They rode down the long slope, where flat rosettes of green showed amid the dried stalks of summer flowers. “The green stuff is called Icefern or Evergrow,” said Garth. “It has a resinous, sharp smell that goes well with other scents.”
“How did you get into the perfumery business?” asked Genevieve.
“It was my grandmother’s, then my mother’s, then mine,” he said. “It provides a good living.”
As they neared the village, a few people out on the streets stopped and stared at them. “Few visitors come from this direction,” murmured Garth. “But, considering everything, I think it was best to avoid the trails. If that dusty villain in the caverns figured out where you and your friend went, he might have sold the information to someone who would come after you.”
“I think Zebulon Coffin would have let me die of hunger or thirst while he was making up his mind what to do with me.”
“I’ve met people like him.” Garth nodded sagely. “Men of customary inaction who can be spurred to sporadic excess. Such men often start ill-planned projects that they lack either energy to complete or the wit to abandon.”
“That’s Zeb,” she agreed.
Garth nodded, murmuring, “I’m disturbed by what you tell me about those caverns. Knowing that the Lord Paramount has great stockpiles of extravagant goods, many of them simply rotting away, would bother many citizens of Haven. Is this what the taxes levied by the Council are actually spent for?”
He grimaced and laid a cautionary finger across his own lips. “Still, caution is in order. All we will say to Fentwig is that we lost our way in the dark and missed the trails.”
They had come close enough to the town to catch the sound of voices and the honking of geese, near enough to smell wood-smoke and roasting meat. Genevieve was suddenly ravenously hungry, and she clucked to her tired horse who put his ears forward and hastened his steps, no doubt in equal anticipation of food and rest.
A narrow livestock gate at the upper or western end of town led to a short street that debouched upon a paved square, and on the north side of the square was a sprawling timber-and-wattle building with a thatched roof and a curly sign above the door, “Fentwig’s House.” When they dismounted, the stocky, white-haired innkeeper came bustling out, breaking into a smile when he saw Garth.
“You must have lost yourself good and proper,” cried the host. “What are you doing coming down from the woods that way? You’re miles from either of the passes!”
“Went astray in the dark,” admitted Garth, with a moue and a shake of his head. He turned to Genevieve, bowing in Fentwig’s direction. “Fentwig, my friend, this is my daughter, Imogene. I’ve told her all about your delectable food and comfortable beds.”
“She looks tired out,” said the innkeeper’s wife, also stout and white haired, who had just emerged onto the stoop. “Come in, both of you. Miss Sentith, it’s good to meet you. You’d like a bath, I daresay.”
“Gar . . . Papa suggested I visit the baths tomorrow,” said Genevieve as she stepped through the open door into a neat little foyer, and from that into a large room with a warm stove in its middle.
“Aha,” cried Mrs. Fentwig. “He hasn’t been here for months, so he doesn’t know! We now have a bath-room, two, in fact, one for ladies and one for gentlemen. We already had water piped in for other things, so Fentwig decided to bring water from the nearest hot spring uphill. We built a room, all nicely tiled, and the cooper made us half a dozen comfortable tubs. It’s all clean and toasty warm in there, so you have a bath, dear, you look as though you could use one. Nothing like hot water to soothe away a long day on a horse!”
“Go along, Imma,” said Garth, waving her away in Mrs. Fentwig’s care. “Take your packet with you. Meantime, I’ll see to getting us some rooms.”
“Roast leg of lamb for supper tonight,” Fentwig cried after Genevieve’s departing form. “Boned and rolled around a stuffing of dried mushrooms, mint, basil, thyme, and parsley, with roast garlic and sea-potatoes on the side.”