Luck Of The Wheels

'In back,' Willow whispered, as if the stillness of the place made talking sacrilegious.

She was right. The wagon was pulled up beside a shed that held wooden vats long bereft of fruit. Even in the darkness, a single glance inside was enough to tell Ki it had been plundered. She stepped back to the ground, rounded on Willow. 'Where are my things?' she demanded coldly.

Willow shrugged eloquently. 'Everywhere, by now. They were distributed to those in the most need.'

'And my need for them wasn't considered?' Ki asked acidly.

Willow shrugged again, and even in the darkness, her eyes were pale and without feeling. 'Soon-to-be-dead' folk needed nothing. Ki felt a sudden coldness up her back and in the base of her belly. 'What I'd really like to know,' she said conversationally, 'is how to tell the difference between the Brurjan road patrols and the rebel freedom fighters. They both seem to share a gift for despoiling travellers.'

Willow's eyes blazed suddenly. 'You can say such things, who have no idea of the deprivations we have suffered in recent years. When a blanket for your child's bed becomes a luxury, or a bit of meat to flavor the soup is a thing to look forward to, or your mule throwing a shoe is a family tragedy

'Those folk at Festival tonight didn't seem very deprived. Poor folk don't pack themselves into taverns and spend coins on holiday breads and skewers of meat.'

'Not usually. It isn't often like that. But it is tonight, because the rebellion has given them hope. Fortonight, they believe things may get better, and they remember how things were when the Duchess kept the Windsingers kind to us, and this valley was prosperous, when all of Loveran was a green place.'

Fervor filled her voice as she spoke. Pointless to argue, Ki decided. 'And my team?' she asked. She wondered if she could extract coin as well as Vandien with her threat of going to the Duke, but decided not to bring it up to Willow just yet.

'There's an old stable up the hill. He probably put them there.'

'Show me.'

Both horses whuffed a greeting to her. There was a scattering of dry grass in the manger they shared, a skimming of slimy water in a trough. Ki ran a hand over Sigurd's shoulder, felt dust spiked with sweat. She'd wager they hadn't been clean since they'd been taken from her. 'Vintner is so destitute, he could not even afford the time to groom them, I suppose.'

Willow didn't reply. Ki turned back to her in time to hear the heavy door of the stable thud into place. Her shoulder crashed into it a scant portion of a second after Willow wrestled the bar into place. The ancient boards gave with the impact of Ki's body but didn't yield.

'Damn it, Willow, let me out!'

There was no reply, but Ki could feel her on the other side of the door, listening silently.

'This place won't hold me for long. There's tools in here, and I'll be out of here by morning. And then the Duke's going to hear everything I know, Willow. Every damn thing!'

'He'll be dead by then,' Willow said calmly. She spoke in a conversational voice, as if she didn't really care if Ki could hear her or not. 'By morning the rebellion will have been served. Vandien will have killed the Duke. It has to be, Ki. Otherwise, Kellich's death is totally without meaning. I hope you can see that.'

'I'll see you in hell!' Ki roared, enraged beyond reason. But Willow was still talking, heedless of any noise Ki might make, and for the first time Ki noted the edge of madness in the girl's voice.

'... blade was poisoned. So he would die anyway, that would be inevitable. At least this way his death serves a purpose. Even Vandien came to see that. Death can have a meaning, if it is offered up in service to a higher cause. He killed two men today, cut another and mutilated a young woman, but they were not wasted. Those deaths were needed, to put him in position to kill the Duke for us.'

'I don't believe you!' Disgust filled Ki, and then a tickling fear that Willow might not be lying. 'Let me out of here!'

Willow's voice was soft. 'Vandien serves us now, filling Kellich's place. He came over readily enough, once he believed you were dead and accepted that he was dying. I think the knowledge of one's own death can bring out the higher nature in a man. Vandien will be remembered, Ki. Take comfort in that.'

Willow stopped talking, but Ki could think of nothing to say. She was babbling nonsense anyway. It was only when the silence had stretched thin to breaking that she asked of the darkness, 'Willow?' But there was no reply, not even the sound of breathing. She was gone.

Ki crouched down in the darkness and tried to think. But no matter how she put Willow's wordstogether, they made no sense. For whatever reason, the girl was lying. Vandien wouldn't kill in a tournament bout. And even if he had developed sudden fervor for this rebellion's cause, she couldn't see him in the role of assassin. None of it made sense. Willow had to be lying. The man she knew was incapable of such carnage. But the other men she had overheard in the tavern ... she suddenly felt quivery. It was true. Something inside her collapsed. She felt betrayed, not only by Vandien, but by herself. She'd loved a man, and never really known him at all. Anger warred with pain. She chose anger. She rose, and began to grope her way around the wall of the stable, searching for tools to pry the old boards loose.

EIGHTEEN

They had given him a room at the i

'So. The bath wasn't for my benefit at all,' Vandien observed to himself. The pale blue shirt was loose and cool, woven of a soft fabric he didn't recognize. The brown trousers were of the same stuff in a heavier weave, and fit him well enough; he wondered idly who had guessed at his size. On the other hand, perhaps the Duke kept a full wardrobe in a range of sizes to fit the people he pla

He crossed the room to where his own clothing lay in a heap on the floor. From them he retrieved a necklace, a small carved hawk on a fine chain. For a moment he stared at it cupped in the palm of his hand, then he looped it quickly around his neck. A tiny packet he tucked securely into his cuff. The last item he took up was a small ball of wax that Lacey had given him that morning. He stared at it for a long time, then set it carefully on the floor. He put his heel atop it, pressed down. It squashed soundlessly, the milky poison squirting out to stain the floorboards.

Vandien mentally hefted the silver candlesticks weighting the heavy cream-colored tablecloth. Probably enough there to buy Ki a new wagon, he thought idly, and then winced from the notion. It was, he reflected, an obsolete measurement of value anymore. Better to say it was heavy enough to break the battle fangs of the Brurjan that was ru