She looked lovely, Wistala guessed, judging from the stares of the locals, in her heavy fur-trimmed coat, which hid the small increase at her midsection, hair under its cap curled and tucked so it resembled a bouquet of flowers. Her eyes and cheeks, brightened by the cold of the day, glowed.

All eyes were on her but the ones she sought. When Hammar rose from his chair before the stage and took his party of huntsmen to the inn for a new cask to tap, he walked out of his way to avoid her at the edge of the crowd. She fought her way through, tripped and muddied herself, but managed to come up on the men at last.

Wistala didn’t catch what she said, but she did hear her call out to him.

Thane Hammar stared at her for a moment and then turned his back. The tall man who’d given orders on the road stepped forward. Two of the men at the tail-end of Hammar’s party slapped each other, pointed to her, and laughed.

Lada broke into tears and fled the circus.

Wistala didn’t overly care for Lada, whatever Rainfall’s regard for his granddaughter, but even if she was an ungrateful whelp, she didn’t deserve contempt.

Wistala decided.

She missed the rest of the circus to hurry back and speak with Rainfall, once he emerged from Lada’s room in the small barrow-chair Forstrel moved him about in.

“I want to stay at Mossbell,” Wistala told him as Widow Lessup sighed at the dirty dragon-tracks on the stairs. “If things go hard with the thane, I want to be at your side, Father.”

“It will fade. Hammar will put an arrow through a winter wolf or a mountain bear and forget all in boasting,” Rainfall said. “But your presence here might tempt him into rashness.”

“I’m set.”

“Oh, my poor floors. I wish she would go away,” Widow Lessup said to herself—loudly enough for all in the upstairs to hear—as she bent with a rag.

“Nevertheless,” Wistala said.

Rainfall sighed and scratched her between the ears. “I shan’t be sorry for your company. You are a far smoother ride up these bumpy stairs than this barrow-chair. I suppose next spring I can teach you how to properly tend the garden, even if vegetables aren’t to your taste.”

Chapter 19

Wistala heard feet hurrying up and down stairs the next morning—more than the usual morning noises. There’d been another raucous celebration with the circus folk, but Wistala had kept to her low room. When Anja threw open the door of Wistala’s basement refuge, she knew something had put the household in disarray.

“Is Lada down here?” Anja asked.

“Why should she be?” Wistala asked.

“She’s not in her room, and sir’s asked for her,” she explained, hurrying off.

Wistala wondered at her absence. She might have gone for a walk—save that nothing tempted Lada from a warm bed in the morning until a steaming infusion roused her. She yawned, stretched, and went upstairs to the lively sounds of running feet and doors slamming.

She heard Rainfall in his dressing room. As she walked through his bedroom, she smelled fresh ink by the bed—it was very unlike Rainfall to work in his bedroom. He might stay up all night in his library but believed in leaving any cares elsewhere when it came time to go to the dreamworld.

Forstrel was pulling Rainfall’s riding boots on, an easy operation, thanks to the somewhat withered state of the elf’s legs.

“She was in a mood last night,” Rainfall said. “I should have talked to her.”

“What has passed?” Wistala asked.

Forstrel finished with the boots and handed Rainfall a woolen vest.

“Lada has run away, I fear. She took her new winter boots, her hairbrush and comb, her favorite book of Tenessal’s poems, and riding habit. Anja said there was a wet quill on her desk, but we found no note.”

“Note? Have you checked your bed?”

Forstrell didn’t wait to be told but hurried over to the bed and overturned pillows and heavy winter blankets. He came up with a folded piece of paper.

“Wistala, you’re a wonder,” Rainfall said, accepting the paper. “How—? Oh, I suppose you smelled the ink, or paper, or her footsteps. You’ll all excuse me for a moment while I read this?”

Wistala and Forstrel stepped out of his dressing room and eyed each other.

“Fried fish for breakfast, I suppose?” Wistala asked.

“I hope,” Forstrel said. “With tart applesauce. But we’ll miss it, I’ll fear.”

Wistala heard a sigh from the dressing room, followed by a chuckle. “The joke’s on me, Wistala. Rah-Ya. Forstrel, my cloak and hat!”

“What does she say?”

Rainfall held the letter at arm’s length and squinted. “After the usual summation of my crimes against youth, including entailing away Mossbell, which she quite regards as hers, she informs me that she’s joining Ragwrist’s circus so that the local shepherds no longer snicker at her. So by the circus I gained a bride and lost a grandchild. I must go after her, but I suspect it will be futile.”

“Why futile?”

“She’s old enough to be apprenticed on her own word. If she’s earning her keep, the law gives me no recourse, and I’m not up to dragging her back by her hair.”

“I will be happy to pull my share of the locks.”

“Then you can come along. It’ll give Ragwrist one more chance to talk you into joining. I hope Stog is in the mood for a quick trot. The sun is up, and they’ll be across the bridge by now. I don’t want to pursue too far into the next thanedom.”

Rainfall rode Wistala down to the yard, and Forstrel helped him up on Stog. Stog stamped his foot when he saw Wistala.

“Drakka! Didn’t you hear me call out last night?”

Wistala watched Forstrel secure Rainfall on his special saddle. “I heard you bellowing, but I thought it was just another fight with Jalu-Coke about using her claws to get up on your back.”

“I saw an old not-friend in the party of the thane’s horses. A mountain horse named Hob. Let me tell you what it signifies: Hob is a courier horse for the Dragonblade. One of the Dragonblade’s men was in the thane’s party yesterday. He poked around the grounds all day. You’re in danger.”

“I didn’t catch all that, Wistala. What’s he worried about?”

“Nothing of importance,” Wistala said.

“He most definitely said danger, didn’t you, Stog?” Rainfall said as he set the mule toward Mossbell’s gate.

“Danger to Wistala!” Stog brayed.

“Let’s have it!” Rainfall said. “I don’t want to play score-question with you.”

“One of the Dragonblade’s men was here yesterday, riding with the thane.”

“Hammar wastes no time. Wistala, all I know of this fellow makes me fear for you. Certainly he won’t kick down Mossbell’s door to get you—at least I hope he won’t—but we must have some thought on the matter together.”

They found the circus still packing up, with dwarves frantically fastening harnesses on their gargants, whose appetites added to the cleared meadow behind the inn. Many of Ragwrist’s circus folk were red about the eyes—perhaps the empty mead barrels stacked on the south side of the Green Dragon Inn, being cleansed by winter cold and sun, had something to do with it.

Ragwrist, again in his colorful coat and walking his horse about, left off shouting orders and greeted them. He waved Dsossa over, who looked perkier than most in her riding gear with lead lines hanging over her shoulders like a frilled cloak.

“I won’t ask why you’re here,” Ragwrist said with his elegant, balancing bow. “Do you wish to speak to her?”

“Indeed,” Rainfall said. “Thank you, old friend.”

“Just as well we were delayed in our departure,” Ragwrist said.

“Only because you’ve not issued orders with your usual vigor,” Dsossa put in.

“Dsossa, bring your new horsehand forward.” She trotted her horse toward the last of the gargant houses-on-wheels.

Wistala watched the gargants being brought into line, along with laden wagons drawn by more brutes. The smell of all the horseflesh reminded her of her missed breakfast.

I’ve been too long indoors if I’m regretting my third meal in the sun’s track, Wistala thought.

Dsossa brought forth Lada. There was some reluctance on the younger’s part, but Dsossa kept a firm grip and so brought her to her grandfather.

“I thought your story of the farewell kiss a bit overripe,” Ragwrist said to Lada. “Here is your grandfather. Say farewell properly.”

“Lada, what are you doing, pray tell?” Rainfall asked.

“I want to leave this place!” she said. “I’ll make my own way in the world.”

“Sixteen years of experience and already so worldly?” Rainfall asked.

Lada raised her chin. “It is too late, Grandfather. I’ve signed a contract and been apprenticed.”

“Ragwrist!” Rainfall said, and seemed to run out of words after that.