Joseph waited until they were well past, then spoke quietly to Garth. “Be careful if we have to speak to guards, Garth. They’ll not be so ready to jest as they were last night.”
Garth nodded. The above-ground complex was tense and brittle, and he shuddered to think what it must be like underground. No doubt the guards wondered why Furst drove them so hard to find this particular prisoner, and doubtless Furst was in no hurry to enlighten them.
Whatever the reason, tempers would be short this morning, and Garth shivered again as he contemplated the consequences if the guards found Maximilian.
Joseph kept his horse to a fast trot. There was nothing more he would like to do than touch his heels to the beast’s flanks and flee the Veins as fast as he could, but that would only attract unwanted attention. He glanced across at his son, and smiled reassuringly. “Look, we approach the outbuildings of Myrna. So far so good.”
The town was in as much turmoil as the Veins complex itself. Guards, in groups of three and five, patrolled the streets, while various townspeople stood about in nervous groups discussing the latest rumour about the escape. Like the guards, many were wondering at the unprecedented effort being put into the recapture of the prisoner…and how had he managed to escape anyway?
Rumours abounded, and the strongest of them was that one of the guards had helped in the escape. Must have, else how had the man managed to flee so completely?
Joseph and Garth attracted a few curious looks, but none gazed overlong—for which both were profoundly grateful. They turned their horses into the main street and Joseph nodded at a three-storey house on the corner of the first block. There were gay pennants hung from the balconies—incongruous in this greyest of grey towns—and secretive lace curtains in the windows. Several brightly apparelled and heavily rouged women stood on its verandah, their hair dressed in complicated ringlets and hung with ribbons.
One of them, a blonde with cynical eyes, called out to Joseph as they passed. “Up so early, Physician Baxtor? I would have thought you needed your sleep this morning.”
Joseph managed a grin as several heads—guards’ among them—turned in the street at the exchange. “My son and I thought to get a good start on the road, Erla. We have a way ahead of us.”
“That you have,” Erla said, and her tone softened somewhat. “That you have.” Her eyes locked with Joseph’s momentarily, then she turned aside with studied disinterest to gossip with one of her companions.
“Where are you going, Baxtor?”
A group of guards, their interest caught by the exchange, had stepped out in front of their horses, and Joseph and Garth had to pull their mounts to an abrupt halt.
“Ruen,” Joseph replied smoothly. “We have an order from the king…if you want to see it.” His hand crept to the pouch at his belt.
The guard who had spoken, his eyes flinty with suspicion, stared at the letter Joseph extended. After a moment he shuffled his feet and shifted his gaze back to Joseph. “Furst has seen this?”
“Yes.”
The guard hesitated a moment longer, but there was no need to detain the physician and his son. “On with you then…and best you keep that order handy. You’ll pass several more posts on the way through Myrna.” Then he turned on his heel and waved his patrol down one of the side streets.
As they kicked their horses forward Garth glanced over his shoulder. The three women on the verandah were staring at them, their faces tight with tension.
“Come on, Garth,” Joseph muttered. “Don’t draw too much attention to them or us.”
One more patrol stopped them as they rode down the main street, but it was at the junction of the main street and the road for Ruen that they struck the most trouble.
There was a patrol of ten guards here, and they were the most thorough of all in town. Several carts, riders and a man herding several dozen sheep were being held up as the guards meticulously checked everyone’s identity. The shepherd, a dark man who was tattered and dirtied by his exposure to the elements, was receiving more attention than most.
“Curses,” Joseph muttered feelingly, and Garth stared at him worriedly.
“Father?”
As they reined their horses in behind the tangle of carts, horses and sheep, Joseph leaned across to his son and hissed at him. “Whatever happens, follow my lead!”
Shocked by the tone of his father’s voice, Garth simply nodded and turned his gaze back to the crowd before them. Somewhere in here was Maximilian. His eyes drifted to the shepherd.
The man was shifting from foot to foot, his hands clutching nervously about his staff, as three of the guards interrogated him and inspected the small pack he had let slip from his shoulders. Garth tried to watch as inconspicuously as he could—then, realising that everyone on the road was staring at the man, gave up all pretence and stared himself.
The shepherd’s back was to him, but Garth could see that he was tall and lean, and had straight black hair that drifted about his face. The man’s hands where they clenched his staff were patched with dirt, and his clothes were similarly grimed. Garth’s stomach clenched and he fought not to look at his father. Was that Maximilian under all that grime?
Another of the guards wandered away from a cart and approached his companions standing about the shepherd, glancing at the new arrivals as he did so. As he stepped up to the small group around the shepherd, voices were suddenly raised and the shepherd attempted to take a step backwards before being seized by one of the guards.
Garth heard his father take a quick, shocked breath beside him.
Now the shepherd and the four guards were decidedly agitated, and Garth broke out in a sweat. The sheep had begun to wander off the road in search of grazing, and the shepherd was gesturing at them excitedly as the guards resolutely shook their heads. Their eyes were growing narrower by the minute.
Finally the fourth guard, who had noticed Joseph and Garth, raised his head and beckoned them forward. Garth’s stomach tightened.
“Physician!” he called, and Garth recognised one of the guards they’d spoken to last night. “Come here!”
Joseph risked a warning glance at his son, then rode forward, Garth immediately behind him. They pushed their horses through the crowd. Several of the people among the crowd waiting to be allowed through the checkpoint were complaining loudly about the delay, and a pretty girl with a sulky mouth called out from a wagon she shared with several female companions. “Here then! What about letting us through?”
The guards ignored her; now two of them had the shepherd in their tight hands, and all of the guards, whether or not they were grouped about the shepherd or standing by the side of the road, had eyes for no-one but their suspect.
“Baxtor,” said the guard as they reined their horses behind the shepherd. “We have a suspicious character here. No-one knows him, and see this dirt? Straight from the Veins, we think!”
The shepherd struggled and moaned.
Another of the guards indicated that Joseph and Garth should dismount. “It’s good that you’re here, physician. Will you examine this man? Some of these stains look like fungus to us. See? Here…and here.” He pointed to several stains on the man’s garments.
Gods! Garth cursed to himself. So close! This was the last patrol before the freedom of the road to Ruen.
But he kept his face as neutral as he could as he dismounted. Joseph was already leaning close to the shepherd, and Garth had to push past one of the guards to get a good look at the man’s face.
His heart thudded alarmingly in his chest. The man was well covered in dirt, but Garth recognised him instantly—Vorstus!
“And how old was this prisoner you hunt?” Joseph asked patiently as he made a pretence of checking the man’s eyes, ears and skin.
“Youngish,” muttered one.
“About thirty, Furst told us,” another said.
Joseph sighed and raised his eyebrows. “Well, you may have bagged a wandering thief, gentleman, but he’s not from the Veins.”
“Are you sure?” one of the guards asked, disappointment clouding his voice.
Joseph sighed again, more melodramatically and impatiently this time. Garth regarded his father with veiled admiration; he had not thought Joseph to be this good an actor.
“This man approaches old age,” he said. “Look, his finger joints are swollen with arthritis.”
“Could be from the constant swing of the pick,” a guard said hopefully, but Joseph glared at him.
“These stains are not fungus, but grass. No doubt the man sleeps with his sheep. And look here,” Joseph abruptly squatted by the man’s legs, and every eye followed him. “His ankles are smooth and unmarred by irons. You’ve all been down the Veins. You’ve all seen the festers and ridges the irons carve into a man’s ankles. This man has never been manacled in his life.”