.

"My lady?"

Failla smiled ruefully. "My brother has just had word of an urgent order for our maps. Could you serve us some food in our parlour while we work?"

The cook paused in her kneading. "There's breast of veal with a green sauce and batter puddings. With apricot pies and crayfishes?"

"That will be lovely, thank you."

Failla walked slowly back to the parlour. Nath didn't look up, intent on tracing a fine line. Failla took up her pen again and, still working as slowly as she dared, waited to hear footsteps outside the door. Making sure Nath couldn't see her face, she reluctantly unlocked her most painful memory. Tears slowly filled her eyes.

As she heard the maid approaching, she swept up the sheets of paper. "Here's our supper." Tipping an inkwell so that the black tide only flooded her own work wasn't easy but she managed.

"Drianon's tits!" Nath sprang up, clutching his painstaking copies.

"I'm so sorry." Deftly catching the sliding ink on the topmost sheet, Failla let the brimming tears spill down her cheeks.

"Master?" The aproned maid opened the door, another carrying a laden tray behind her. "Your supper?"

"What? Yes, thank you. Just put it down over there." Nath managed curt politeness but his face was burning with anger.

Failla took her chance to drop the ink-stained pages into the sooty hearth and huddled on the settle, her face in her hands. The maids left the food and made a hasty exit.

When Nath stopped swearing, Failla looked cautiously through her fingers. He was sorting through his own copies, checking to see if any of them were ruined.

"It's not as bad as it might have been," he said with a visible effort.

"I'll start again. I can work all night." Failla wiped tears from her cheeks with trembling hands. "If you meet this man Kerith and bring him back here."

"I suppose so." Nath sat down, leaning heavily on his elbows, his head hanging.

"If you're going to be riding all night, why don't you get some sleep first?" Failla hoped she sounded as if she'd just had the idea. "I can finish my copying and yours, too. Then I can sleep while you're on your way back. We'll both feel better."

Nath looked too weary to suspect anything. "I suppose so."

"Have something to eat," Failla urged.

Without waiting for his answer, she served them both. Despite her hunger she took only a small portion to maintain her pretence of distress. As they ate, she kept Nath's goblet topped up with the vinegary wine. Their long day's travel and the food and the drink soon had him yawning.

"I had better get some rest," he allowed, "or I'll fall off that cursed horse and end up snoring in a ditch."

"I'll come and wake you," Failla promised as she stacked their dirty plates on the tavern's tray.

As soon as he left the room, his travelling bag under one arm, she hurried to retrieve the papers she'd dumped on the cold ashes. The bottom few were too dirty to be salvaged and the ink had soaked the topmost. She tucked the rest inside Nath's writing case for safe keeping and redrew the ruined ones, working more swiftly than she had done all evening. By the time the fifth chime of the night sounded, she had copied a further handful and three of Nath's more intricate map. That should convince him that she had worked until the candles guttered.

The flames fluttered as the door opened. She froze, startled. Seeing it was Nath, she managed a smile. "I was just about to wake you."

Halcarion help her. Failla could only pray he wasn't about to ask how much she'd achieved.

"I saw that old woman on the stairs and asked her to call me at midnight." Nath rubbed a hand over his stubble, far more his usual genial self. He caught his cloak up from the chair. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Make sure you get some sleep."

"I will." Failla breathed more easily as the door closed behind him. Moving to the window, she eased the curtain aside. Smoky torches lit the courtyard and she saw an ostler bringing Nath's horse from the stables that occupied three sides of the inn's ground floor. As soon as he rode out through the arch onto the high road, she let the curtain fall.

She quickly packed away all the papers, ink and pens and buckled Nath's writing case securely. Gathering up her own bag and cloak along with it, she hurried upstairs. Nath had said their rooms were right above the parlour, hadn't he?

As she reached the top step, the old woman came out of a door opposite. She dropped a hasty curtsey. "I was just straightening the young master's bed and snuffing his candle."

"Of course." Failla nodded at the next door. "Is that my room?"

"It is, my lady." The old woman opened it up for her. "Let me fetch you a light."

Failla quickly stowed the writing case under the bed and left her travelling bag on top. If some ill-chance brought thieves in the night, they were welcome to her dirty linen. Hopefully they'd pay no attention to a case full of paper and pens. As for spies, mere maps could say nothing definite. She had all the incriminating letters in her pocket. Better not forget to read and answer them before Nath and this newcomer returned in the morning, she reminded herself. She slung her cloak around her shoulders.

"My lady?" Returning with a fresh candle, the old woman halted, surprised.

"My brother's riding to our patron's house without one of his commissions." Failla flourished the spoiled sheets of paper, folded into a convincing pretence. "If I hurry, I should catch him."

"You're riding out alone, at this hour?" The old woman was horrified.

"He's only just left, and there won't be anyone on the road." Failla was counting on that. Her luck had held thus far, thank Halcarion.

"My lady, at least take a groom with you."

"I'll be back soon." Failla brushed past the servant and headed for the stairs.

Down in the courtyard, a heavy-eyed ostler fetched her horse without comment. The timely arrival of a coach with a lame horse prompted a flurry of activity and she made her escape. The road was deserted. Even the hardiest beggars had found some hedgerow to sleep under by now. Riding out into the night, she paused only once.

Looking up, she was relieved to see that the day's clouds had yielded to a clear sky. With both moons waxing past their halves, there was plenty of light.

Looking back at the village spread out beyond the inn, she saw candles in a few unshuttered windows. The fire-baskets on either side of the inn's gateway burned brightly, showing no one following her. No one to see she was riding in quite the opposite direction from Nath.

Chapter Thirty.