"Well done," Fess's voice murmured behind Rod's ear.

"You excel as a catalyst. Rod."

"Oh, I'm great at knocking over the first domino," Rod muttered back. "Only trouble is, this time I have to set them up, too."

10.

The osprey circled above them, its wings dipping as it bal- anced in the updraft. Rod scowled up at it, wondering if its eyes were green, like Owen's. "Simon, how far are we from the coast?"

"Mayhap a day's ride." Simon followed Rod's gaze. "Ah, I see. 'Tis a fish-hawk, is't not?"

"Far as I know. But if the ocean's only twenty miles off, it's probably genuine." Rod turned to his companion.

"Thought you were a dirt farmer. How would you know what a fish-hawk looks like?"

Simon shrugged. "As I've said, the ocean's not so far."

Which was true enough. Rod reflected. He didn't really have anything to be suspicious about-but in enemy ter- ritory, he couldn't help it. He wasn't that far from suspecting the nearest boulder might be a witch in disguise.

"Then, too," Simon said, amused, "I've never claimed to be a farmer."

Rod looked up, surprised. "True enough," he said slowly.

"I did just a.s.sume. After all, what other occupations would there be, in a small village?"

'"Tis hard by the King's High Way," Simon explained.

"I keep an inn."

Rod lifted his head, mouth opening before the words 755.

756 came. "Oh." He nodded slowly. "I see. And quality folk stop in frequently, eh?"

"Mayhap twice in a month. There was ever a constant coming and going with the castle of Milord Duke. I did hearken to their speech, and did mimic it as best I could, the better to please them."

He'd hearkened to a lot more than their speech. Rod reflected. The aristocrats would no doubt have been aghast, if they'd known a mind reader served them. And, of course, Simon couldn't have had too many illusions left, about the lords.

So why was he still loyal?

Probably because the alternative was so much worse. "I don't suppose they taught you how to read?"

"Nay; my father sent me to the vicar, for lessons. He kept an inn before me, and knew 'twould be useful for an innkeeper to read and write, and cast up sums."

So. Unwittingly, Rod had stumbled into one of the local community leaders. "An enlightened man."

"Indeed he was. And what art thou?"

Every alarm bell in Rod's head broke into clamor. Ad- mittedly, he'd made a pretty big slip; but did Simon have to be so quick on the uptake? "Why... I'm a farmer. Do I look so much like a knight, as to confuse you? Or a Duke, perhaps?" Then his face cleared with a sudden, delighted smile, and he turned to jab a finger at Simon. "/ know! You thought I was a goldsmith!"

Simon managed to choke the laugh down into a chuckle, and shook his head. "Nay, goodman. I speak not of thine occupation, but of what thou art-that thou art there, but thou'rt not."

Rod stared, totally taken aback. "What do you mean, I'm not here?"

"In thy thoughts." Simon laid a finger against his fore- head. "I have told thee I can hear men's thoughts-yet I cannot hear thine."

"Oh." Rod turned back to the road, gazing ahead, mus- ing-while, inside, he virtually collapsed into a shuddering heap of relief. "Yes... I've been told that before...." Glad it's working...

157.

Simon smiled, but with his brows knit. " 'Tis more than simply not hearing thy thoughts. When my mind doth 'lis- ten' for thee, there is not even a sense of thy presence. How comes this?"

Rod shrugged. "I can guess, but that's all."

"And what is thy guess?"

"That I'm more worried about mind readers than your average peasant."

Simon shook his head. "That would not explain it. I have known some filled with morbid fear their thoughts would be heard-and I think they had reason, though I sought to avoid them. Still, I could have heard their thoughts, an I had wished to. Certes, I could sense that they were there.

Yet with thee, I can do neither. I think, companion, that thou must needs have some trace of witch power of thine own, that thy will doth wrap into a shield."

"You trying to tell me I'm a witch?" Rod did a fairly good imitation of bristling.

Simon only smiled sadly. "Even less than I am. Nay, I'd not fear that. Thou canst not hear thoughts, canst thou?"

"No," Rod said truthfully-at least, for the time being.

Simon smiled. "Then thou'rt not a witch. Now tell me- why dost thou come North? Thou must needs know that thou dost drive toward danger."

"I sure must, after you and the auncient finished with me." Rod hunched his shoulders, pulling into himself. "As to the danger, I'll chance it. I can get better prices for my produce in Korasteshev, than I can in all of Tudor's county!

And my family's always hungry."

"They will hunger more, an thou dost not return." Simon's voice dropped, full of sincerity. "I bid thee, friend, turn back."

"What's the matter? Don't like my company?"

Simon's eamestness collapsed into a smile. "Nay-thou art a pleasant enough companion...."

Personally, Rod thought he was being rather churlish.

But Simon was very tolerant. "Yet for thine own sake, I bid thee turn toward the South again. The sorcerer's war- locks will not take kindly to one whose mind they cannot sense."

758.

159.

"Oh, the warlocks won't pay any attention to a mere peasant coming to market." At least. Rod hoped they wouldn't.

"The prices in Romanov cannot be so much better than they are in Tudor." Simon held Rod's eyes with a steady gaze. It seemed to b.u.m through his retinas and into his brain. "What more is there to thine answer?"

Reluctantly, Rod admitted, "There is more-but that's all you're going to get."

Simon held his gaze for a minute.

Then he sighed, and turned away. "Well, it is thy fate, and thou must needs answer for it thyself. Yet be mindful, friend, that thy wife and baims do depend upon thee."

Rod was mindful of it, all right. For a sick instant, he had a vision of Gwen and the children waiting weeks, with- out word of him. Then he thrust the thought sternly aside, and tried to envision the look on his boys' faces if he aban- doned his mission and came back to be safe. "You have obligations to the people of your village. Master Simon. So have I."

"What-to the folk of thy town?"

"Well, to my people, anyway." Rod had the whole of Gramarye in mind, not to mention the Decentralized Dem- ocratic Tribunal. "And once you've accepted an obligation of that sort, you can't put it aside just because it becomes dangerous."

"Aye, that's so," Simon said, frowning. '"Tis this that I've but now come to see."

Rod turned to him, frowning too. "But you've already done your part, taken your risks. No one would call you a coward for going South now!"

"I would," Simon said simply.

Rod looked directly into his eyes for a moment, then turned away with a sigh. "What can I say to that, goodman?"

"Naught, save 'gee-up' to thine horse."

"Why?" Rod asked sourly. "This cart may be pulled by a horse, but it's being driven by a pair of mules."

Sundown caught them still on the road, with grainfields at either hand. "Nay," Simon a.s.sured Rod, "there is no town near."

"I was afraid of that," Rod sighed. "Well, the earth has been my bed before this." And he drove off the road, pulling Fess to a stop in the weeds between the track and the field.

He was cutting vegetables into a small pot before Simon could even volunteer.

The innkeeper eyed him quizzically, then asked, "Dost ever have a pot with thee?"

"I was a tinker once. Habits stick."

Simon smiled, shaking his head, and leaned back on an elbow. "I think such travels are not wholely new to thee."

"We're even," Rod snorted. "I get the feeling spell- breaking isn't all that new to you."

Simon was still for a moment, but his eyes brightened.

"Almost could I believe thou didst read minds."

"If I did, I'd need to have yours translated. So when did you start spell-breaking?"

Simon sat up, hooking his forearms around his shins, resting his chin on his knees. "The men of the village came oft to mine inn for drinking of beer, which they took as part-price for the produce they brought. Anon would come one whose heart was heavy, with thoughts in turmoil, to drink and be silent-mayhap in hopes that beer would quiet his unrest."

Rod nodded. "Strange how we keep trying that solution.

Especially since it never works."

"Nay; but speaking thy thoughts to a willing ear, can help to calm them; and the troubled ones would talk, for I would hearken, and give what sympathy I could. Yet one there came who seemed like unto a wall in winter-like to spring apart at the first freeze. He could not talk, but huddled over his flagon. Yet the jumble of his thoughts rode upon such pain that they fairly screamed. I could not have shut my mind to them, even had I wished to-and brooding over all was the shadow of a noose."

Rod looked up sharply. "The kid was suicidal?"

"Aye. And he was no child, but in his thirties. 'Tis these pa.s.sages from one state to another that do wreak their havocs within us, and his children all had grown."

Rod couldn't understand the problem; but he had Gwen for a wife. "What could you do about it?"

"Fill another flagon, and one for myself, and go to sit 760 by him. Then, 'neath the pretext of conversing-and 'twas very much a pretense, for I alone did speak-I felt through the snarl of his thoughts, found the sources of his pain and shame, then asked aloud the questions that did make him speak them. And 'twas not easy for him thus to speak- yet I encouraged, and he did summon up sufficient reso- lution. I meant only to have him thus give me pretext to discuss his secret fears, to tell him they were not so fear- some-yet I found that, once he had spoken them aloud, and heard his own voice saying them, these secrets then lost half their power. Then could I ask a question whose answer would show him the goodness within him that could counter his hidden monsters, and, when we were done, he'd calmed tolerably well."

"You saved his life," Rod accused.

Simon smiled, flattered. "Mayhap I did. I began, then, to give such aid to all such troubled souls that I encountered.

Nay, I even sought them out, when they did not come into my inn."

"Could be dangerous, there," Rod pointed out. "Just so much of that hauling people back from the edge, before the neighbors decided you had to be a witch to do it. Especially since you were poaching on the parish priest's territory."

Simon shook his head. "Who knew of it? Not even those I aided-for I gave no advice nor exhortation. And look, you, 'twas a village. We all knew one another, so there was naught of surprise should I encounter any one of them, and chat a while. Yet withal, the folk began to say that troubled souls could find a haven in mine inn."

Definitely poaching on the priest's territory," Rod mut- tered. "And that was an awful lot of grief to be taking on yourself."

Simon shrugged, irritated. "They were my people. Mas- ter Owen. Are, I should say. And there were never more than three in a year."

Rod didn't look convinced.

Simon dropped his gaze to the campfire. "Thus, when Tom Shepherd lapsed into sullenness, his brothers brought him to my taproom. In truth, they half-carried him; he could no longer even walk of his own." He shook his head. " 'Twas an old friend of mine-or should I say, an old neighbor."

161.

"What was the matter with him?"

Simon turned his head from side to side. "His face was slack; he could not move of his own, and did but sit, not speaking. I drew a stool up next to his, and gazed into his face, the whiles I asked questions, which he did not answer; yet all the while, my mind was open, hearkening at its hardest, for any thought that might slip through his mind."

"Sounds catatonic." Rod frowned. "I shouldn't think there would've been any thoughts."

"There was one-but only one. And that one did fill him, consuming all his mind and heart with a single grave- yard knell."

"Suicidal, again?"