only some fifteen feet separated them, Jahdo could clearly see that Verrarc had noticed him, that the councilman frowned, too, and turned to keep him in view for a minute or two after the barge went past. Again Jahdo felt his mouth turn parched, and the sensation made him remember his meadow fear and the image of a woman, wrapped in black and hissing as she spoke. Yet all the boy knew was that in some obscure way Verrarc’s image had sparked the memory. With a cold shudder he forced the recollection away and rowed on to town.
The family who owed them for the ratting, the Widow Suka and her son, had slaughtered a goat just the day before. Some hundred feet from the lake’s edge, her house perched on a crannog piled up so many hundreds of years before that the construction had turned into a real island, with trees and topsoil of its own, a little garden, and a pen for goats, which, every day in summer, the widow’s son rowed over to the mainland for the grazing. While she nestled eggs safely in the straw in Jahdo’s basket and wrapped chunks of goat up in cabbage leaves, Jahdo strolled to the edge of the crannog and looked over to shore.
Down by the gates in the wall a crowd of people stood round, all staring toward the gate itself. Jahdo could just pick out the tall form of Councilman Verrarc toward the front of the mob.
‘Now what’s that?’ Suka said. ‘Looks like a merchant caravan’s coming in.’
‘It does, truly. Ooh, I wonder where they’ve been?’
‘If you want to go see, lad, I’ll keep the food here and cool for you.’
Leaving the boat behind, Jahdo made his way to shore on foot, hopping from log to log. He arrived at the edge of the crowd just as the gates swung wide and a line of men and mules began to file through. Since he was the shortest person in the crowd, Jahdo couldn’t see a thing. For a few minutes he trotted this way and that, hoping to find a way to squeeze through to the front, decided that he might as well give it up, then heard muttering and oaths from the front of the crowd. The press began to surge backwards, men swearing and stepping back fast though without turning to look where they were going. Jahdo tried to run, nearly fell, nearly panicked, and cried out.
‘Here, lad!’ Lael grabbed him. ‘This be a bit dangerous for someone your size. Hang on, and I’ll lift you up.’
‘Da! I didn’t even see you.’
‘Ah, but I did see you, and I was heading your way.’
Riding secure on his father’s shoulders Jahdo at last discovered the cause of the commotion. A pair of merchants on horseback, a pack of ordinary guards and a string of heavily laden mules had all marched by when, at the very end of the line, a man-like figure strode in, leading an enormous white horse laden with sacks and bundles. It was one of the Gel da’Thae, swinging a stout staff back and forth and side to side in front of him as he walked, as if he were clearing something out of his path.
He stood perhaps seven feet tall, roughly man-shaped with two short-ish but sturdy legs, a long torso, two long arms, and a face with recognizable man-like features – but he was no man nor dwarf, either. His skin was as pale as milk in the places where it appeared between the lacings of his tight leather shirt and trousers, but his black hair was as coarse and bristling-straight as a boar’s. At the bridge of his enormous nose his eyebrows grew together in a sharp V and merged into his hairline. His hair itself plumed up, then swept back and down over his long skull to cascade to his waist. Here and there in this mane hung tiny braids, tied off with thongs and little charms and amulets. The backs of his enormous hands were furred with stubby black hair, too. His cheeks, however, were hairless, merely tattooed all over in a complex blue and purple pattern of lines and circles.
As he walked, he turned his head this way and that, to listen rather than look, because where eyes should have gleamed under his furred brows were only empty sockets, pale and knotted with scars.
‘Oh!’ Jahdo spoke without thinking, in his piping boy’s voice that cut through the noise of the crowd. ‘He be blind.’
With a toss of his maned head the Gel da’Thae stopped walking in front of Lael and swung toward the sound of Jahdo’s voice. He bared strong white teeth, with more than a hint of fang about the incisors.
‘Do you mock me, lad?’ Although he spoke in the language of the Rhiddaer, his voice growled out and rumbled, echoing back and forth like the waves of a storm slapping off a pier.
‘Never, never,’ Jahdo stammered. ‘I be truly sorry. I were just so surprised.’
‘No doubt. But you’re an ill-mannered little cub nonetheless.’
‘I am, sir, truly, and I’ll try to learn better.’
‘Ill-mannered and cowardly to boot.’ The Gel da’Thae paused, sniffing the air. ‘Huh. I sense a man carrying you. Are you the lad’s father?’
‘I am,’ Lael said, and his voice was steady and cold. ‘And I’ll speak for him. He be no coward, sir. He be shamed that he might have wounded your feelings.’
The Gel da’Thae grunted, tucked his staff under one arm, and reached out an enormous hand to pat the side of Lael’s face. He reached higher, found Jahdo’s arm and patted that, then took his hand away and smelt his own palm.
‘Huh, sure enough, I sense no fear on the lad, but by all the gods and demons, as well, the pair of you stink of ferrets!’
‘So we do, no doubt. You’ve got a keen nose.’
‘Hah! I may be blind, but a man would have to be dead to miss that scent.’ He seemed to be smiling, pulling thin lips back from his fangs. ‘Well, a good day to you both and your weasel friends as well.’
With a whistle to the huge horse, the Gel da’Thae walked off, tapping his way with the staff as he followed the jingling of the caravan along the curve of the lake, where a grassy stretch of shore was set aside for travelling merchants. Lael swung Jahdo down with a grunt.
‘You’d best mind your mouth after this, lad. You always did have a cursed big one.’
‘I know, Da, and I truly truly be sorry.’
‘No doubt. But the last thing we do want is to give insult to one of the Horsekin. That’s all they need, one word for a thin excuse, and they cry war. I hate to see one of them here for just that reason. If that bard goes taking offence, we’ll have his clan riding at the head of an army to siege us.’
‘How do you know he’s a bard?’
‘Because his eyes are gone. That’s what they do, when they decide one of their boy-children has the voice to make a bard. They do scoop his eyes right out with the point of a knife, because they do think it make his singing sweeter.’
Jahdo nearly gagged. He turned sharply away, found himself staring up at Councilman Verrarc, and felt the blood drain from his face in a wave of cold fear.
‘Somewhat wrong, lad?’ Verrarc’s voice was mild, but his stare was sharp and cold. ‘You look frightened.’
‘Oh, he had a bit of a run-in with that Gel da’Thae bard,’ Lael said, smiling. ‘He’s never seen one of their tribe before.’
‘Enough to scare anyone, that.’
‘What’s he doing here, anyway?’ Lael went on.
‘Cursed if I
