“This chocolate is really very good, isn’t it?” Kade said, her normal calm restored.
“Aunt? How many men in a cohort?”
“Quite a lot, dear. We shall certainly be safe from goblins with four cohorts to guard us. I have too much porridge—”
“But no Oopari! Why did you dismiss him like that?”
Kade blinked innocently. “Because he wanted me to. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some of my porridge?”
“Whatever he wanted, I would feel safer with him close.” Then a ladylike foot tapped Inos’s ankle, Kade flickered her eyes warningly, and her voice faded almost to a mumble. “It was for their own good, dear.”
Inos became suddenly more aware of all the men around her. They all had their backs turned, and they all seemed to be intent on other things, but . . .
“We don’t want any accidents.” Then her aunt added in a more normal tone, “The porridge is not too terribly lumpy.”
“How many men in a cohort?”
“Five hundred, I think, but it may be more. I’m not sure.” Now Inos understood. She felt very foolish. Four cohorts? On important occasions in Krasnegar, Sergeant Thosolin could muster eighteen men-at-arms.
3
Dusk on the fourth day . . . Rap’s belly roared louder than the storm now, but that was partly because the wind was fading. There was not much new snow coming down.
He had been chewing on a scrap of leather all afternoon, and then his farsight had sensed movement in the distance—right at the limit of his range, a small herd of sheep or goats. He could not tell if they were wild or stray, but there was no herder with them. He had started to lace up his moccasins, making Little Chicken want to know why. There had been an argument, the goblin insisting he was a much better marksman, Rap that he was more likely to find the quarry in these conditions.
The final result had been a compromise. Little Chicken had gone to do the killing, and Rap had sent Fleabag to drive the prey toward him.
So Rap now sat in lonely humiliation, listening to the wind’s mocking wail, watching the shadows leap, and licking his lips at the thought of meat. His role might not be very manly or even dignified, but it was hard work. The herd was still out at his limit and seemed reluctant to come closer. Even controlling Fleabag was difficult at that distance. Rap’s head had started to ache as it had not ached since his first days with Andor . . .
Forget Andor! Concentrate! “You! Boy!”
With a wail, Rap released his mental hold on Fleabag and the herd. He spun around, then fell back on his elbows at the unbelievable apparition in the corner.
A huge white chair had appeared there—no, it was a throne, with a dais below it and a silken canopy above. It was built of interlocked curved rods that he recognized right away as walrus ivory, all intricately carved and inlaid with gems and gold; it was grander even than King Holindam’s chair of state, which he had used only twice in Rap’s memory, on very solemn occasions. It glittered, as if it sat in a brighter place than this smoke-filled, dingy hovel.
There was a woman on it. She was very tiny, slumped slacklimbed in the corner of the cushioned seat, her legs sticking out like a child’s. Her scanty hair was white and straggling loose. She was very old, scraggy, and stark naked.
He echoed her: “You!”
Hastily he turned his head away. She could not possibly be real, but even so—no clothes! It was the same old woman he had seen the first time he had raided the Ravens’ larder. He had been very hungry then, too. It must be a form of madness, a flaw in his character. Real men did not go crazy just because they hadn’t eaten for a couple of days. Real men could starve for weeks before they went mad. He wasn’t a hardened woodsman like Little Chicken, he was a soft town boy, a mere stablehand.
“The faun again!” The ancient cackled in shrill amusement. Rap closed his eyes to concentrate . . . Sure enough, his farsight detected nothing there except fragments of firewood and a snowdrift. He was hallucinating again. Determined not to be distracted from his purpose, he reached out for Fleabag.
“Faun! You stop that! Don’t you know better?”
“Huh?” Despite himself, Rap’s farsight switched to the source of that voice. This time it saw. This time there was someone there. He twisted around again. The throne had gone. The little old woman was standing much closer and, mercifully, she was now dressed in goblin robes, as she had been the first time he saw her. Now she seemed to be quite solid and real. He moaned.
“Farsight, too?” The old woman waggled a finger at him. ”That’s all right—safe enough—but that mastery of yours! Don’t you know that sorcerers can feel power being used like that?” Dumbly he shook his head.
She walked a few steps closer, peering around. “Well, we can. Not that anyone but me’s likely to be watching in these parts. It’s all right to look and listen, see, but do anything, make things happen, and you start ripples. You’re strong, lad. You ought to know that. Why, you’ve got goblin tattoos!”
A sorceress! Andor had warned him that sorcerers were always on the lookout for more words of power. He had betrayed himself to a sorceress! Rap felt the hair on the back of his head stir. He began dragging himself backward on his elbows, across the dirt floor.
The woman followed, cackling. “A faun with goblin markings? That’s new.” She grinned at him like a skull, revealing a perfect set of teeth. ”Goblin faun! What. . .” She hissed angrily. “No foresight? You blocking my foresight? No, you’re not capable. Who?”
“Who—who are you?”
“Me? You ought to know. Ought to guess, see? Who are you, more to the point?”
“I’m Rap . . . Flat Nose of Raven Totem.”
“Raven?” She looked quickly around once more. “Where is Death Bird? What’ve you done with him?”
“N-nothing!” Rap quailed before a blast of anger as palpable as heat from a farrier’s brazier. “Little Chicken, you mean? He’s out hunting—”
“Where? Show me!”
Show? Rap reached out to point with a shaking hand, toward where the goblin was wallowing in a thigh-deep drift, a long way off.
The old woman stared that way, then shrilled her senile laugh. “So he is! Well, all right. But you take care of him, you hear! Very precious, that one! See, you’re not to harm him!”
He? Rap? Harm Little Chicken? The woman was as mad as a gunny sack of foxes!
Bracing up his courage, Rap felt for the herd, and it had vanished. Fleabag was heading home again. Supper had fled, therefore, and he remembered that he had been hungry the first time he had met this strange sorceress. Even as he watched, she began to shimmer and fade, and his farsight had already lost her. ”I’m hungry!” he said. “I mean, Death Bird is hungry!”
She seemed to solidify for a moment and study him, head on one side, leering. ”Fauns!” she sneered. Then she uttered a shrill, childish snigger and clapped her hands.
Simultaneously she vanished and a curly-horned, black-woolled sheep thudded to the floor just before Rap’s toes. The impact shook the cabin, and a great cloud of dust and snow shot out from beneath the animal. With a scream of alarm, it scrabbled to its feet. There was no doubt at all that the sheep was real.
After her warning, Rap dared not try his mastery on the animal, and his limbs were still shaking so much that he took longer than he should have done to corner it. Cutting a sheep’s throat with a stone knife was harder than he had expected. He splashed a lot of blood on himself and was butted a few times. But why a black sheep? Had that been easiest for the mad old sorceress to see in the snowy bush, or was she making fun of a faun with goblin tattoos? Rap was too hungry to care.
He was eating roast mutton when Little Chicken returned, empty-handed, exhausted, and furious. But for the first time, the goblin seemed to be impressed by Rap’s occult powers.
4
With a louder crack than usual, the rear of the carriage dropped, twisting to the left. It came to a shuddering halt.
“Are you all right, your Highness?” Andor inquired solicitously. He and Inos were crushed pleasantly together, holding hands under the lap rug, but Aunt Kade was now suspended above them, grimly hanging onto a strap.
“Quite all right, thank you, except that perhaps my highness is now a little more noticeable than usual. “
Andor laughed appreciatively. “I shall see what has happened this time, ” he said, unlinking his fingers from Inos’ and preparing to disembark. There were loud shoutings and nervous horse noises outside. Water splattered on the roof, although the rain had been showing signs of turning to snow. Andor opened the door and stepped out gracefully, managing both rapier and cloak with apparent ease. Kade clambered across to sit next to her niece on the lower side of the canted vehicle. She took up a lot more room on the bench than Andor had.