Raven's Strike

CHAPTER 11

“You want journey bread?” Alinath came out of the baking room, her face tight with dismay after overhearing Tier’s request to her husband, Bandor.

Seraph took a step back and let Tier deal with his sister.

Tier picked up a piece of bread left out as a sample and tried it. “I’ll need it as soon as you can. You know, Bandor, if you put a bit less salt in this bread”—he motioned to the plate of sample offered—“it would allow some of the other flavors to come out.”

“I’ll try that,” Bandor said. “Does the journey bread have anything to do with your guests?”

Tier nodded easily, but Seraph could feel his arm tense under her hand. “Who told you about them?”

Five strangers were a hard secret to keep, but they hadn’t told anyone about them, and no one had been to the farm since Phoran and his men had shown up.

“Apparently some youngsters—who should have work to keep themselves busy—were out that way a week or so ago and came back into town spouting nonsense,” said Alinath.

“Spying on us, are they?” Tier gri

“They said they were nobles,” Bandor said. “And one of them the Sept’s own brother. We had the tale from the steward, who was convinced you are after his job.”

“Gods save me,” exclaimed Tier with honest horror. “What idiot would want that job?”

“Exactly,” said Alinath with satisfaction. “And so I told the steward when he came whining to me.”

“Toarsen, the Sept’s brother, is there with a group of bored young noblemen whom Tier met in Taela,” said Seraph, having found a story that might satisfy some of the curious. “They had nothing to do, and knew Tier would come here too late for planting. They’ve asked him to take them hunting in the mountains.”

“You can’t take the Sept’s brother up there,” said Alinath, horrified. “If something happens to him, the Sept will—”

“It’s all right,” said Seraph. “We’re all going. I doubt there will be trouble with all of us there.”

Alinath stopped fussing and frowned thoughtfully at Seraph. “Very well,” she said slowly. “Two dozen dozen loaves of journey bread. It’ll be ready the day after tomorrow—I’ve put all the breadmother up for today.” She gave Seraph a sudden conspiratorial smile. “And any who ask, I’ll tell them about the nobles who are paying my brother’s family for an adventure up in the mountains. Only you’d better make it somewhere more interesting—like Shadow’s Fall. Bored young boys might very well be stupid enough to ride from Taela to have Tier take them to Shadow’s Fall. They’d have the money to tempt anyone, too. I can take Ri

“No,” said Tier instinctively, and Seraph smiled to herself—then at Tier when he looked at her with second thoughts in his face. Is it fair to take her?

“She’ll be as safe with us as she would be here with Alinath,” Seraph said. “I think if we try to leave Ri

“Besides,” said Tier, relaxing a little, “the summer’s getting old. Up high it’s possible we could run into early snow. A Cormorant might be a very useful thing to have.”

Bandor patted his wife on the back. “She’ll have a story to tell her children, if that’s where you’re going. I’d like to see Shadow’s Fall once before I die.”

“I’ll take you there,” agreed Tier. “But I’ve only been once myself. It’s not easy to get to—and it is not a comfortable place to be. If you’re serious, though, I’ll take you next summer after the crops are in.”

They left the bakery with a sweet roll each.

Seraph hummed her pleasure at the sticky, warm bread.

“See,” Tier said. “If you’d been nicer to my sister all these years, you’d have had a sweet roll every time you came to the bakery.”

“Liar,” she told him cheerfully. “Until I saved her husband, it didn’t matter how nice I was to her—she was convinced I used magic to steal away her big brother.”

As they wandered up the road to Willon’s, Tier grew more serious. “I don’t like it that those boys were out by our farm, Seraph. It was Storne and his lot, I suppose. He used to be such a nice boy before he took up with Olbeck.”

“They’re not boys anymore,” Seraph said. “They’re Lehr’s age—Olbeck’s older than that. If the Path had taken over here, doubtless they’d have recruited those boys as Passerines.”

Ri

Lehr was still looking thin and pale, and he was sleeping too much. Jes hadn’t returned with He

So Ri

Phoran and his men were seated on the ground in front of the barn, playing some sort of game that seemed to involve a lot of laughter and wild grabbing for bone-dice. But when she walked past them, Phoran stood up and motioned his men to stay where they were.

“Ri

She liked it that he never treated her like a ten-year-old brat (which was what Lehr called her in moments of extreme provocation).

“I’m hunting some tingleroot,” she told him without slowing her pace. “We’ve run out.”

“And this tingleroot is important?” he asked, rolling his tongue around the herb’s name.

Really, she thought, an emperor shouldn’t be so appallingly ignorant. Then she was horrified and embarrassed when he laughed because she hadn’t hidden her thoughts better.

“It’s for packing in wounds,” she said quickly. “It helps keep infection out. Mother makes an eyewash with it for smoke irritation, too.”

“My eyes are delicate,” he said, batting his eyelashes at her. “By all means let us go fetch this tingleroot.”

“It gets its name because it makes your tongue tingle, then go numb if you chew it,” she told him. “You really don’t have to come. I know the way.”

“If Jes or your parents were here, would you be off alone?” Phoran asked.

“It’s perfectly safe,” she said, miffed that he’d think she wasn’t capable of gathering herbs on her own.

“I should hope so. I wouldn’t go with you else.” He glanced back at the barn. “I’d send Kissel, surely. He’s ugly enough to frighten anything away. Or Toarsen, he’s just mean.”

“Toarsen’s not mean,” she said, then realized he was teasing.

“No.” Phoran agreed. “Toarsen’s not mean—but don’t tell him I told you so.”

She laughed. “All right, come on then.”

Ri

For one thing, she was competent, with skills that many a grown woman in Taela would envy. She could cook, sew—and weed gardens. She knew how to work and how to play, too.

He liked it best when he teased her into her grandame ma

He wasn’t about to let anything happen to her. No matter what she said, anyplace where a troll had been killed only a few weeks before wasn’t safe. He had no idea what he’d do if they ran into a troll, mind, except run. He wasn’t sure that his Memory was up to killing a troll with the same dispatch as it had disposed of his would-be assassins. Against a chance-met wolf or boggin, though, Phoran felt himself to be more than enough of a guard.