They cantered by, only a hundred paces from the hid-ing place of the three companions, who watched them pass.
The sec men were laughing at some shared jest. From the tone of the laughter, it was a cruel joke. Doc Tanner continued his remembered poem by Poe.
“Somehow it is even more suitable now that we have seen that procession of death,” he said.
“Tell it, Doc,” the girl urged.
“And travelers now within that valley, Through the red-litten windows see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody; While, like a rapid ghastly river, Through the pale door;
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A hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh-but smile no more.
“Watching the front of that dreadful pile, lit by the vermilion rays of the rising sun, seems as ominous and frightening as the haunted palace of that verse.” Doc’s rich melodious voice had carried the poem well, sending a shiver down the back of both listeners.
Nathan suggested that it was as good a time as any to try their luck. With the baron out of the way for the day, heading toward Fishers’ Hill, it was unlikely he’d be back before sunset.
They made their farewells quickly, then the old man and the pretty girl strode confidently out of the cover of the forest, joining other commoners on the road into the ville.
“You outlanders? Beyond Shens?” a stout young woman asked, dragging a trio of snot-nosed brats behind her as she wheeled a barrow along the rutted trail. The rickety cart was loaded with a mixture of mud and pota-toes, heavy on the mud. Her accent was so barbarous and rude that it took all of Doc’s frail concentration to un-derstand what on earth she was saying to him.
“I regret that we are not fortunate enough to enjoy the benefits of a domicile in these attractive parts.”
“What? You talk like a double-stupe mutie!” She spit to show her disgust as they joined the lineup at the draw-bridge.
“He’s not for here,” Lori said, doing her best to ease the sudden tension.
“Yeah. Bin here ‘fore?”
“No, never,” Doc replied. “You know the ville well?”
“Should do. Bleeding scullery maid here for eight bas-tard years. Cleaning shit an’ sodding grease off whoring
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plates. Then I landed these little pissers and me man went off south. Now I sell what I can.”
The sec men were passing everyone through at a fair speed, seeming to recognize them as regulars. But Doc noticed that one of them was already eyeing Lori and himself, muttering to the guard next to him.
“Sees are busy today. Someone must have farted in front of her ladyship.”
“No-o-o-o,” jeered an elderly man at their side, who carried a string of diminutive onions on a long pole across his shoulders.
“How come you know so much, Eddy Pungo? Riddle me that.”
“Hasn’t heard? Course not. You’s not gotten daugh-ter in ville. Your man left you, dinne?”
“A stone an’ a stick can make me sick, but words don’t ever harm me, Eddy Pungo. You got news, then tell us.”
The old man looked both ways, then leaned toward her, casting an anxious eye first at Doc Tanner and L ori, seeming to recognize them as being harmless. “Ryan. Ryan Cawdor.”
The woman laughed, a short, coughing kind of a laugh that made her disbelief obvious.
“True,” the old man insisted. “Girl says so. Seen the sees taking him and some friends. Tried to raid the ville.”
“Lord Ryan come back? One eye an’ all?”
“Ssh. One eye an’ all. It’s him all right, like the old stories say.”
“What has happened to him?” Doc asked, hoping that the fluttering in his chest was only an attack of nerves.
“To Lord Ryan, stranger? I hear he was ‘trayed. A servant, brother to Kenny Morse, gave him up from shock. Now he’s bound and waits death when the baron comes back from his hunting.”
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“Oh, dear!” The woman with the barrow sighed. “Fucker, innit? Wait twenty years or more for the lord to come and release us. Then next day stupe bastard gets chilled by Baron Harvey and us no better for it.”