The trouble began near the close of day, when the work gang were weary and hungry enough to think longingly of home and supper. The oldest of the lot, who'd been complaining of bellyache since lunchtime, succumbed first. He clutched his stomach, gasped, then howled. The workmen at the mortar trough ran to him just as he fell over. The gang on the crane and block had the training, or presence of mind, to finish lowering and setting the block before coming to see what the trouble was.
By then, some few of them had belly pains also.
When the uproar reached Sulun's ears, the problem had spread to more than half of the work gang. Arizun rushed into the laboratorium to report widespread sickness, pains, chills, numbness of extremities, delirium, and terrifying visions striking down the work gang.
Sulun slapped off the drive gear engagement of the lathe and jumped up from his bench. "Yotha!" he spat. "It has to be. Find Eloti and Vari, quick."
"They're already out in the courtyard, unless Vari's back in the storeroom hunting remedies."
"Thank the gods for that, at least," Sulun muttered, running for the courtyard.
The sight that met him was ugly: dozens of men rolling and shivering on the ground, others huddled against the wall, groaning through chattering teeth. Doshi and Yanados were just lighting a scrap-wood fire in the center of the courtyard as Ziya came running with a sloshing kettle of water and a packet of willow bark tea. Omis and Zeren followed, bearing as many blankets, rugs, and wraps as they could find. Vari and Eloti stood near the center of the crowd, peering frantically through a basketful of medical texts.
"Gods," Sulun groaned, seeing the sheer number of the afflicted. "Chills and fever—and the sun is going down." No one needed to tell him that the evenings could be chilly now that First Harvest was past. He snagged Omis on the way to hand out blankets. "Is the forge still lighted?"
"The forge? Yes, I was working on some tool-heads. But why—"
"The heat, man! That open fire won't be enough, nor those blankets for so many. Get the worst afflicted inside, close the shutters and curtains, and pump up the fire in the forge."
"Gods, of course!" Omis dropped the blankets and ran to Zeren to explain.
Sulun descended on Eloti and Vari, yanked out one of their scrolls, and hunted through it, dismayed to learn that he didn't recognize half the terms therein. "Is it a curse or not?" he asked, thumbing through the scroll for some hint of an answer.
"No ill-wish: it's too specific," Eloti snapped back. "Its either plague or poisoning, and we've found no mention of any plague that attacks like this."
"Besides," Vari added, "we've taken good care to keep the work camp clean. Those belly cramps speak strongly of bad food or bad water."
"But we drink of that stream ourselves," Sulun protested, "and none of us fell sick for it."
"Besides," Vari barely smiled, "this lot don't drink water when they've a regular ration of beer."
"Could it be their beer, then? How would Yotha's priests get at it?"
Eloti glanced up, face unreadable. "You think it's those priests' doing, then?"
"Of course it is! Zeren warned me . . ." Sulun ground a fist into his forehead. "Ah, gods, he warned they would strike, and I took no care to think how they might do it. I'm ten times a fool!"
"No, no," Vari soothed, patting his arm. "You're just too honest to think like such rogues. Now, how shall we examine their beer, if indeed they've left any?"
"The barrels." Eloti snapped her fingers and turned to look out the gate. "They keep their rations all in one shed out there, one of the ruins they haven't yet pulled down for building stone. Even the leavings at the barrel bottoms would contain any poison from the beer. Ask one of the less afflicted where they keep their rations."
"What if it wasn't the beer? The bread, perhaps, or the cheese, or—"
"Bring a dozen goats," said Eloti, already striding toward the work gang chief, who was still in the cramps and shivering stage.
Yes, the gang chief remembered where the stores were kept—in the basement of what must once have been a wine shop, which still possessed a stout door. Yes, all food and drink for the workmen was kept there, and no one was allowed—or able, given how easily he'd be seen—to go plunder the same until proper lunchtime.
Sulun ran for the stables, shouting at Yanados to fetch out half a dozen goats from their shed. A few minutes later the big wagon came rumbling out of the stables, Sulun driving the mules in a manner that discouraged argument; Doshi, Vari, and Arizun riding in the wagon bed behind him.
"Be they abandoning us, think ye?" Gort asked, between rattling teeth.
"And leaving their friends, too?" Hobb shook his head, which made it hurt worse. "No, off upon vengeance or healing, say I."
"We'll see soon enough. Ah, gods, is that fire well lighted? Me for sitting thereabouts, do I have to crawl."
Half an hour later the mule wagon came thundering back, echoing the impact of every paving stone through the near-empty barrels in its bed. There, too, thumped sacks of bread, cheese, sausage, and apples: all the stores of the looted basement.
Sulun reined the mules to a hoof-skidding stop, jumped off the wagon, and ran to the nearest workman, which happened to be Gort. "Man," he asked, looking straight and guiltlessly into the bloodshot eyes, "tell me: what did you eat and drink this noon?"
"B-beer," Gort chattered, "and bread. Sausage. An apple . . ."
"Good, good," Sulun patted his shoulder and went to the next man. "And you?"
"Same," Hobb shivered, "except I had ch-cheese instead of the apples."
"Not cheese, not apples," Sulun muttered, hurrying to the next coherent man he could find. "How shall we make goats eat sausage?"
Hobb turned to his partner and grinned as best he could. "Y-you thought they'd be l-leaving us," he jeered.
"W-was only askin'," Gort muttered, holding shaking hands to the fire.
"Pardon me, pardon me," Omis muttered as he shouldered past them, carrying a struggling, howling derrick hauler in his arms as surely and gently as if it had been one of his own children.
Hobb peered after him through the open front doors of Deese House. "Th-they be layin' em down on rugs by the f-forge," he noted. "And the f-fire be blazing'. Fetchin' 'em closer t-to the gods's m-magic, I expect."
"Or just g-getting' 'em warmer," Gort muttered. "Oh, here, s-sir priest. Could we have one of th-those blankets?"
Sulun ran past, shouting. "Yanados, only two goats! Just the bread and the beer!"
"G-goats?" Hobb asked, clutching the blanket that one of the junior priests hurriedly tossed him. "Bread and b-beer?"
Gort only shook his head and reached for the other half of the blanket.
Vari came running up to the fire with a handful of shrivelled rootlets in one hand. She elbowed her way to the kettle of simmering water and threw the roots into it. "Eloti!" she shouted across the fire. "Nabian root! Nabian root! It opens the veins."
"Good," Eloti called back. "How many cups do we have?"
Yanados dragged two squealing goats to a hitching rail by the south wall and tied them there. The goats promptly started chewing on their tie ropes. She slapped their muzzles and yelled for Sulun to bring the bread and beer to her, since she couldn't leave the goats.
Omis came back out into the courtyard, looked around briefly, and went for another seriously afflicted victim.
Sulun came half-running across the courtyard, a sack of bread loaves in one hand and a sloshing pitcher in the other. He ducked and dodged past groaning and raving bodies, ran to Yanados, set down his burden, and grabbed the nearest goat. "Hold it fast," he said. "How do I get its mouth open?"
Doshi, starting back for more blankets from the pile, halted suddenly with a perfectly horrified look spreading across his face. "Wotheng!" he gasped. "If they struck at our provisions, they might have struck his, too!" He changed course and ran to Sulun.
Near the forge, Zeren tackled and threw down the same raving man for the third time. "Must be a better way," he muttered. Then his eye fell on a coil of rope near the door. He hurried to it, cut a yard's length from the end, thought a bit, and cut more. Trailing odd ends of rope, he went back to his charges and began tying them up. "Shut up," he explained to those who protested. "I'm trying to drive the devils out of you."
Sulun, busy pouring beer dregs down the throat of a most unwilling goat, listened to Doshi's warning without looking up. "Gods," he moaned, "it's all too possible. Take that shaggy brute Wotheng sold us—he's the fastest we have, I think—and ride straightaway to the villa. Warn them about the bread and beer, tell them we don't yet know which it is. Bring help if you can. Ask Gynallea if she knows any remedies for this sort of thing. Oh, hurry! The sun's going down!"
Doshi ran for the stables.
It was two hours after dark, and all of Yotha House was quiet and unlit save for the eternal flame on the temple altar and the high priest's study. Folweel was awake, if not overly busy. The scroll on his lap held only part of his attention; his gaze kept straying to the south window, and the smile that flickered over his face was not pleasant.
The distant sound of the gate bell ringing made him sit up so quickly that the scroll slid off his lap. He picked it up hastily, shoved it on the littered table, stood up, and smoothed down his robes. "Back so soon?" he murmured, waiting for the inevitable knock on the door.
The knock came soon enough, but the figure which entered at Folweel's summons wasn't whom he'd expected.
"Pibb?" he snapped, with no preamble. "What in all the hells are you doing here?"
"Beggin' yer pardon, Father." Pibb bowed low, vainly trying to wipe his hands clean on his greasy leggings. "I was in the kitchen nook, gettin' a warm pint to sleep on, when her ladyship came poundin' in, yellin' for Cook. She wanted accountin' of all the bread and beer stores, and when they was brought in, and when used and all, and if anyone took sick from 'em."
"What? Lady Gynallea? Said what?" Folweel took two steps backward. "He couldn't have mistaken—And was anyone in Ashkell House sick?"
"None but old Nusher, and he's had the snuffles and wheezes for days, but her ladyship wanted all the bread and beer looked at anyway. 'Test 'em on the smallest pig,' says she. And then she wants some newmade sausage and a cup of hot cider for his lordship, and quick, says she, because he be ridin' out soon, and—"
"Wotheng, riding out tonight? Here?"
"That took me a bit of askin', Father, but—"
"Where?"
"Ey, ey, to Deese House, Father. They said 'twas either the bread or beer was poisoned there, and all the workmen sick, and they be tryin' to figure who'd done it, and they sent a messenger—one of the under-priests, I think it were, but I couldn't be sure—to warn Ashkell Villa lest it might have come there, too. His lordship was downright furious, he was: roarin' and bellowin' and haulin' his big boots on—"
"Oh, gods." Folweel slumped into the nearest chair. "How did they guess, and so soon?"
"I sneaked away when no one was lookin', guessin' ye'd want to know, and nobody saw me take leave, neither. I got a donkey from stables and came here straightaway, but 'tis my guess his lordship took his fastest horses—"
"Horses? More than one?"
"Oh, aye, Father. He took a handful of men with him, too. They went poundin' and clatterin' off down the west road, and none of 'em saw me go, so I came right here. 'Tis my guess they'll be better than halfway there by now. I wager they'll spend the night out of house. Should I go back, Father, lest I be missed?"
"Oh, yes. Back, Here, and be careful." Folweel absently pulled a silver coin from his belt pouch and handed it to the kitchen boy, who stuffed it happily in his neck bag. "Take a pot of coals to keep you warm on the ride back, and remember to thank Yotha for his kindness."
"Aye, aye, thank ye, Father." The youth scuffed backward to the door, bowing repeatedly, and showed himself out.
"They knew . . ." Folweel muttered to himself, not watching the closing door. "They've told Wotheng, and he's riding there. . . ."
Suddenly another thought occurred to him, and he jumped to his feet. "Gods!" he shouted, lunging for the bell pull. "Dizzag, get up here!"
Repeated clangings brought a dishevelled under-priest to the door. "You wish, Father?" the man panted, eyes wide in bewilderment.
"Dizzag, take a fast horse and ride toward Deese House by the quickest route. At all cost, avoid Wotheng's party on the westward road! Find Patrobe, he'll be somewhere out in the fields near the walls, north of the road. Tell him not to loose the fire, you hear? My orders! Something's happened, and the fire must not be loosed. Bring him back here, bring them all back at once. Now go, and hurry!"
Dizzag bowed quickly, and fled. The door slammed behind him.
Folweel went to the south window and peered into the darkness beyond. "Gods," he groaned, "it may already be too late. As good as a signed confession. Gods, how did they guess so fast?"
He stayed at the window, watching, hope growing slowly as the night remained unbroken and black, wondering how long it would take for Dizzag's message to reach Patrobe and his men. Across fields, through sheep pastures, in the dark—or would Dizzag have the sense to take a shuttered lantern? How long? One hour? Two? He peered toward the distant nubbin on the starwashed horizon that was the hill of Deese House, hoping frantically that Patrobe would, with his usual exquisite care, take his time, enough time. . . .
A pinprick of wavering blue and yellow light winked against the blackness.
Folweel slammed his hand on the windowsill and swore in three languages.
The half dozen riders had settled into a long, loping canter that ate up the miles without overtiring the horses. Wotheng cursed perfunctorily now and again, seeing it was expected of him, but his guardsmen saved their breath. They made good time, and the bouncing light of their lanterns on the road revealed landmarks that promised their goal was scant moments away.
Wotheng, riding in the center and free to look elsewhere than the road before him, noticed it first: a flare of blue-yellow light on a nearby hilltop. He shouted warning to the others, who reined in so quickly that they narrowly avoided running into each others' horses. They all turned to look, and froze where they sat.
A broad line of yellow-tipped blue fire snaked down the hill, across the shallow dip below, and up the next slope. At the crest it divided, two fire tracks running parallel, then swooping away from each other, then turning back until they met and merged again. The single line of flame turned back into the middle of its previous pattern and weaved back and forth in a complex dance, for all the world as if it were a reed pen writing a letter.
The guards gasped, swore, mumbled obscure charms and gestured others. Wotheng cursed, partly at them. He might indeed have expected Yotha's priests to try spreading panic among his men. Best stop that, right now.
"Damned wizards!" he bellowed, rising in his stirrups. "What do you think you're doing, burning up pastureland? Do you kill any of my tenants' sheep, and I'll have you hanged!"
His men gaped at him in awe and amazement.
Pleased by the reaction, Wotheng swore further and more colorfully.
"Sir," one of the more levelheaded interrupted him. "He—it's not moving, and the road's clear. Should we go on?"
"Hell's cesspools, yes! Since we've got such good light, let's make good time." He spurred his horse forward, obliging his men to get out of the way or ride with him. They kicked their horses forward, none willing to be last on the road.
The firelit hill fell behind them; the road snaked through a shallow valley and began to climb again. At this hill's top they could see the lights and hear the noise from Deese House. Wotheng pushed his tiring horse faster, up the rough-cobbled road and through the open gate in the wall.
He halted in the courtyard and stared, amazed.
A small horde of groaning men huddled under blankets and rugs around a roughset fire. Robed priests of Deese moved among them, giving them drink from assorted cups. Beyond the open temple doors, more men lay lightly bound and wrapped in rugs, moaning and raving, sweating in the heat from Deese's hard-blazing forge.
Tethered near the south wall were two goats, one of them backed away as far as its rope allowed, looking wide-eyed and frightened. Its companion appeared to have gone stark mad. The beast was bleating, leaping, stumbling, reeling, and dancing, eyes rolling wildly in its head, flecks of foam on its jaw.
Close by stood Sulun, grimly watching the mad goat dance.
"By Vona's iron balls," Wotheng gasped. "Are you trying to magic the poison off into the goat?"
Sulun laughed, startled, and realized it was the first good laugh he'd had since noon. "No, Lord Wotheng, that's the beast I made eat the bread. The other got the beer, and it's well and sound, as you can see."
"Ah, that's good to know." Wotheng swung out of the saddle and went to tie up his horse as far from the raving goat as the hitching rail allowed. "In such case, draw me some beer and tell me what's transpired."
Sulun led his eminent guest into the house, stepping carefully around the rolling bodies of the worst afflicted, through the first door on the left, and into the common dining room. Wotheng's guards crowded in behind him, and they all settled at the end of the table nearest the neglected fireplace. Sulun did the fetching and serving, and lit up the fire.
"We'll have to drink from the jug, I'm afraid," he said handing over an earthen bottle of better than average ale. "All the cups are in use outside. Did Doshi come back with you?"
"No, his horse was too tired for the return gallop—and so was he." Wotheng snagged the jug as it passed around the table end. "So the bread was poisoned, eh? I think we may guess who caused that. How was it done?"
"We're not sure. Zeren says the bread smells a bit odd, something he encountered once before, but he can't remember just what the poison was—except that it's something that can happen naturally in certain kinds of flour. That's why I wanted Doshi; his folk were farmers, and he might recognize it."
"Well, so might I. Bring me a bit of it."
Sulun went to fetch one of the offending loaves. Wotheng's men looked at him, at each other, and at the jug.
"Sir," one of them ventured, "can you be sure it's poison, as he says? Not magic? We know that was Yotha's fire, back on the hill."
"Trust a wizard to know his own business." Wotheng took a pull of beer, then generously handed it around again. "We'll know soon enough once I've my hands on that bread."
Sulun returned, holding the heel end of a loaf almost at arm's length. "If only we knew what it was, we might find a remedy for it," he said, handing the bread to Wotheng. "At present we can do little."
Wotheng broke the bread, studied it, sniffed at it. "Coarse rye bread . . . some smell of mould . . . Hmmm."
He leaned closer to the fire, studying the color of the inner surface, then took an experimental bite. His men gasped and jumped away. Sulun started forward, then saw that Wotheng wasn't chewing. The Lord of Ashkell frowned fiercely and spat the mouthful of bread into the fire.
"Pfaww," he grumbled, wiping his tongue on his sleeve. "That's no more nor less than black rye mould! Uchh, filthy stuff. Kills horses. Aye, your folk have fevers and mad visions, do they? And belly pains? Hands and feet gone cold and numb? That's the black rye mould for you. How did that get in my good mill's bread? I'll have Feggle's hide sliced if he's ground bad flour. . . ."
"The remedy!" Sulun cried. "What's the remedy?"
"Ey, the wife would know better than I. No, let me think. Jall, wasn't it two years gone that my good hunting horse came down with that? Do ye remember what the wife gave it?"
The near-left man pulled his lip, straining his memory. "I think 'twas raw beans, m'lord. Raw beans and . . . heh! Beer!"
"Those we have!" Sulun hopped to his feet and hurried out the door. They could hear him shouting to Eloti and Vari as he ran to the courtyard.
"Unmannerly of 'im," Jall huffed, "running off without a word of leave."
"Perhaps, but a good commander's instinct." Wotheng reached languidly for the almost empty jug. "You'll note, he didn't say a word about Yotha's fire. I wonder if he even saw it, being so busy caring for his men."
It was a small but grim delegation that rode out of the gates of Deese House next morning, for now they rode on the Lord of Ashkell's business, which was to determine the source of the mould-contaminated bread. From the gate itself they could all see the blackened mark burned into the next hilltop, and Wotheng swore blisteringly as he recognized it.
"All the gods assembled, that's the sigil of Vona!" he roared. "There, the lead letter of his name, within the shape of his sky hammer. How dare those Yotha dogs use it?"
He looked back fiercely to see if anyone was smiling. No one was, but his eye caught something else, something odd.
Up on the wall, sitting on top of that odd device which must be the gossip-famed Storm Tube, was a child of perhaps ten years old. The child (Boy? Girl? No telling, in those clothes) was glaring at the fire-etched mark on the hill and rhythmically patting the brass tube. Cursing Yotha, doubtless, Wotheng thought as he rode on down the slope. But I'd hate to have such an expression turned toward me.
Behind him in the rumbling mule wagon, Sulun and Eloti were quietly arguing over possible remedies. Eloti was insisting that her collection of scrolls didn't tell enough, both rye and ergot poisoning not being common in the southlands where most medical treatises had been written, and she needed to talk to Gynallea. Sulun complained that this whole expedition might be dangerous, and she was too valuable for them to risk.
"And you're not?" Eloti retorted. "Who do you think our leader is, Sulun? Where would we all be, how would we live, without you?"
Sulun gaped at her, lost for words, ideas, or thought.
In the wagon bed behind him, Zeren chuckled. "Welcome to your new post, Commander," he said, clapping Sulun on the shoulder. "Never expected this, eh?"
Sulun only shook his head.
"Besides," Eloti smiled, "we have Zeren and Lord Wotheng and all his guards to protect us. Where would we be safer—or better needed?"
Sulun gave up the argument and turned his mind elsewhere. "The bread," he muttered. "Trace the whole track of the bread, every step. Who brought it to us? Where was it baked? Whence came the flour, and who carried it? Where it was ground, Wotheng's already told us. Where the grain was grown, he can discover also. Somewhere between the field and the workmen's stores the mould got into it, but the most likely places lie between the mill and the bakery."
"Both of which are owned by our good Lord Wotheng," Zeren added. "Don't think he's pleased with that thought."
"Indeed." Eloti considered. "Gods help those guilty when Wotheng—or his lady—lay hands on them."
What slaughters have we spawned, just being here? Sulun wondered, but did not say aloud.
"No, sirs! Never!" Feggle braced his back against the top millstone as if defending a falsely accused child, "I been top miller here these fifteen years now. Do ye think I don't know my own business? Do ye think I can't see nor smell bad grain? B'gods, m'lord, letting bad grain pass would damage my reputation and more; why, the evil would stick to my stones and poison every load to come through thereafter. Now do ye think I'd let my stones be dirtied so?" He patted the smooth, clean-cut boulder affectionately.
Wotheng and Sulun looked at each other, tacitly admitting the miller's point. Sulun thought a moment and tried another tack.
"Goodman, when was the last time you ground coarse rye flour?"
"Ey, let me think a bit. . . ." Feggle rubbed his heavy chin, then went to a shelf on the nearby wall and pulled down a cord strung with tally sticks. "So, so . . . This be the last month's tally, every rod a day. This notch be one bag of barley, and that mark on t'other side be Dawp's mark—see? Now further down . . . here's four notches for wheat, with Cackle's mark." He ran expert fingers over the differing notches.
"Amazing," Sulun remarked, studying the tally sticks. "If ever you'd like to come to the new school and learn to put such marks on parchment . . ."
"Nay, I've no time for such, and these tallies suit me well enough. I'll send my boy, though." Feggle stroked rapidly through the rods, not even looking at them. Abruptly, his fingers halted. "There, m'lord." He shoved the stick forward, displaying the notches and mark. "There're five sacks of rye, and from Pibben's farm. They were the last of rye I've done. Pibben 'twas, but I know his grain's good; his grain's always been good, and I'd surely've noticed if 'twasn't."
"Pibben . . ." Wotheng's eyes narrowed in thought as he studied the tally stick. "Tell me, did he bring the grain himself or have it sent?"
"Why, he brought it himself, m'lord. He always does that."
"But did he take it away himself?" Sulun asked. "Did he wait here while you ground it and carry it off afterward?"
"Gods, no!" Feggle laughed, waving his thick hands. "Grinding takes a bit of time, it does, and there be so many wants grinding after first harvest, how should I do it all at once? No, m'lords, they bring it and leave it in the store-barn here, with their marks on the sacks, and I grinds it when I can. I barrels it after—or bags, if it be small enough—and puts it in t'other store-barn, and then the farmers come fetch it and pay me and take it home, or more likely they go straightaway to Tygg and sell t'him, and he sends his man to fetch it and pay me for the grinding."
"Tygg?" Sulun asked.
"Our baker," said Wotheng. "Would you remember, Feggle, if Pibben came and fetched his own rye or if Tygg's man came for it?"
Feggle ran his thumb over the tally stick again. "All this shows—see yonder cut in the middle?—'tis that the grinding was paid. But I know well enough Pibben sold it; his wife's a wonder at spinning and weaving, but she doesn't bake at all, no sir. He sold yonder rye to Tygg, be sure."
"I'll send a man to Pibben's just to be sure," Wotheng promised. "Now would your pretty stick tell us just when the rye was bought and carried away?'
Feggle shook his heavy jowls. "Nay, only when 'twas brought in, but I'll swear, m'lord, I don't keep grain overlong, lest it spoil. Yonder rye flour would've been ground within two days, no more, and gone no less'n a day later." He counted the sticks on the sting, then counted further on his fingers. "It would've gone to Tygg's no more nor three days ago, and no less than two."
Wotheng and Sulun exchanged another look.
"Back to the villa, then, and to Tygg's," said Wotheng. "Let's see if his tallying is as good."
"And we'll pick up Eloti," Sulun added. "I'll guess she's learned much from Gynallea's medicine texts."
" . . . these herbals to open the veins, the beer to flush the poisons out, and the raw bean mash to counter the effects of the poison." Gynallea wrapped up the bundle of packets and handed it to Eloti. "How are the workmen doing?"
"When we left they were resting quietly. What simples we had did them some good." Eloti hefted the bundle, face abstracted. "This won't be the end of it, I suspect."
"No," Gynallea sighed. "You will have to settle with High Priest Folweel, in some permanent fashion, and that soon. Have you any plans?"
"Several, none of them sure." Eloti took a small polished disc of obsidian from her belt pouch and weighed it thoughtfully in her hand. "In any case, we must get into Yotha House and confront that man."
"Daughter, even my Wotheng must walk soft there! Be utterly careful of words with the high priest."
"It's not words I have in mind, dearest Gynna."
"A wizard's duel, then? At the very center of Yotha's power? Is that wise?"
"Not a duel, not there," Eloti admitted, sliding the disc back into her pouch. "We are, as you've doubtless guessed, not precisely nor entirely wizards."
"Ah, some help from your mechanical knowledge will be needed, then?" Gynallea smiled knowingly. "Choose your ground with care, my dear. Have many alternative tactics in waiting, and let everyone know their part well."
"That, unfortunately, is the problem. Sulun wants no such battle; he'll not attack."
Gynallea pursed her lip. "Commendable, but . . . difficult. Plan elaborate defenses, then. And . . . try to shape, in advance, the attack your enemy will make."
Eloti grinned humorlessly. "That," she said, "is the difficult part."
Tygg the Baker looked and spoke much like his counterpart at the mill. "Of course I inspected the flour, m'lord!" he huffed, absently patting his nearest oven. "I always inspect it myself when it arrives, if not before I buy. Great gods assembled, d'ye think I'd pay good silver for bad flour?"
"You inspected Pibben's rye, then, at the mill?" Wotheng asked. "When was that?"
"Nay, not at the mill," Tygg admitted, clenching his broad fists in his coarse bleached apron. "I've bought from Pibben these many years, and never had complaint. I looked at the barrelful when it came here, and 'twas good then, as always 'tis."
He ambled down the crowded bakery hall to a side room, which he opened with a heavy iron key. Within lay shelves of stacked tablets, a writing table and chair, and a large money chest bolted to the floor. He poked through the tablets, pulled one out, and shoved it in front of the questioners. "There, yon's the mark for Pibben, and this for rye, and this for the amount. If 'twere bad, I'd have marked it other."
Sulun, hoping to find a literate accounting, was disappointed to see more tally marks cut in the wax. "Do you recall," he asked, "when the flour arrived? Or when it was baked? Or where you sold it?"
"Oh, aye." The baker pointed his thick finger at further marks on the tablet. "See here: that means it came two days agone. I couldn't say when 'twas baked or sold, but it must've been right soon after. I—I bought it to bake for your work gang, m'lord wizard. . . ." Tygg wilted a little. "They like the rye bread, they do, and the price is . . . well, quite fair, sir."
"Buy cheap and sell dear, I know." Wotheng grinned, making his moustache bristle. "I've no complaint with honest profit."
"Nor I," said Sulun, seeing where this led. In truth, grain prices here were astonishingly low compared to what he remembered in Sabis. "I only ask, did you send any other bread to my work gang these four or five days past?"
"Oh, no, m'lord wizard." Tygg waved his big hands in denial. "I bake and send to them but once a seven-night. My wagon man'd be too busy else for my other work. I send all around the vale, y'know, m'lord."
"So this was the load that was . . . tainted, and no other?" Eloti asked, stepping forward.
"M'lady, I'll swear on a dozen gods the flour was good!" Tygg wailed, almost tiptoeing a step back from her. "I looked when I bought it, and 'twas clean!"
"And how long between the time you bought it, and inspected it, and when you baked it?' Sulun asked, looking for the sequence, the timing.
"No more nor a day, I'll swear." Tygg rubbed his sweating forehead, then automatically wiped his hand on his apron. "I bought the flour specially because 'twas time to bake for the work gang again. One can't be late with food for that lot, y'know."
"I know." Eloti smiled, considering the uproar a gang of hungry workmen would make if their bread didn't arrive. "You bake for them once a seven-night, then, and send it out how soon after?"
"Wh-why, soon's 'tis out of the oven. It must go soon, d'ye see, for it's got to last seven days, and for all that rye bread stales but slow, in seven days 'twill be a bit stiff, so the sooner 'tis delivered, the better." The baker shrugged eloquently.
"Sir Baker," Eloti purred, well knowing the answer, "is there any means by which the ergot could have entered the bread after it was baked?"
Tygg struggled mightily with his fear and conscience, finally had to admit, "Nay, couldna," in a defeated voice. "If it struck then, 'twould only dot the crust with black spots, easily seen and cut off."
"So the ergot entered the flour sometime between the hour when you inspected it and when you baked it?"
"Aye," Tygg almost whispered, "while 'twas here, in my storeroom . . ." Then he brightened, seeing a possibility. "'Twas there almost a day. Anyone could have come in and traded it for bad flour while I wasn't looking."
"But wouldn't you have noticed the change when you went to bake it?" Wotheng cut in. "Surely you'd have seen, or smelled, if something were wrong when you went to measure it out."
"But—but—" Tygg bounced on his wide feet in agitation. "I confess, I didn't bake that load! I've so much to bake, y'know, m'lord, I can't do all at once. 'Twas only common rye bread, if all be told, and I'd the more dainty breads an cakes to do, as I can't trust to 'prentices, y'know." He waved a dusty hand toward the bake shop, where easily half a dozen assistants were measuring flour, rolling dough, and tending the ovens. "I left the rye bread baking to . . . gods, who was it? Ey, 'twere Meep and Higgle!" he stomped to the door and bellowed, "Meep! Higgle! Get your lumbering feet in here, and be quick!"
A fat boy and a stout woman jumped as if they'd been stabbed, pulled their hands out of huge basins of flour, and came hurrying in.
"Aye, Master, what's the matter?" the woman asked, shifting from foot to foot as if her arches pained her.
"I'm hurrying with the barley bread," the boy whined. "Gods' truth, I'm hurrying, Master Tygg, it's just that—"
"Never mind you that," Tygg snapped. "Which of you baked the rye bread that went out yesterday morn?"
The two bakers assistants looked at each other, Meep woeful, Higgle smirking. "'Twere he done it." Higgle pointed triumphantly to the cringing fat youth. "I lost the toss, so's I had to haul the wood and light it off and sweep out the oven and tend the fire and such—while he made the bread."
"Aw, Master," Meep whined. "I ain't never made rye bread before. The loaves looked right when they came out t'oven, crusts dark like she said. Hows I t'know they weren't right?"
Tygg heaved a mountainous sigh—of relief? Exasperation? "And what was wrong with them?" he asked.
Meep's jaw dropped, flapped a bit, quivered. "I—I don't know, Master. Did I make the dough too heavy? Not baked long enough? Ye said t'leave 'em a bit moist, as they was t'last awhile. . . ."
Tygg was trying to say something, probably explosive, but Eloti touched his arm and he jigged away in silence. "Listen, boy," she crooned hypnotically at the young lout, "you know who we are, do you not?"
"Y-yes, m'lady. Ye're one of the new wizards as serve Deese." His plump cheeks quivered as he tried to edge away, but Eloti caught his face neatly between her hands.
"Think, boy," she murmured, fixing his eyes with her own. "Remember well, from the beginning. When did you come to work that day?"
"T-two hours afore dawn, like always," Meep whimpered, staring.
"Where you first in the shop?"
"I came in . . . after Higgle. She'd the key."
"And what next?"
"She said t'make the rye bread, and I said—"
"Never mind what was said. What did you do?"
"I—we argued, and then we tossed a copper, and she lost . . . so she went t'get the firewood and I went t'get the rye flour, and—"
"How did you know which was the rye flour?"
"'Twas in the barrel Master Tygg showed me the day afore, the one with the half-moon scratched in the wax."
Eloti shot a quick glance at Sulun, who nodded. "You went to get the flour," she said. "So you opened the barrel?"
"Nay, m'lady. 'Twas already open."
"You mean, the lid was loosened or the lid was off?"
"'Twas off. I thought Higgle'd been there first. I took up the scoop and filled the big measure—"
"I'll fetch't," said Tygg, hurrying off.
"And did you notice anything different about the flour?" Eloti went on.
"N-no m'lady. How would I? I'd never made the rye bread afore." Meep wrung his hands in unconscious imitation of his master.
"So you took up the measure full of flour. What did you then?"
"I brought it back t' the shop room and poured it into yonder big mixin' pot, and put in the sweetenin' and the leavenin' and then the butter and eggs, and last the milk, and then I stirred it with the big paddle, and then I let it sit and rise."
Tygg came back in, holding a measure cup the size of a half barrel. "This be the big measure, m'lady," he said, then halted as he saw the odd interrogation wasn't finished.
"And what did you do while the bread rose?" Eloti asked.
"Ate some buns. They were left over from the day afore, would've gone t'waste, else . . ."
"And crackin' jokes at me, while I warmed up th' oven," Higgle added.
"And then what did you?" Eloti bored on.
"W-went back t'see how it'd risen, and it had."
"And did you notice, then, anything strange about the dough? Did it look right? Smell right? What?"
"Nay, it looked right enough—risen right well, good and high. It smelled sour, but rye bread always does, far as I know."
"So what did you next?"
"I patted it in loaves."
"You didn't punch it down and leave it to rise again?" Tygg fumed. "Ye lazy lout, I should clout yer head!"
"Hush," Sulun restrained him. "Let's hear the rest, first."
"And what then?" Eloti insisted.
"I put the loaves in the oven, and bade Higgle watch 'em."
"That he did," Higgle volunteered. "Left me t'watch, and went off t'stuff his face on more sugar buns."
"And were you alone in the shop all this time?" Eloti asked.
"Oh nay, m'lady. Swarp and Dirrot and Buj and Master Tygg came in a bit after us, and they was workin'."
"Aye," Tygg muttered. "I should've seen him nippin' the leftover buns. . . ."
"But did anyone go to the storeroom before you?" Eloti insisted.
"Nay, we was first there, afore the others came in."
"That's true," Higgle agreed. "We come earliest."
"Then what became of the dough left in the big mixing pot?" Eloti asked.
Meep looked blank. "I don't know, m'lady," he blubbered.
"I cleaned that out." Higgle wrinkled her nose. "'Tis the job for whoever's tending the fire. I lost the toss, as we said."
"Where did you wash it?" Eloti asked, releasing Meep and turning to Higgle. "And what did you do with the washings?"
"I washed it in the backyard," said Higgle, righteously holding her ground. "I threw the washings in the slops bucket, for t'take t'Mistress Tygg's pig, after."
"Ay, gods!" Tygg slapped a hand to his forehead. "So that's what ailed the pig yester'en!"
"You didn't eat any of the dough yourself?" Eloti insisted.
"Nay, m'lady," said Higgle, wrinkling her nose again. "Why eat sour old dough, when I could have leftover cakes later?" Abruptly she blushed, and looked sidelong at Tygg, who rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered about greedy apprentices eating up his profits.
"So," said Eloti, turning back to Tygg. "Meep says he used one large measure of rye flour. If that's the measure, there must still be more flour left in the barrel. May we see it, please?"
Without a word, Tygg led them to the storeroom at the other end of the bakeshop. The room was stone, windowless, with only one other door that led—as Sulun confirmed with a swift look—out to the back alley where the wagons were unloaded. The doors were stout, tight, and well barred. There was no sign of rats, though a plump cat patrolled there, and the floor was quite acceptably clean.
Tygg pointed to a barrel in the near right corner, one marked with a simple half-moon cut into a splash of wax. "That be the one," he said, keeping his distance.
Sulun and Eloti approached the barrel cautiously, as if it might bite. Wotheng stayed back by the door, watching both of them and the baker. Eloti lifted off the barrel lid and peered in.
"Is it customary," she asked, "for your rye flour to be so grey in color?"
Tygg jumped as if stung, and ran to the barrel. "No, by all the gods," he said, staring into its half-filled depths. "'Tis supposed t'be faintest hint of brown, no more." He reached in, pulled up a pinch of the flour, spread it on his palm, and looked closely. "I'd be sure in better light," he whispered, "but I think I see fine flecks of black in this. He sniffed cautiously at the thin spread of flour. "It doesn't smell bad, though."
"Let us test further." Eloti scooped out a handful of the flour and walked back toward the shop room. "Please fetch me a small bowl and a bit of sweetening and milk."
Tygg practically fell over his feet, running to comply with her wishes.
It took but a moment to mix the ingredients in the right proportions. Tygg asked if she wanted oil, leavening, and eggs too, but Eloti assured him it wasn't necessary.
"If this is indeed the mould I think it is," she explained, pouring out the mixture on a small plate, "then water and food is all it needs. Now let us put this in a warm place for . . . how long does it usually take for rye bread to rise, Master Tygg? Half an hour? Good. Let us take our ease for so long."
Tygg obligingly brought bench seats, cups of his own beer, and a dish of his best sweet rolls, and did his best not to look at the suspect mixture in the bowl near the oven. His staff worked furiously at their business, not daring to look lest Tygg's eye and wrath fall on them.
Wotheng drank his beer in leisurely fashion, wiped off his moustache, and calmly asked. "Goodman, who was present in your shop between the time you first opened the barrel of flour and the time it was baked?"
Tygg paused, half-turned to watch his underbakers, his eyes unfocused with the effort of memory. "Hmm, ah, everyone here, of course—all my help. Also the wagoner who brought it. Many of the villa folk came in and out to buy . . . Ah, gods, I can't remember how many came and went!"
Eloti gave Wotheng a brief nod of respect, then asked. "How many of your customers came into this room, let alone the storeroom?"
"Ey, why, none." Tygg looked relieved for a moment, then sobered as he guessed the implications. "I swear, I'd never believe any of my lot would poison their own bread!"
"I find that hard to believe, also," said Sulun. "How many of them went into the storeroom that day?"
"Gods, I can't recall!" Tygg rubbed his sweating jowls in distress. "All of them, I don't doubt, for I had them all at work mixing and baking. I do try, m'lord, t' make 'em knowledgeable at all stages of baking."
"But then . . ." Wotheng sat up, moustache bristling. "None of them could be sure that another 'prentice wouldn't walk in on them while they were putting the mould in the four. Most risky work, that."
"Oh, aye!" Tygg grinned from ear to ear, seeing hope that his household was no longer suspect. "They were runnin' in and out all the day, save for lunchtime . . ." A beatific smile spread across his sweating face. "I recall, m'lord, the barrels came from the mill just afore lunch. I tapped and 'spected 'em, paid the wagoner, and then all o' we sat down to eat together. They were all there, m'lord; none left the table afore I did. Not one of 'em got to be long alone in the storeroom: not one, sir!"
The other three exchanged glances. "How long," Eloti inquired, "would it take to empty . . ." She thought a moment, trying to remember the ratio of dark flecks to pale flour in the barrel" . . . say, a pint of mould into the flour, and stir it well enough that it wouldn't be noticed when measured out?"
The baker stopped and thought about that. He closed his eyes, measured invisible volumes with his hands, made pouring and stirring motions, then sighed. "To pour, almost no time. To stir so well . . . a good minute or two. Not long, I grant. Still, at any moment others might have come in and see the miscreant at work." He gasped suddenly. "But wait! M'lord, m'lady think: how would he stir the flour well, save with his hands and by reaching well into the barrel? How should he do that without daubing his arms clean up to the shoulder with flour? I'd have noticed anyone floured so far up the arms! By the gods, m'lord, I would; y'know I pride myself upon having my bake shop so clean."
"Good wit, Tygg," Wotheng approved. "Just to be sure, I would like to ask each of your lot—separately and quietly, you -understand—if they noted anyone come out of the storeroom with flour up to the shoulders."
"Do so, m'lord." Tygg grinned. "Yet I think if any had seen such, they'd have told me. As ye've heard and seen, my 'prentices do rival with each other a bit—aye, and carry tales, too, hopin' for an inch more of favor."
"And sweet buns." Wotheng smiled with him. "I'll ask, anyway, but I do believe you're correct, Master Baker."
"Unless, of course," Eloti interjected, "the miscreant stirred the flour with a paddle or stick."
"Paddle? Stick?" Tygg glowered. "Not in my storeroom. I keep the paddles out here where they be needed, near every moment. Anyone seen goin' into the stores with such would surely be noted, and 'marked upon. Besides, where would the poisoner have carried a pint measure of black mould, goin' into the stores, and it not be noted?"
"The mould might have been hidden in a bag under the clothes," Sulun considered, "but you're right about the stirring. Where could anyone have hidden even a stick that was long and stout enough to quickly mix a pint of mould into a barrel of flour?"
Wotheng frowned and rattled his fingertips on his knees, and Sulun could guess the man's thought. Either the faithful old baker was lying, which seemed very unlikely, or the poisonous mould had somehow magicked itself into the barrel. Reconstruct the sequence, was all he could think of.
"Try hard to remember, good Tygg," he said. "When was the first moment you saw the barrel?"
"Ey? Why, when it came off Bassip's wagon, Sir Wizard."
"What, he brought it to your door himself?" Sulun couldn't imagine any one man shifting that huge barrel alone.
"Ah, I see what ye mean. Nay, sir, I first clapped eyes on it when 'twas on the wagon, when the carter came knockin' at the door. I helped him roll it into stores myself. Oh, and I'll take oath, the lid was on it firm and tight then, and sealed with good wax, as Feggle always does it."
"And then you opened the lid?" Wotheng took up the thread.
"Aye sir, right then: opened and looked, and found it clean, on my oath."
"And did you pay the wagoner right then?" Eloti asked, eyes narrowing. "Had you the money in hand when you brought the barrel in?"
"Eye, not so. I went to my officium to fetch it. Then I came back and paid him and he left, and I called my lot off to lunch, and there's an end to it, for surely no one could have come into stores while I were out fetchin' the money without the wagoner would have seen 'em."
"True, true," murmured Eloti. "And are you certain you closed and barred the storeroom's outer door after the wagoner left, before you went to eat?"
"Aye, for certain, good lady. Don't I know well enough that rats and thieves get in when doors swing open?"
"Hmm. So after lunch everyone went back to work and the apprentices came in and out, and at day's end you locked up fast, I trust?"
"Oh, aye, be certain."
"And you're also certain no one could have come in again before Meep and Higgle yesterday morning?"
Again the baker struggled with his conscience, and again his conscience won. "Aye, m'lady. No door nor window forced, nothing touched. Nor none other thing. Look you all." He pointed to the doorsill, which had been recently swept clean. "'Tis an old baker's trick I had of my father. Every night afore leavin', I sprinkle a bit of flour about the doors and under the windows. Every morning I sweeps it up to keep the rats away. If any thief, nay nor anyone, came in durin' the night, by whatever means, they'd've left tracks in the flour and on the floor beyond. No way to hide it, save by sweepin' up all the flour. Either way, I'd have noted that when I came in by morning."
"Marvelous!" Sulun admitted. "I must teach that trick to my people."
"Aye, would ye that?" Tygg beamed, flattered.
"So, to go on," Eloti murmured. "Meep and Higgle came in, Meep made the rye bread while Higgle tended the fire, then the loaves were packed and sent off by your wagoner. And no one else touched the dough?"
"As ye've heard." Tygg shrugged. "I swear, I cannot understand it."
"Yet someone did despoil the flour, as you can see." Eloti pointed to the warm bowl of rough dough.
They looked. They could all see that it had risen slightly, by itself, with no yeast added.
Tygg grabbed the offending bowl with a curse, and threw it into the fire. "'Twas magicked there, good folk," he pleaded, "I'll swear, it had to be!"
"Fear nothing." Eloti smiled gently, patting his thick arm. "I'm sure it wasn't you nor any of your people who tainted the flour."
"Deese and Kula know it," said the baker, fervently clasping his hands.
On the way back to their mule wagon, Sulun chewed the problem over. "I swear," he admitted, "I don't know where to search next. If Feggle and Tygg are honest, and—" He threw a quick look to Wotheng. "—I'm quite sure they are, then the poisoning happened in Tygg's shop, yet no one there could have done it."
"I should go back and question the kitchen drudges singly," Wotheng remembered, stopping where he was.
"Not necessary," said Eloti. "None of them did it."
"Eh?" Wotheng gaped at her. "How do you know?"
"Consider." Eloti ticked off on her fingers. "The flour arrived just before lunch. The kitchen help wouldn't have gone to fetch more flour, do more measuring, mixing, or kneading, just before lunch; no, they'd have been finishing their tasks, not starting new ones. Any of them doing otherwise would have been noticed, and reported to Tygg, by his rivalrous fellows. So would anyone, after lunch, who took a stick or paddle into the storeroom—or who came out of it with flour high up on his arms. No one broke into the bakery during the night, or Tygg would have seen it in his flour-trap on the floor. Meep and Higgle tossed a coin to see who would bake and who fire the oven, so there was no predicting in advance which of them would go to the stores and get to the rye flour. They might have conspired together to taint the flour, but I doubt it, from the lack of love between them. By the time the other apprentices came in, it was too late; the flour was already mixed to dough, if not in the oven."
"But if none of the apprentices—" Wotheng huffed. "I can't believe Tygg would—"
"Surely not Tygg. But who was the one person left alone with the open barrel of flour while Tygg went to the officium to count and fetch the money?"
Wotheng had the presence of mind to whisper it. "Bassip the Wagoner!"
"If, as Tygg says, he also delivered the bread, then I've seen him coming and going at Deese House." Eloti sniffed grimly. "He could easily hide a pint measure bag under his cloak, and he would know where the rye bread was bound."
"But," Sulun remembered, "how would he stir it in? Tygg would have noticed flour on the man's arms."
"He drives an oxcart, remember? And he always carries with him his long-handled driver's whip."
Zeren was no longer guarding the mule wagon when the others came up, but that wasn't necessary. Half of Wotheng's guards were watching, a few copying the motions, as he showed them one of his favorite moves.
" . . . so you drop low—low as you can—as you step forward, getting under his shield. Lift your own shield, so, to block any downward chop and also to block his sight of what you're doing. Then come up with the sword at the exposed body. Up, you see? If the other fellow doesn't counter early, there's almost no defense against it; I've rarely seen it fail."
Wotheng raised his bushy eyebrows and turned to the companions. "How very many skills your folk have. Think you yonder large priest might be persuaded to come give his lessons more regularly?"
"I'm sure of it," Sulun agreed. "But at the moment, what shall we do about our poisoner?"
"We'll lay hands on him shortly, that I assure you." Wotheng's smile didn't reach his eyes, which were as chill as Sulun had ever seen them. "The wife doesn't bake either, having much else to do. We've our bread delivered at about this hour every morning. Ho, fellow!" he called to the nearest guard, interrupting the sword lesson. "Has Bassip the Wagoner came yet with the bread?"
"Why, yessir," gawped the nearer guard. "Has yer lordship been learning magecraft, then? Bassip's only just come his round, bein' at the tailors shop last, and I think he be at the kitchen right now."
"Come along, then," said Wotheng between his teeth. "I've much to say to that man, and I intend he shouldn't wiggle away before I've said it."
"Er, Lord Wotheng," Sulun put in, looking pale. "If you intend to put the man to—to torture, I beg our leave to retire."
"Pshaw, not now." Wotheng almost laughed. "Torture's no good for wrangling the truth from any man, I learned well enough from my father. Cause pain enough, and the pained will say whatever he thinks the questioner wants to hear. No, 'tis clever questions—and p'raps a well-timed lie or two—will get the story. But that's a tedious business, and no sense to trouble you with it. Pray, go dine with my wife while I front this wagoner. I'll speak to you soon enough."
He strolled off, whistling between his teeth, with his guardsmen shambling after. Sulun, Eloti, and Zeren looked at each other.
"Doshi's inside," Zeren told them. "He and his horse are rested well enough, he can ride whenever we want. Where do we go next?"
"To lunch, as our host said." Sulun shrugged. "I think the investigation is out of our hands now, and if we've had little rest, we may as well have food."
"Besides," Eloti added, half to herself, "I've much to discuss with Gynallea—such as what, precisely, we must do about these pesky Yotha priests."
Wotheng laid his plans with some care, pausing to make a few quiet arrangements before strolling into the back of the kitchen where Bassip the Wagoner lounged against the doorpost and chatted with the cook.
"Ah, the good wagoner!" Wotheng chirped, coming up on the burly ox driver as if by accident. "What luck! Pray lend me your whip a moment."
He snatched that item out of the startled wagoner's belt and carried it back into the kitchen, whistling merrily as he uncoiled the whip's tail from its usual resting place about the handle. Bassip, both curious just what Wotheng intended and unwilling to let his primary tool get out of his sight, trotted after his lord into the kitchen. Behind him, two guardsmen quietly eased through the kitchen door, closed and barred it after themselves, and followed.
Wotheng went to a long wooden table, pulled a heavy cleaving knife off a rack above it, and—before Bassip's horrified eyes—chopped the body of the whip cleanly off the handle.
"Ah, don't fret so," Wotheng soothed the man's wailing outrage. "I'll give you a far better one soon enough." He reached for a plate that lay nearby, set the chopped whip handle upright on it, and began unbraiding the leather straps that bound the handle's core. "I confess, I've always yearned to know what lies under all this leather. Is it bone, horn, or wood? Aha, 'tis whittled bone. From an ox's thigh, perhaps? Ah, and what's this pale stuff?"
Patches and streaks of off-white powder appeared on the unbraided leather and the bone beneath, lying in little pockets where the straps had overlapped and a quick wiping hadn't reached them.
Still whistling tunelessly, Wotheng took a small paring knife and began scraping the whitish powder off the leather and bone, into the dish.
Bassip chewed his lip, mumbled something about seeing if his oxen had enough water, and began to back away.
The guards standing silently behind him clamped restraining hands on his arms.
Wotheng scraped all the available powder into the dish, cast the remains of the ruined whip aside, took a few drops of water from a nearby kettle on the tip of his knife, and mixed the thin powder and water into a flat dough.
"This odd powder on your whip stock interests me." He smiled at the now trembling Bassip. "How came it there, eh? And what is it? I daresay, I've a way to learn. Ey, cook, pray fetch me a squab from the dovecote."
The cook scurried off. Wotheng continued to roll the thimbleful of dough about the plate until it dried and compacted into small pills. The cook came back with a young pigeon hooting mournfully in a tiny cage, set it on the table, bowed quickly, and withdrew to watch.
"I've always had a fancy for stuffed squab," Wotheng commented as he seized the bird handily by the neck, pried its beak open, and began shoving the pills of dough down its throat. "But how does the bird care for the stuffing, I wonder? These creatures are greedy enough for wholesome bread, I've seen. Let us see how this fellow enjoys his, hah, 'drover's meal.'"
Bassip's knees quivered and almost dropped him to the floor. The guards obligingly held him up.
Wotheng finished feeding the bird the last of the dough, tossed the dish in a wash basin, sat down at the bench, and called for a cup of beer, which the cook hurried to fetch. The guards said nothing, only watched impassively. Bassip, sweating now as if he stood next to a furnace, couldn't seem to pull his eyes away from the bird.
"Have you ever noticed," Wotheng remarked cheerily around his beer, "that the smaller a creature may be, the faster it seems to live? Butterflies live but a season. Yet what they lack in time they appear to replace in speed. A bird, for example, eats and sleeps and sings and plays enough in a day that, were he a man, would satisfy for a seven-night. His food seems to pass through him, depositing its virtue, in scant moments. A bite of oilcake at dawn shows its sheen on his feathers by breakfast time. I'll wager this little fellow will show the good of his bread crumb feeding here within the half hour, if not sooner."
Bassip just once tried to pull away from the guards and run. Their grip loosened not a hair's width.
"Oh come, fellow, let's have no impatience," Wotheng purred. "Your oxen, being large and slow-living beasts, will surely wait. Pray, humor me? I've a fancy to learn just how much flour goes out the baker's door on the clothes and tackle of the baker's wagoner—even unto the handle of his whip. Now, by the gods, what ails that bird?"
The young pigeon was showing definite signs of distress, flapping its clipped wings, tossing its head over it back, squawking in short and high-pitched bursts.
"Why, I'd swear from looking," Wotheng commented, "that the poor creature was ill. Yet it was quite well before it ate that flour, wouldn't you say?"
Bassip moaned and sagged in his captors' grip. The squab fell on its side, kicking, as if in sympathy.
Wotheng set down his cup, stretched, and got to his feet. "Well, Bassip," he said. "Who paid you to mix the black mould into Tygg's rye flour?"
High Priest Folweel sat calm and composed before his guests, as if he received the Lord of Ashkell and a delegation of alien priests every day. Not a hair of his long beard was out of place, not a fold of his gold-embroidered red robe was wrinkled, not a single be-ringed finger trembled. Sulun stared, fascinated, at the enemy he'd never before met. However the man's thoughts inclined, he was neither foolish nor easily frightened. A learned intelligence operated behind those opaque black eyes, and a formidable will.
And the house was a well-staffed fortress, and they sat at its very heart.
"Not the least intriguing event in this case," Wotheng was saying, as calmly undisturbed as his host, "was the appearance of the Yotha fire on the hill facing Deese House. I noted, as I rode past it, that it formed the shape of the sigil of Vona." His voice hardened. "My family's patron god."
Wotheng paused a moment to let that sink in. Folweel raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
"I wish to know," Wotheng continued tightly, "why you priests burned Vona's sigil into the turf on my land."
"Excuse me, Lord Wotheng," Folweel purred. "It was Yotha who—"
"Bull's piss! I saw it myself!" Wotheng smacked an impatient hand on the littered table. "Don't call me ignorant, Sir Priest; that fire was fueled with nothing but distilled spirits of wine. My good wife can make it in her still-room, and I've seen it before. 'Twas you priests who set and lit that fire, sir—on my land and in the sigil of my family's god—and I wish to know why."
Folweel barely blinked at the revelation. He only smiled, shrugged, and spread apologetic hands. "Ah, I see you understand our little secret. Yes, the knowledge of fire elixir is a, hmm, trade secret among the priests of Yotha, most commonly used to feed the god's altar fire—and sometimes to send messages."
"Messages! What manner of missive was that, pray tell?"
"Understand, m'lord." Folweel was not to be hurried. Neither, in this dark castle, was he intimidated. "Our priesthood is to perceive and interpret the will of the god. Thought, alas, is not readily visible to the common folk; therefore we use the little trick of the fire to make visible the god's word to men. One might say, we provide the ink for the quill of the god's writing."
"I do not appreciate script which scorches my grazing land, sir. Had you a message for me, a simple letter would have done."
"This is well known, sir, but last night's message was not for you."
"Oh? For whom, then?" Wotheng asked, guessing well what the answer was.
"Why, for the rest of our guests, here." Folweel nodded politely toward Sulun's huddled quartet. "Having no other contact with the House of Deese, and no time to create any, we sent the message by the swiftest and most visible means. My regrets concerning the brief stretch of grass that was scorched, but the missive was urgent and could not wait."
"What message?" Sulun asked. As if I couldn't guess.
"Why, simply this." Folweel spread his hands again. "'Tis written in ancient tomes that the Sukkti wizards were often . . . careless . . . with their art—"
"Careless!" Zeren snorted. Sulun restrained him with a quick touch on the arm.
"In this case," Folweel said, flicking an eye toward Eloti, then away, "you folk have been most profligate with your knowledge. You have given out spells, and knowledge thereof, to any who asked—taking little care for these folks' magical ability or moral condition. Who knows to what ill uses such unfettered knowledge might be put? We received from the god the message that the Lord of Storms was displeased by such carelessness—most particularly your, hmm, stealing his thunder, as it were, in your new magical device—and that his displeasure might soon be made manifest. That is the warning we tried to send."
Folweel bowed politely, and waited.
The reaction was not long in coming. "'Stealing thunder?'" Sulun yelped.
"The spells we've sold are damned harmless, even beneficial!" Zeren growled.
"Do you claim my folk are unfit to learn common figures and letters, sir?" barked Wotheng. Eloti said nothing, only rubbed her shoe thoughtfully at the edge of the nearest carpet.
"Peace, peace," the high priest intoned, raising his hand as if in blessing. "I but report what the god revealed. Surely you know that Yotha has some divine agreement with Vona; elsewise, why do so many fires start from lightning strikes, despite the presence of rain?"
"Clever," Zeren snorted.
"We received the god's warning that Vona was displeased with the carelessness of Deese House, and we sent on the warning as clearly as we could. Had we but sent a letter by common -messenger . . ." Folweel paused to smile blandly at each of Sulun's people in turn, "would you have believed it?"
"No," Doshi admitted, then plucked up his courage to add, "for that matter, why should we believe it now?"
"Why, then, that is your privilege." The high priest rolled his eyes heavenward. "We but reveal the word of the god. Men, in their willfulness, may refuse to believe, but we have done our part."
"At the expense of my grazing land," growled Wotheng.
"A narrow strip, no wider than your hand, easily regrown: hardly damage worth complaint, Lord Wotheng."
"And the fires that danced along the hills, when first you folk came here?" Wotheng's eyes narrowed. "You claimed you were following the god's trail."
"And so we were." Folweel remained bland as ever. "The god did point out his track to us, and where he wished his temple built. We lit the track to show people where he had passed and where he alighted. Again, we but illustrated the god's work."
"And what of the folk who were moved out of the old manse where you wanted the temple built?"
"Not we, Lord Wotheng, but Yotha himself. Had he not sported there long before ever we came here?" The high priest shrugged eloquently. "As for the folk living there, we did offer to take them into Yotha's household. Many chose to do so, as you recall. Others did not, which was entirely their will."
"And not to be wondered at, considering the famed capriciousness of your god, Sir Priest."
"The god does as he wills; we can only interpret his will."
"Yet you cannot deny," said Wotheng, slamming his fist down on the table, "that it was your fire that burned Poddil's cottage!"
Why just that one case? Sulun wondered. No witnesses to the others?
"But I can, Lord Wotheng." Folweel clasped his hands calmly. "We knew from the god that Poddil's cottage would burn. We sent him warning, several times byword of mouth, and finally by the running fire. The first warnings he ignored, the latter came too late; his chimney had already caught fire when the running fire reached him."
"Chimney?" Wotheng bristled his moustache. "My wife saw your fire run to Poddil's cottage, climb right up his wall and into the thatch of his roof. Are you calling my wife a liar, sir?"
Aha, reliable witness. Sulun thought, drawing no comfort from it.
Certainly not," Folweel smiled politely. "I only say, that, when a warning flame runs up a wall to point to a chimney, and the chimney is also, on fire and throws sparks down into the thatch, 'tis very easy to be mistaken concerning exactly which fire set the house alight. You must recall, Lord Wotheng, that witnesses saw sparks shooting out of that chimney and also saw afterward that it had fallen and was burned. The man should never have built his chimney of mere clay-daubed wattle, no matter how thick the clay. Had he not been warned of that before?"
"Poddil's chimney did indeed catch fire once before," Wotheng said slowly, "but without burning the whole house."
"Yet it could have done so, then." The high priest shook his head. "That, too, was warning. Poddil simply would not heed warnings."
"Do you attempt to tell me that Poddil's cottage simply happened to catch fire at the moment that your . . . warning . . . reached him?"
"Not at all." Folweel shook his head sadly. "In truth, his chimney caught fire a little before our warning reached him. We came too late, for which we pray forgiveness; we are but mortal."
"Unbelievable," Zeren muttered.
Don't provoke him! Sulun winced. We want to get out of here alive!
"And the fire you loosed at Deese House last night?" Wotheng rumbled. "Was that a 'late' warning, too?"
"How should it be?" Folweel raised his eyebrows, looking most honestly surprised. "Vona has not yet expressed his displeasure at Deese house, has he? Therefore, I trust our warning has reached its goal well before time."
"By all the gods!" Doshi burst out. "Do you try to tell us that you haven't heard about the poisoning of our workmen yesterday?"
"Poisoning? Workmen?" The high priest looked perfectly surprised. "Why, what's this? I've had no word on it."
"I see." Wotheng leaned back in his chair. "Then you wouldn't know that the poisoner has been seized, and has confessed?"
"You are the first to bring me this news, Lord Wotheng." Folweel bowed slightly. "I congratulate you on the speed of your justice."
"Then let me also be first to tell you that the man claimed he was paid to poison the workmen's bread—paid by one of your priests, sir." Wotheng pulled a small scroll from his belt pouch and tossed it on the table. "This is the man's confession, as I heard from his own lips."
Folweel coolly took up the scroll, opened and read it. No more than a righteous frown showed on his composed face. "Indeed a serious matter," he murmured. "This fellow—Bassip? A baker's wagoner?—claims much. Can you be certain he speaks the truth in any of this?"
"I saw with my own eyes the proof that he did the poisoning." Wotheng tapped his fingers quietly on his belt. "I heard with my own ears his confession that Twoz, under-priest of Yotha, paid him to do it and gave him the poison. I wrote with my own hands what he said, as you may read."
The high priest smiled, most gently. "Surely you know, Lord Wotheng, that a man found guilty of a serious crime will often try to shift or divide blame by accusing another. Likewise, one put to . . . serious question . . . in such a case will say whatever he thinks his questioners want to hear."
Wotheng flushed a dull red. He didn't care to have his own reasoning thrown back at him. "There is still the little question of the poison and the money. Bassip told me where in his house he'd hidden the money he got for this task; we searched and found it there. How came he by the money, pray?"
"Who can say? It might have been a long-saved treasure, or the result of robbery, or some windfall prize he did not care to report at tax time." Folweel raised a knowing eyebrow. "He could well have mentioned his secret hoard purely to convince you of the truth of his story."
"And the poison, Sir Priest? There was over a pint of it to poison that barrel of flour. Where came he by that?"
"He could have had that from any patch of mould-tainted rye, field grown or wild seeded. A wagoner who deals with bakers, millers, and farmers would have much opportunity to recognize such." Folweel flicked a long nail at the relevant line of Bassip's confession. "Who can guess his true reasoning for this? Perhaps the man has some grudge against the baker, or this under-priest, or someone who works on the new walls at Deese House. Perhaps, knowing that the houses of Deese and Yotha are, hmm, not speaking to each other, he hoped to raise ill will between us. Who can say?"
For a moment none of the others spoke. Eloti only shook her head in admiration for the well-woven words.
"We didn't start any such dissension between our houses," Sulun put in, a bit warmly. "By all the gods, we didn't even know you existed until one of your people tried to put a curse on our new walls. The first blow, sir, was yours."
"I, sir?" The high priest looked genuinely grieved. "All I know of that affair is that the crushed corpse of a man, whom one of the under-priests identified as one of our worshippers, was brought to Yotha House one night. The workmen who brought him said he'd been the victim of some magic gone awry. We buried him with proper rites, and that was an end to it. If indeed there was some ill magic done, then who suffered from it if not our poor worshipper—and, by his loss, us?"
"The man was your chief stonemason!" Sulun snapped. "He put the focus of a curse onto our walls while he worked there!"
"My dear sir!" Folweel raised his hands beseechingly. "We have not had much stoneworking done about the temple estate for many moons; if any of our masons wished to take some temporary work elsewhere, we certainly would not prevent them. As to his ill-wishing your uncompleted walls, who can say why he did so? Perhaps he hoped to gain himself more work thereby. Not all of our herd are free from the sin of greed, despite our best efforts."
"Amazing," Zeren murmured again.
Wotheng ignored him, keeping his steady stare on the priest. "And yet, sir, you loosed Yotha's fire against Deese House on the very evening of that . . . accident. The fire very nearly consumed the workmen's scaffolding. Why, Sir Priest, did you that?"
"Ah, the fire again." Folweel smiled and shook his head. "As I have already said, the god speaks of divine displeasure at the dangerous carelessness of the Sukkti wizardry, of which our stonemason died. As for the scaffolding, well, the under-priests who sent the fire may be forgiven if they were upset by their servant's death and, in their distraction, perhaps let the fire run too close to the scaffolding where the man died." He shrugged eloquently. "In any case, as I've heard, the scaffolding was not burned and no harm was done."
"Except to a bit of grass." Wotheng tapped his fingers on his belt, over and over. "Would one of those under-priests who loosed the fire that night have been this fellow Twoz, perhaps?"
The high priest frowned long in thought. "That may well have been, lord Wotheng. I shall investigate this matter."
"I should like to investigate it myself, also. Pray bring this Twoz fellow to me; I wish to question him."
"That I shall gladly do, m'lord, as soon as he returns from the north." Folweel smiled benignly. "Twoz is one of the under-priests who went north with our last trade caravan, nearly a fortnight ago. Thus he could hardly have hired Bassip to poison your miller's flour two days ago, which is why I suspect Bassip's confession on this point."
"He might, of course, have begun the plot before he left."
"Quite possibly. We shall certainly question Twoz most carefully upon his return—and, of course, send him to you as well."
"Of course." Wotheng tapped and tapped his fingers. "And do you swear, Sir Priest, on your own altar to Yotha, that you have no malice, and have done no ill-wishing, to Deese House or any thereof?"
"Certainly I will swear so." The high priest looked utterly sincere. "Our sole complaint against Deese's priesthood is, as I've said, their dangerous carelessness with magical knowledge and application."
"If that's so," Wotheng smiled tightly, "then this Bassip fellow has done your house as much harm as Deese House, what with making either the false accusations against your under-priest or else entering in a private conspiracy with him. True?"
"Quite true, m'lord."
"Why, then, I shall hand him over to your examination and judgment." Wotheng pulled himself up from the chair. "You have his confession there, and my guards have him in your courtyard. I'll also send you written account of my investigation of the poisoning, and how his guilt was discovered, if you wish."
"I shall be happy to receive them, Lord Wotheng," said Folweel, quite calmly.
"Until this Twoz returns then, I'll leave the matter in your hands. Good day, Sir Priest. Come along, good folk."
Sulun and the others had no choice but to rise, bow minimally in politeness, and follow Wotheng to the door.
At the threshold Wotheng turned. "Only one more thing, Sir Priest."
"Yes, Lord Wotheng?"
"Don't burn so much as another handspan of my land. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Lord Wotheng."
The Lord of Ashkell tramped out, letting the door swing shut behind him.
They were well past the temple's lands before anyone spoke. Zeren leaned over the edge of the wagon to catch Wotheng's attention, and asked in as quiet a voice as he could, "Lord Wotheng, why don't you just take your men-at-arms and clean that snake's nest out? I'll be happy to help."
Wotheng laughed sourly. "There speaks a soldier, right enough. Lad, I'd have done so long before this if I could—and if I hadn't thought ahead a bit. Think you: enough folk would be glad to see the last of Yotha, perhaps happy enough to join a campaign to drive them out like wolves, aye, and even accept the combat losses.
"But think a bit further down the road. In a year's time, or two, or thereabouts, the next of my lot to have any argument with me would get to thinking, 'Wotheng waited for no sure proof of crime before he turned on Yotha's priests, so what will he do to us?' Soon enough they'd find reason to grieve for Yotha's lot, and more reason to fear me. One makes secret enemies that way, my boy, great numbers of 'em. That I can't afford. No, I need proof clear and bald for all folk to see before I send swords against Yotha—or anyone. Do y'see that?"
"I . . . see." Zeren chewed his lip a little. "However, if someone else were to make an end of Yotha's priesthood . . ."
"Then I'd have to sit in judgment on the case. Be careful, lad."
"Understood." Zeren sighed. "I'm a soldier, as you said, and no ruler. These games are a bit beyond me."
"Well, let me suggest—seeing as someone has, most definitely, tried to harm your folk—that you borrow a few of my guardsmen to watch your house and walls and workmen's camp for you. I'll hire them out cheap; all I ask is that you teach them some of the tricks you've learned in your soldiering. Like you the deal?"
"Yes." Zeren grinned. "It's a pleasure doing business with you, m'lord."
"Aye, that's what the wife says." Wotheng spurred his horse forward a few paces to hear the conversation going on in the front of the wagon.
Doshi was cursing bitterly over the whole visit. "Snake-tongued, wily monster, turning our own words back on us. Carelessness! Oh, bull's balls! He sat there and accused us of dangerous magic, that—that—"
"Clever old bastard," Sulun supplied. "At least he won't be setting fires so freely again."
"But what else will he do? He has so damned much power! You know that Bassip was his hireling, and could still run around poisoning people. Do we have to watch every drop of water, every crumb of food, for the rest of our lives? What if—"
"I doubt Bassip the Wagoner will do any more poisoning," said Sulun. "To keep protesting his innocence, Folweel will have to punish the man—and none too lightly. In fact . . . seeing that Bassip's clearly guilty, no longer useful, and has some damaging tales to tell about who hired him, I suspect that the poisoner hasn't many days left to live."
"Oh." Doshi thought that over, and was silent.
"I see you understand me," Wotheng put in, startling them both. "So we're all rid of a poisoner, and Folweel won't be so free with his fires hereafter, and I rather think that this fellow Twoz won't be showing his nose in Ashkell again."
"I understand, Lord Wotheng, and I thank you," Sulun concurred. "I only worry about Folweel's next move against us."
"He might have the sense to make none." Wotheng sighed. "Well, if not, then I suspect he'll not move soon or anywhere near so boldly. I'm lending you some of my guards until next harvest comes in. No, don't thank me yet; you'll have only that long to outguess the next move from Yotha House. I trust your own house will be secure by then."
"As much as we can make it, m'lord."
"Yotha will have his own harvest to get in," Eloti recalled. "And if his donations have fallen slack of late, his priests will have to concern themselves heavily with their farming if they want to be warm and well fed this winter."
"Let's hope so," Sulun muttered.
"And if they have time left over for mischief," Wotheng added, "let's hope 'tis not much."
"Perhaps they'll have other concerns as well." Eloti smiled wickedly. "In case of any complaint, Lord Wotheng, remember that one of Yotha's admitted household did do a bit of ill-wishing on a bit of our property first."
"Oho?" Wotheng raised a shaggy eyebrow. "And could anyone do a little bit of ill-wishing right back? Even through Yotha House's famous magical defenses?"
"Certainly. One might cast a small curse upon a small part of Yotha House from the inside—especially while the high priest was too busy in a duel of wits to notice." Eloti smiled, smiled, like a cat with a whole bowl of cream.
"What sort of 'small' curse?" Wotheng asked quietly.
"Harmless but nagging irritations: scrolls that roll off desks and hide under heavy cabinets, inkpots that overturn, quill points that break, errors that tend to creep into the household accounts—that sort of thing."
Wotheng snorted, then whuffled, then laughed until he rocked in the saddle. "Small annoyances! Little irritations!" he whooped. "Oh, I have to tell the wife that one! A small curse . . . Aye, Vona, the slippery wizard deserves it."
Sulun chewed that over a while, giving Eloti a long look. "Falling inkpots," he murmured. "I remember that. So it was you, behind the wall of Entori's study?"
"Oh yes." Eloti smiled distantly into the wind. "My brother was a fool in so many ways. I had to keep track of his doings, or the house would have been ruined long ago."
"Lady Eloti, I'm most grateful you chose to come with us!"
"I'm grateful you gave me the opportunity."
Getting over the wall was the easy part. Yotha House stood amid an overgrown former orchard which hid both the approach and part of the side walls. There were fallen tree limbs aplenty, and the stone itself was weathered full of finger- and toeholds, and Arizun had his rope and grapnel in case those failed. Clearly the wizard-priests of Yotha never considered that any thief would dare try to climb into the god's house, or else they actually wanted hidden entrances for themselves.
Ziya and Arizun lay on top of the weathered wall, studied the hated house, and planned strategy.
"We could set it on fire," said Ziya. "Serve 'em right."
Arizun winced. "Not that easy," he argued. "Besides, they play with fire themselves. Don't you think they'd have precautions against it turning on them?"
"It'd be so right." Ziya hated to let the idea go.
"Maybe we could poison them right back," Arizun offered, looking half-heartedly about for the house's water supply. He cast a glance back into the orchard, where their horse was safely tied and presumably too busy eating to make any noise.
"We didn't bring any poison with us," Ziya grumbled. "We should've thought of that."
"I don't think Deese House has got any, and there wasn't time to look; not if we wanted to sneak out quick." Arizun's eye fell on something odd, something wrong-shaped, hanging in one of the trees. He looked more carefully, recognized it, and smiled to his ears. "Heyyy, I've got a better idea. Have we got a big bag?"
"The sack we brought lunch in." Ziya squirmed around to see what Arizun was looking at. "What is it?"
"Look there, that tree where I'm pointing, about halfway up. You see that thing?"
Ziya did. Her eye grew big and round, and she smothered a whoop of laughter. "Oooh, how'll we get it?"
"Some smoke, and then the bag." Arizun squirmed back down off the wall. "Come on. This'll take time and we've got to hurry."
Ziya wriggled after him, and they ran back through the old orchard stifling giggles.
Arizun proved to be right; it took a good half-hour's careful work to build a smoky fire of just the right size, keep it from being seen while they steered the smoke upward, and then shinny up the tree with the hastily emptied bag. Arizun did most of the latter work while Ziya kept lookout, and none of it was easy. Still, he came down grinning, mussed but unscathed, holding the reloaded bag at arm's length with the neck tied tight.
"Ick! Keep it away from me!" Ziya wrinkled her nose as she scattered and killed the fire.
"That was the easy part," Arizun warned her solemnly. "Now we've got to get this over the wall, sneak it into the house, and find a good place to open it—and all that without anyone seeing or hearing us."
"We'll be real quiet," Ziya promised. "And I bet I know just where to let it loose."
They reclimbed the wall, scouted the grounds below with elaborate care, and finally sneaked down Arizun's rope to the thick-shrubbed garden.
"Why do they grow all this stuff in their kitchen garden?" Ziya whispered while they paused under a large and stinky bush. "None of it's fit to eat."
"Maybe they're poison plants. Don't touch any with your bare skin."
"Won't. Look: there's the kitchen midden, so the kitchen's got to be right there."
"The kitchen'll have people in it."
"Maybe not. Let's sneak up to the window and look."
Another ten minutes' exquisitely careful stalking brought them up to an open ground floor window. They listened for long moments before daring to raise their heads and peek in.
Inside, a solitary kitchen maid raked ashes out of the cold fireplace and shovelled them into a bucket. There was no sign of anyone else about.
The underage conspirators ducked down below the window and conferred.
"She'll go out in a minute to empty the bucket," Ziya whispered. "That's when we do it. And we shut the window after, so they don't get out."
"Right." Arizun carefully untied the mouth of the bag, holding it shut only with his hand. "You watch, and tell me the minute she goes."
The wait wasn't long. The kitchen maid filled her bucket, set down the hand-shovel, and lugged her burden toward the rear door—with her back turned to the window.
"Now?" Ziya emphasized the signal with a light kick.
Arizun stood up, yanked the mouth of the bag wide open, and hurled its contents through the window.
The cubit-long wasps' nest sailed far through the air, hit a table, bounced, and rolled under a bench. The wakened wasps came spilling out, disoriented and furious.
Arizun snatched the support pole out of the window, barely taking time to see that Ziya's head was out of the way, and let the sash fall into place.
The two of them ran like rabbits back through the garden to the dangling rope and up the wall, unseen by anyone, thanks more to luck than caution. They reeled in the rope, squirmed back among the concealing branches, and peered over the wall to watch the fun.
It wasn't long in coming. The maid, her bucket emptied, turned back to the kitchen and opened the rear door.
She took one step through it, froze on the threshold, then jumped back and slammed it shut. The children nearly smothered themselves keeping quiet as they watched the maid drop the bucket, dance furiously while swatting at her hair, and finally run off through the kitchen midden squalling a dozen different names or curses.
"She'll tell somebody," Ziya grumbled quietly. "They'll come smoke the wasps out before they really spread."
"Maybe not," Arizun whispered. "Look through the windows."
For all its size, the house had been built in peaceful times. It was not designed to withstand any assault, and its walls were pierced by numerous large windows to let in air and light. Through two of them the children could see a fat and well-dressed under-priest, apparently wanting a snack or drink between meals, strolling toward the kitchen. They didn't see him reach the door and open it, but they did see the result.
A screech echoed across the kitchen garden, and doubtless through the lower corridors of Yotha House. The pudgy under-priest fled back past the windows much faster than he'd come, swatting the air around him with flapping sleeves. What seemed to be a small cloud followed him down the corridor. The under-priest flapped and squawked through a door, shut it behind him, and then discovered that he hadn't shut out all the wasps. He danced around the unlit room, knocking over small tables and chairs, then ran out still another door and was lost to view.
The wasps left back in the corridor buzzed and swirled for a moment, briefly visible in a bar of sunlight, then began scouting the rest of the ground floor. Their progress could be traced by the screeches and thuds and slammings of doors down the length of Yotha House.
On the wall, Ziya pressed both hands over her mouth and nearly choked with the effort of keeping quiet.
Arizun tugged at her sleeve. "Let's go," he whispered. "That's all we'll get to see, and we've got to get home before we're missed."
Ziya nodded red-faced assent, and they climbed back down the wall. The howls of alarm could be heard behind them as they raced through the orchard, but the two didn't let themselves go ahead and laugh until they were on the horse and well away from the lands of the temple of Yotha. Then, of course, they giggled and whooped and howled until they nearly fell off.
Fortunately, the horse was kind-tempered and patient.
In his study, Folweel rested his elbows on the table and sagged with exhaustion and relief. Gods, that had been a close thing! How in the nine hells had those damned Deese wizards guessed so quickly that the workmen had been poisoned rather than bewitched? How had they discovered the source and nature of the poison so fast and accurately? Damn them, and damn that fat fool Wotheng's unpredictable pride, and damn his clever wife who'd discovered the nature of Yotha's Flame. Now he couldn't dare loose the fire again, not on any land Wotheng claimed. As to other means, he'd have to be very, very careful. Putting the rye mould in the workmen's bread ration had seemed subtle enough, but clearly these Sukkti folk were accustomed to subtlety. Damn! What did that leave?
Magic? Folweel shuddered. Besides himself, the only truly competent magician in Yotha House was Oralro, and one had to be careful in handling him. Unlike the rest of them, Oralro truly did believe in Yotha; he wouldn't perform without convincing himself, usually by hours of meditation and prayer, that Yotha really and truly did want it done. Once decided, of course, the man was almost unstoppable; between himself and Oralro, they could cast a hefty curse. But then, who could guess how many wizards Deese House had, or how strong they were, or how trained?
For a moment Folweel seriously considered taking the Deese wizards' warning, backing away from the conflict, letting Yotha House survive on its lands and produce and what little donations the local herd would provide hereafter.
No, that way led to poverty by slow degrees; come a bad harvest or a poor year's trading in the north, and Yotha's priesthood would be no better off than the local farmers or merchants. That was no fit ending for Folweel Gilno's-son, late of Anhalas, thank you.
So, retrench and go to the secondary plan. Keep heads down, only preach warnings, keep a good ear as close to the Deese wizards as possible, and wait for the right opportunity. Sooner or later, gods willing, a chance would come. Folweel flicked a glance toward a certain drawer in a wall cabinet, behind which a hidden compartment nestled. What lay there he would use well and subtly, when the time came. Best pen another note to Duppa, warning him to be totally discreet. Bad enough they'd lost the use of Bassip; damn, but now they'd have to find him guilty and condemn him, the fool. Also, best warn the trade caravan to come home one under-priest the less, and make good excuse for the absence—good enough to satisfy Lord Wotheng, anyway. Let the Deese wizards suspect what they would, that fat son of an Ancar barbarian still ruled here, and any clever son of Anhalas could outwit such a creature while the sun still rose—so long as one catered to his barbarian pride and temper. Patience, patience: get on with the letters. Folweel sighed and reached for his quill pen.
He missed, and the shaved quill went rolling across the table. Folweel grabbed for it, and knocked awry a stack of tablets. The tablets slid across the desk, one of them bumping into the inkpot. The inkpot overturned, spilling a black lake across a stack of documents.
The high priest roared a pungent Halasian oath and shoved back his chair. The chair caught on an irregularity in the rug, and tipped over, dropping Folweel unceremoniously to the floor. He landed badly, whacking his elbow, and his arm went numb down to the fingers. He grabbed the table to lever himself erect, bumped into the tottering stack of tablets, and knocked them across the table in all directions. The inkpot fell to the floor and rolled, spilling more ink across the rug.
Folweel swore and stamped. His foot hit a fallen stylus, which rolled, nearly dropping him to the floor again. He scrambled away from the table and its small disaster, intending to reach the bell pull and call the servants to clean the mess. He made two steps across the floor before the rug skidded on the polished boards and slipped out from under him. Down he went again, instinctively grabbing for the nearest support, which happened to be a chair. He hit it wrong, and the chair fell over with him, its seat back catching him a painful whack on the collarbone.
A curse! Folweel realized, as he shook pain streaks from his vision and contemplated the floor under his chin. They sneaked a curse past our house defenses! Must have done it just now, right here . . .
But how in the nine hells could they have done it? They'd all been talking, arguing, concentrating on trying to catch him in some slip, some contradiction or admission. Nobody could do magic in that frame of mind, but all of them had—
Wait, not all of them.
That woman! Their teacher at Wotheng's: she just sat, said -nothing. . . .
Folweel pulled himself up to all fours and crawled, carefully, very carefully, across the floor to the wall. He leaned on it as he got to his feet with infinite caution and reached for the bell pull, inwardly seething at how neatly he'd been tricked. Oh yes, he'd heard that the Sukkti wizards taught magic to their women too, but who could believe they'd trust a witch with something so subtle and difficult? She'd done it somehow, sitting there so politely quiet while the men argued, never giving a sign of sorcery at work. She'd done it then, while he was busy juggling Wotheng and the Deese priests: set a curse, right in this room, probably centering it right there at his worktable. How? How had she done it? He'd need Oralro's help to find out. Swearing, Folweel yanked on the bell pull.
It tore loose from its moorings and dropped on top of him like a dusty snake.
"Oralro!" Folweel howled, forgetting that no one could hear very far through that thick officium door. "Oralro! Yotha's flaming balls, somebody fetch Oralro!"
Nobody answered, but he could hear thumpings and shoutings from downstairs. Could that be the racket of hauling in Bassip, and him knowing or guessing what was intended for him? Or, worse, could the curse have spread beyond this room already? Folweel made his way to the door and pulled it open.
In through the open door came the wasps.
Two days later, word was brought to Lord Wotheng that under-priest Twoz had died of plague in the north; and that Bassip the Carter had indeed been found guilty of poisoning his employer's flour, and condemned to death by Yotha's Flame.
Wotheng shivered, and shut the informing parchment away.