The Hob's Bargain

Duck stretched his nose toward the little mare. She let him in range, but then her small ears flattened and her eyes rolled wickedly as she snapped her teeth at him. Hurt and indignant, Duck pulled his muzzle out of harm's reach.

"The Lass doesn't like other horses," commented Wandel needlessly.

"Or children," said Merewich.

"Or dogs," added Kith with a faint smile.

"Or women," agreed the harper, who wasn't above using his horse's peculiarities as fodder for song—or, I could see, to defuse tension. "I had the prettiest little wife once…"

"Come on," said Kith. "If we don't start now, he'll be here telling stories until the sun goes down."

Wandel shook his head and handed his mare off to Albrin. "Aren can't ride bareback the whole way. Let me find a saddle for her to use in the stable."

He came out with a saddle, blanket, and saddlebags. While I saddled Duck, he mounted his gray mare. I divided my bundle evenly between the two saddlebags he'd brought out. I walked Duck out before checking the cinch. It was a little loose, so I tightened it before mounting. I took my time, refusing to give in to the awkward silence that hung over the courtyard by hurrying.

"Wandel, old friend," said Merewich, finally breaking the silence.

The harper smiled, and gripped the elder's hand firmly. "Until next season, then." He turned to Kith's father. "Albrin."

Albrin shook his hand, but when he turned to his son, Kith rode out without speaking.

We used the town bridge to cross onto the lord's side of the river. The lord's fields were already tipped with green as the earliest of the crops sprouted, having been planted several weeks before the village's.

It took several miles for the horses to find a comfortable pace for traveling together. Kith's horse was used to traveling with large groups, but the harper's mare liked to choose her own pace. Then there was Duck. He had a ground-eating, syncopated walk that was too fast for either of the smaller horses: his alternative was the gait he used when plowing, which was too slow. Only when the animals decided that they had to travel together did things calm down.

There were serfs in the farther fields. The manor and lands were smallish for a lord's house, or so I'd been told. Lord Moresh had several much larger elsewhere. I didn't know how many serfs he had to work the land because they seldom came to the village and were discouraged from conversing with the freemen, but I supposed them to be fewer than fifty.

A work party of six men was clearing the irrigation ditches of winter's debris. None of them looked up, though I rode less than a long stride from several of them.

Farther on, a woman piled the burnable rubbish on a small donkey cart. She might have ignored our passage as well, if Wandel's mare hadn't decided to take exception to the beast.

Snorting and dancing, she skittered halfway across the road—startling the poor donkey rather badly. The woman dropped her bundle of dry sticks and ran to the donkey's head. Briefly her eyes met mine.

Wandel controlled his mount, then swept a flourishing bow. "My apologies, lady. My mare is overset by having such a large audience for her antics." The Lass snorted and shook her head, mouthing her bit impatiently.

Head bowed, the woman nodded, clearly waiting for us to move on so she could get back to her task. I noticed that her hands were shaking—in fear of Wandel? I looked at the minstrel, but, clad in his usual bright-colored foppery, he appeared no more dangerous to me than a hound pup.

I rode on, thinking about what I'd lost and what that woman would never have. I stored the sight of the other's lifeless eyes and trembling hands in my memory, to be brought out should the temptation to feel sorry for myself return. At least I'd had a family to lose—and I wasn't prey for any man who happened by.

By midmorning we reached the end of the cultivated fields. Choosing a deer trail with seeming randomness, Kith led us into the dense, thorn-infested woods beyond. I hadn't been out this way since I was a child without the chores of adulthood. The trails tended to change a bit from year to year, but I didn't think this was the one I'd taken on the way to the Hob.

Kith, though, didn't hesitate. He'd obviously been riding up here lately, because he hadn't known the paths this well when Lord Moresh recruited him.

I frowned past Wandel at Kith's back. He was tense, like a hound on the trail. He was always looking to one side of the trail or the other, and I could swear he was testing the air for scent now and then. Torch seemed to be infected with the same restless urgency as his rider. He paced forward with his head up, nostrils flared, prancing ever so slightly.

Well, the forest felt different to me, too. As if there were something watching us. But the thornbushes made spying difficult. If anyone was crashing through the thick brush, we'd have heard them. Maybe it was an aftereffect of the magic's release that made me so u

"Anything wrong, Kith?" I asked. "You're acting like a mouse in a fox's den."

"Nothing," he said. "But I feel…" He looked back at me. "If I say this, people are going to think I'm as weird as you."

I batted my eyelashes at him. "I'm not weird, I'm evil—the One God declares it so. Just ask Poul's mother."

He rolled his eyes, then turned his head so he could watch where he was going. "I feel like the forest is alive."

I thought about it a moment, and decided I felt the same way. Not that I'd say so. People might think I was weird.

"Me, too," admitted Wandel. "But forests always bother me. I can't see if there's anyone else around. Too easy for someone to set up ambushes."

"There's no one here," replied Kith shortly. "I'd smell them if there were."

Smell them? The trail narrowed, and I turned my attention to riding.

For the first time, I regretted not accepting Kith's offer of a riding horse. Trails that work for roe deer aren't built for a seventeen-hand draft horse—let alone for one with a rider on top. Finally, frustrated, I kicked my feet free from the stirrups and lay flat on his back, trusting him to follow the others without much fuss.

When Wandel pulled up suddenly, Duck got too close to the the Lass. She let fly with her heels, but Duck had gotten used to her tactics and pushed forward so she couldn't get room to put much force behind her kick. Infuriated, she spun on her hind legs, disregarding her rider and the dense flora, teeth flashing as she tried to bite poor Duck.

I grabbed the rolls on the front of the saddle and held on despite the branches that gripped and tore at me while Duck backed rapidly away from the charging she-demon.

Wandel leaned forward and sang softly to the mare. I didn't catch the words, but I happened to be sliding off in the right direction to get the full effect of the switch from enraged nightmare to child's docile mount. The surprise sent me slithering all the way to the ground.

The Lass stood still, eyes half-closed in ecstasy as Wandel sang a lullaby to her; only the speed of her breathing remained of the wild-eyed beast of a moment ago. The rare sound of Kith's laughter brought an answering grin to my face.

Wandel finished the chorus and patted his mare's white neck.

"I know," he said. "Oddest thing I've ever seen, too. Most of the Lass's antics are just flash and spit—I think she enjoys the attention."

The mare swiveled an ear toward the harper and cocked her hip, resting on three legs as if she were dozing—but the eye I could see was wickedly bright.

I found a place in the trail relatively clear of brush and remounted. "Why did you stop in the first place?"

"That," said the harper, pointing through the trees.

"The hob court," said Kith.