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In a panic, she seized the arm of the man behind the table as the customer departed.
"Please, could you tell me where Irma is?"
He looked up, squinting in the sunlight. "The sausage lady?"
Je
The man gri
Je
"Too bad, too. Having sausages for sale next to us really helped sell wine. People ate those spicy goat sausages of hers and had to have some of our wine."
"Her what?" Je
The man's smile flagged. "Her sausages. What's wrong, ma'am? You look as if a spirit from the underworld just tapped you on the shoulder."
"What did you say she sells?… Goat sausages?"
He nodded, looking concerned. "Among others. I tried them all, but I liked the spicy goat sausages best." He lifted a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his two brothers. "Joe liked her beef sausages best, and Clayton, well he liked the pork, but I favored her goat sausages."
Je
The man scratched his head of disheveled blond hair. "I'm sorry, but I don't know. She comes here to sell sausages. Most folks around here have seen her before. She's a nice lady, always a smile and a good word."
Je
The man grasped Je
"She has my animals. My horses. And Betty."
"Betty?"
"My goat. She has them. We paid her to watch them until we got back.»
"Oh." He looked gloomy to have no better news for her. "Sorry. Her sausages pretty much sold steady till they were gone. It usually takes her all day long to sell what she cooks up, but sometimes it just goes better, I guess. After her sausages were gone, she sat around and talked to us for a long spell. Finally, she let out a sigh, and said she had to get home."
Je
"Please," she said, her voice choked with tears, "please, could I rent one of your horses?"
"Our horses? Then how would we get our wagon home? Besides, they're draft horses. We don't have any saddle or tack for riding or any-"
"Please! I have gold." Je
Feeling around at her waist, she couldn't find her small leather pouch with her gold and silver coins. Je
"My purse… my purse is gone." She couldn't get her breath. "My money. ."
The man's face sagged with sorrow as he watched her pull the remnant of the drawstring from her belt. "There are wicked people prowling around, looking to steal-"
"But I need it."
He fell silent. She looked back behind, searching for the hawker selling charms. It all flashed back through her mind. He had bumped into her, jostled her. He was really cutting her purse. She couldn't even recall what he looked like-just that he was scruffy and ill kept. She hadn't wanted to look at his face, meet his eyes. She couldn't seem to get her breath as she frantically looked this way and that, trying to find the man who had stolen her money.
"No. ." she whined, too overcome to know what to say. "No, oh please no." She sank down, sitting on the ground beside the table. "I need a horse. Dear spirits, I need a horse."
The man hurriedly poured wine in a cup and squatted down beside her as she sobbed. "Here, drink this."
"I have no money," she managed to get out as she wept.
"No charge," he said, giving her a sympathetic, lopsided smile of straight white teeth. "It'll help. Drink it down."
The other two blond-headed brothers, Joe and Clayton, stood behind the table, hands in their pockets, heads lowered with regret for the woman their brother was tending to.
The man tipped the cup up, trying to get her to drink as she cried. Some spilled down her chin, some went in her mouth and she had to swallow it.
"Why do you need a horse?" the man asked.
"I have to get to Althea's place."
"Althea? The old sorceress?"
Je
"Have you been invited out there?"
"No," Je
"Why?"
"It's a matter of life or death. I need Althea's help or a man could die."
Crouching beside her, still holding the cup he'd used to give her a drink, his eyes turned from looking into hers to take in her ringlets of red hair under her hood.
The big man put his hands on his knees and stood, going back to his brothers to let her be as she tried but failed to halt her desperate tears. Je
She told herself that she couldn't just sit there acting like a child. It would accomplish nothing. She had to do something. There could be no help in the shadow of Lord Rahl's palace, and she had no money to help her. She couldn't depend on anyone-except Sebastian, and he had no hope of help but from her. Now his life depended on her actions alone. She couldn't sit there feeling sorry for herself. If her mother had taught her anything, she had taught Je
She had no idea what to do to rescue Betty, but she at least knew what she had to attempt in order to help Sebastian. That was what was most important, and what she had to do. She was wasting precious time.
Je
No sense yearning for what was gone and couldn't be recovered. She would have to walk.
"Thank you for the wine," Je
"Not at all," he said as he cast his gaze downward.
As she started away, he seemed to gather his courage. He stepped out into the dusty road and grabbed her by the arm. "Hold on there, ma'am. What are you thinking of doing?"
"A man's life depends on my getting out to Althea's place. I've no choice. I have to walk."
"What man? What's going on that his life would hinge on you seeing Althea?"
Je
"I'm sorry, but I can't say."
Je
"Look," he said in a quiet voice when she scowled at him, "do you even have any supplies?"
Je
"So, you have nothing." It wasn't a question so much as scorn for so simpleminded a plan.
"I have myself and I know what I must do."
"And you intend to strike out for Althea's, in the winter, on foot, without any supplies?"
"I've lived in the woods my whole life. I can get by."
She pulled, but his big hand held her a
This time she more forcefully jerked her arm away and succeeded in freeing it. "I don't have any other choice. You may not understand that, but there are some things that you have to do, even if it means risking your own life, or else life means nothing and isn't worth living."
Before he could stop her again, Je
She turned down the first road going west. With the southern winter sun on the left side of her face, she thought about the sunlight in the palace when she had been at the devotion, and how much it felt like her mother's embrace.