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No answer. No creak of motion from the wagon. The horses shifted in their harness as Vandien waited. Then he turned, stacked his goods into Ki's arms, and jerked the door opened himself. 'Goat!' he roared, as the door came open.
There was no reply, and the look he turned on Ki was unreadable. 'He's gone,' he told her, and jumped down from the wagon step. She struggled laden up the step to dump their purchases on the bed. She came out of the wagon to see Vandien coming out of the i
'Not there,' he said tersely. They looked at each other in silence.
'Want me to check the other shops around here?' Ki offered, but Vandien shook his head, hisexpression suddenly savage.
'You know where he's gone as well as I do. Damn Goat, can't leave anything alone. It was bad enough as it was, and now to go back into it, to have to see her face again.'
He moved as he ranted, placing the bits in the horses' mouths, setting aside the water buckets the hostler had left for them. 'Let me just pay the i
He was holding the reins when she came out, and for once she said nothing about his driving. The team felt his tension down the reins, for they stepped out smartly and Sigurd, for once, tried no tricks with him. Back they went, the shade of the great trees flickering across the greys' backs and changing them to silvers and whites and almost blacks as the light changed.
He turned the wagon into the dusty yard of the Two Ducks I
The quiet of the i
'Come to your death, whelp!' Kellich invited Goat.
'No!' Goat wailed, and stepped once again into the shelter of Willow's body as Kellich moved around the table. 'Willow! Make him stop it! You wanted to be with me, you know you did! I felt it, you wanted me. Tell him! Tell him to let us go!'
Willow lifted her head suddenly. Nothing of youth was left in her face. Hopelessness and hatred had blended to leave her green and blue eyes scarcely human. She turned a killing look on Goat. 'I wanted what you stole from me!' Her voice was low, gravelly, but carried well. 'So I put in my mind what you wanted to see. Did you think I wouldn't know how to do that, you, who know so much about me? When you stole all my life from me, made my memories a mockery, didn't you stop to think that I might hate you for it, but know how to hide that hate?'
Goat's eyes bugged out, yellower with terror and outrage than Ki had ever seen them. 'Bitch!' His shriek broke on the word. 'Bitch, copper-haired bitch! You made me think you liked me, you made me think you cared for me!'
Willow shook her head slowly, her red mane sweeping her shoulders. Her face was harder and colder than ice. 'I hated you. Your touch on me was like rats scampering over my body. I loathed it. I loathed it!' Willow screamed the last words, and Goat cowered. She looked desperately into Kellich's face then, but his eyes did not change. He was not a man with deep wells of forgiveness within him. Her first errorwas to be her last.
Willow saw it as surely as Ki did. She rose with a ponderous heaviness, slapped away Goat's clutching hands. She moved away from him, into the circled watchers. 'Kill him,' she said to Kellich in passing. 'It will not save anything for us, but it may save the next person he meets. Have no pity for him.'
'I'll have no blood on my floor!' the i
Kellich's eyes had never left Goat. 'Call away,' he told the man. 'It won't be a duel here, Geoff. It's an execution; no, an extermination. Not for myself, not for my own pride or honor, though.' He turned suddenly on Goat. 'Give it back to her,' he said softly. 'And I might let you live.'
For a long instant Goat stared at him. Then his face crumpled, and tears brimmed his Jore eyes. 'No. I can feel the lie! You're going to kill me, no matter what I do.' His lower lip suddenly jutted, trembled. 'None of you ... ever ... liked me at all!' The last was the wail of a betrayed child. Then he threw his head up, suddenly defiant. 'When the guards get here, I'm telling. I'm telling them everything, Kellich. Your head will be carried on a pole at the front of the Duke's procession, this festival.'
The boy had judged wrong. His threat did not cow Kellich, nor the crowd. Ki felt the whole room grow colder, felt all the people at the i
'Oh, damn!' Vandien breathed beside Ki. 'Damn, damn, damn, why can't I just let it happen!' Then, before she could react to his words, he was stepping forward, his hand light on the hilt of his rapier, calling out, 'Hold, Kellich! Hold!'
Ki stood transfixed as the man swung his attention to Vandien. 'You're free with my name, for a stranger,' he observed. His blue eyes darted to Vandien's hand on the rapier hilt, swiftly measured the man against himself.
'I feel I know you, from all that Willow has said about you,' Vandien began, but Kellich interrupted with a strained laugh.
'My sweet Willow seems to have found much time to speak of me, to other men!'
'You do her an injustice.' Vandien was trying to keep his voice level. 'The girl loves you. No one else. What happened between her and Goat is a thing I ca
Uncertainty danced in Kellich's blue eyes. His gaze went past Vandien, found Willow. Ki saw a spark of life and hope come to Willow's face. 'It's true, Kellich!' she cried out desperately. 'All of it's true. I love only you, and if you would listen, I could make you understand what happened.' Her voice grew suddenly stronger. 'In only one thing is he wrong. You have to kill Goat. Not for me or what he has done to us. But for ... for a greater good, one we both hold dear.' Her voice faltered, as if fearing she spoke too much. Kellich's face changed. Ki could not tell if he would heed her earlier plea, to listen to her. But she knew he would fulfill Willow's other request. He would kill Goat. Unless Vandien stopped him.