The Dyer backed away from him another step and stood watching him, the exaltation in his face clouding slowly over until it was replaced by a strange, heavy look; it was as if reasoning thought were laboring to break through the storm of words and feelings and visions that confused him. Finally he turned around without a word and began to run back down the road, into the haze of dust that had not yet settled on his tracks. Arren drew a long breath of relief.
Sparrowhawk also sighed, though not as if his heart were any easier. “Well,” he said. “Strange roads have strange guides. Let’s go on.”
Arren fell into step beside him. “You won’t take him with us?” he asked.
“That’s up to him.”
With a flash of anger Arren thought: It’s up to me, also. But he did not say anything, and they went on together in silence.
They were not well-received on their return to Sosara. Everything on a little island like Lorbanery is known as soon as it is done, and no doubt they had been seen turning aside to the Dyers’ House and talking to the madman on the road. The innkeeper served them uncivilly, and his wife acted scared to death of them. In the evening when the men of the village came to sit under the eaves of the inn, they made much display of not speaking to the foreigners and being very witty and merry among themselves. But they had not much wit to pass around and soon ran short of jollity. They all sat in silence for a long time, and at last the mayor said to Sparrowhawk, “Did you find your blue rocks?”
“I found some blue rocks,” Sparrowhawk replied politely.
“Sopli showed you where to find ‘em, no doubt.”
Ha, ha ha, went the other men, at this masterstroke of irony.
“Sopli would be the red-haired man?”
“The madman. You called on his mother in the morning.”
“I was looking for a wizard,” said the wizard.
The skinny man, who sat nearest him, spat into the darkness. “What for?”
“I thought I might find out about what I’m looking for.”
“People come to Lorbanery for silk,” the mayor said. “They don’t come for stones. They don’t come for charms. Or arm-wavings and jibber-jabber and sorcerers’ tricks. Honest folk live here and do honest work.”
“That’s right. He’s right,” said others.
“And we don’t want any other sort here, people from foreign parts snooping about and prying into our business.”
“That’s right. He’s right,” came the chorus.
“If there was any sorcerer around that wasn’t crazy, we’d give him an honest job in the sheds, but they don’t know how to do honest work.”
“They might, if there were any to do,” said Sparrowhawk. “Your sheds are empty, the orchards are untended, the silk in your warehouses was all woven years ago. What do you do, here in Lorbanery?”
“We look after our own business,” the mayor snapped, but the skinny man broke in excitedly, “Why don’t the ships come, tell us that! What are they doing in Hort Town? Is it because our work’s been shoddy?-“ He was interrupted by angry denials. They shouted at one another, jumped to their feet, the mayor shook his fist in Sparrowhawk’s face, another drew a knife. Their mood had gone wild. Arren was on his feet at once. He looked at Sparrowhawk, expecting to see him stand up in the sudden radiance of the magelight and strike them dumb with his revealed power. But he did not. He sat there and looked from one to another and listened to their menaces. And gradually they fell quiet, as if they could not keep up anger any more than they could keep up merriment. The knife was sheathed; the threats turned to sneers. They began to go off like dogs leaving a dog-fight, some strutting and some sneaking.
When the two were left alone Sparrowhawk got up, went inside the inn, and took a long draft of water from the jug beside the door. “Come, lad,” he said. “I’ve had enough of this.”
“To the boat?”
“Aye.” He put down two trade-counters of silver on the windowsill to pay for their lodging, and hoisted up their light pack of clothing. Arren was tired and sleepy, but he looked around the room of the inn, stuffy and bleak, and all a-flitter up in the rafters with the restless bats; he thought of last night in that room and followed Sparrowhawk willingly. He thought, too, as they went down Sosara’s one, dark street, that going now they would give the madman Sopli the slip. But when they came to the harbor he was waiting for them on the pier.