Forest Mage

He popped out the door seconds later. He reached eagerly for Sirlofty’s reins. “I’ll put him in back where he won’t be seen. Isn’t he a fine one!”

“Leave off, sir! He’s battle-trained.” Sirlofty had instantly reacted to a stranger trying to seize his headstall. I put a hand on my horse to calm him, and then said coldly, “I’ve no need to hide what is mine. All I’m need is a place to sleep for the night, and a stall for my horse.”

The man looked at me, glanced back at the child, and then looked at me again.

“Very well. But the only place I can put him is around the back. I’ve a paddock there. Shall I take him there?”

“I’ll bring him.” I was already feeling dubious about the man. But he led and I followed to a shed and small paddock behind his home. Two milk goats were the only occupants; there was plenty of room for Sirlofty. It was relatively clean, and the hay looked decent. I nodded my approval and put my horse up. The man fetched a bucket of clean water for him and I gave him a good feed of hay. While he was eating, I went down on one knee to check his hooves and legs. His left foreleg was warmer than the others but not badly swollen. I grunted my dismay, and hauled myself to my feet.

“Are you going to stay here?” the girl asked pointedly, holding out her palm.

I flipped her other pewter into the air. She snatched it and was gone.

“Precocious little wench,” I observed to the man.

He shrugged. “Most convicts’ get are. Or they don’t survive.”

“Her father’s in prison?”

“He was. Then he came out here, working off his sentence on the King’s Road. When his stint was done, he got his land allotment. And like a lot of the convicts, he had no idea what to do with it. They send thieves and rapists out here from Old Thares and say, ‘Here you go, be a farmer.’ They don’t know how to milk a goat or plant a seed in the ground. Farvi’s father wasn’t a bad fellow, but stealing was the only way he knew to make a living. So someone killed him. Fra

The bluntness of his words took my breath away. I just nodded. I followed him through the yard where a young woman gaped at me, and then quickly resumed sweeping the flagstones. My host showed me to the back door of his house, and then to a very small room, not much bigger than the cot it held. I nodded it would do. “How much?” I asked warily.

“Six talleys.”

At the look on my face, he added, “And I’ll throw in your horse’s food and a meal tonight and breakfast tomorrow for you.” He cleared his throat. “Not large meals, mind, but enough to keep you going.”

It was still more than I wanted to pay, but I nodded sourly. “I’m going out to walk about town a bit. Fra

“Oh, I’ll wager that’s true. It’s changed since the begi

I wondered if he’d known I’d had a stray thought about that possibility. I shook my head at both of us. “Where would I find the horse dealers in town?”

The man squinted his eyes at me. “You want to sell that horse, I’ll give you a fair price for him. Like I said before, you won’t get far with him. It’s too obvious that he’s not yours.”

“But he is.” I spoke each word deliberately. “And I’m not interested in selling him. I want to buy a horse for my journey. A large sturdy one. Where would I look?” I knew what I had to do and was already steeling myself for the task.

“Big horses? Down near the Rivergate. There’s usually a good selection there, because of the canal boats. Look for a man named Jirry and tell him Guff sent you.”

“And he’ll give me a better bargain.”

Guff gri

I promised I would and set out on foot for the Rivergate. Fra

The streets wound and wandered and abruptly ended or became so narrow that a single horseman could barely pass. In a few places, folk had dug shallow wells. With no pla

I stepped over a shallow, foul ditch and then found that my path would follow it down to the river. The reek from it was obscene and the objects in it were very recognizable. I walked as far to one side of it as I could, subduing my gag reflex. The passersby seemed immune to the stench.

My path led me through a section of Fra

I hastened my steps, detouring down an alley that I thought would lead to the riverbank. That was a mistake. I ducked under twine strung between the cottages that supported fillets of fish or twists of meat or laundry hanging to dry. Milk goats hobbled with string pulled forage down from dried bundles tied to the cottage eaves.

Gernians obviously did not belong in this part of the Bend. Plainswomen, their hair bundled into bright scarves, sat on benches outside their huts, smoking long pipes as they worked their odd one-handed looms. As I passed, one stopped, nudged the woman next to her, and then turned to call something in her own language through the open window behind her. In an instant, two men crowded one another in the narrow door frame and stared at me as I passed. I kept my eyes straight ahead and strode on. One called out something to me, but I ignored it. I turned a corner at random to escape their lingering gazes and finally emerged onto a wider road paralleling the river. Rivergate was merely the gate in the stockade wall that was closest to the docks. Beyond a district of warehouses and wharves, I found the stockyard. Corrals full of dray horses belonged to one of the canal boat companies. Past them, some horse traders had staked out their wares along the riverbank, their asking prices chalked onto their horses’ haunches. As Guff had warned me, I saw plenty of worn-out nags. Pulling laden barges against the river’s current was heavy work for a beast. The freight companies worked their animals to the last shred of strength. Some of the poor creatures on display had obviously been treated with drugs to make them look livelier. Others were unapologetically labeled as meat animals.