“We’ll remember,” Will said.
The farmer grunted again. “I bid you good night then. Rest well.” He made a shooing motion for them to leave the farmhouse yard.
“Same to you,” Will said. He and Alyss stepped back to the gate, let themselves out and closed it carefully behind them. Satisfied that they were outside the fence, the farmer closed the door. They heard a heavy lock shooting home on the inside. The two dogs remained on the doorstep. They dropped to the ground, lying with their noses on their paws as they watched the two strangers lead their horses to the barn.
Tired by hours of hard traveling, they slept soundly. Will woke once after midnight, hearing the steady patter of rain on the roof. He pulled his blankets higher around his chin, glad they were sheltered from the weather, and went back to sleep. There was something very soothing about listening to rain when you were warm and dry in your blankets.
It was daylight when he woke again, hearing a rooster crowing and hens clucking in the barnyard. The rain had stopped but there was a fresh, wet smell to the air.
By daylight, the farmer showed a more friendly face. His wife gave them a substantial breakfast. Will looked at the pile of eggs, bacon, potatoes and toasted bread with a smile.
“Farmers eat well,” he commented.
Alyss raised an eyebrow.“That’s because they work harder than you.”
Before they left, they asked if the family had seen any sign of Roamers in the area.
“Two days ago,” the farmer answered promptly.“They wanted to camp on our property but I moved them on. Things have a habit of going missing when Roamers are around.”
“I know,” Will said. “I’m missing a dog.”
The farmer scratched his nose thoughtfully. “Aye, I can imagine. Well, I’d waste no time catching up with them. A Roamer camp is no healthy place for a dog.”
He didn’t elaborate, but Will had no doubt what he was referring to. They said their farewells and were on the road two hours after sunrise. This time, they pushed the pace up, trotting the horses for twenty minutes, then walking them, dismounted, then trotting again. Each hour, they took a ten-minute rest, then pushed on again. They didn’t stop for a midday meal but ate dried beef and fruit, and hard bread, while they rode.
Their efforts paid off. When they stopped at sunset in a small hamlet, they discovered that the Roamers were now only a day ahead of them. They paid to sleep in the kitchen of one of the larger houses, as the hamlet had no inn. They ate and turned in early, and then, before sunrise the following morning, they were back on the road again, keeping the same fast pace.
As the sun came up and tendrils of steam began to rise from the damp grass, Tug shook his mane violently.
We’ll catch up to them today. I feel it in my bones.
Will hesitated, glancing sidelong at Alyss. He wasn’t sure how she’d react if he began talking to his horse.
“Go ahead and answer him if you want to,” she said, her gaze fixed on the road straight ahead.
He regarded her in surprise. “Can you hear him?”
She shook her head, smiling. “No. But Pauline has told me you Rangers all speak to your horses—and you get that furtive look about you if anyone is within earshot.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure if he should continue now and answer Tug. Their communication was a very private matter between them.
No need to answer me.
“That’s all right then,” he said. The reply was one that both Tug and Alyss could take as being addressed to themselves. They rode on in silence for several kilometers, Alyss suppressing a smile.
5
THE ROAMERS CONTINUED TO HEAD SOUTH. WILL AND ALYSS found the signs of their previous day’s encampment off to the side of the road in an open field. The soft ground showed signs of wheel marks left by the caravans, and there were several blackened circles in the grass where the Roamers had lit their fires. Will dismounted and felt the ashes.
“Cold,” he said. “They’re still a good way ahead of us.”
But it was obvious that they were catching up. Perhaps, as Alyss suggested, the Roamers were slowing down, having left the immediate scene of their theft behind. Will nodded. It was a possibility.
Midway through the afternoon of the third day, they caught up with the caravan. Alyss and Will were on a long, flat stretch of road when they rounded a bend and saw the encampment only a few hundred meters ahead. Five of the strange, curved-top caravans were parked in a flat, open space to form a rough square that delineated the camp. People were moving from one to another and several fires were sending slow spirals of gray smoke into the air. Somewhere, someone was playing a zither. The music was in a haunting minor key and the rhythm had a stirring, strangely foreign feeling to it.
Alyss’s first instinct when she saw the camp was to curb her horse, but Will saw the movement of her hand on the reins and stopped her in time.
“Keep riding,” he said. “We don’t want them to think we were looking for them. We’ll head for that village on the hill.”
They could see the roofs of a small village above the trees. More wood smoke rose from their chimneys. Will studied the camp as they rode slowly past. There were several dogs visible, but none of them showed Ebony’s distinctive black-and-white coloring. One of them barked halfheartedly at them and was rewarded with a kick from a Roamer passing close to it. It whined and scuttled under a caravan.
“Should you be looking at them?” Alyss asked. “Won’t it give us away?”
Will shook his head. “It’d be more unnatural to ignore them,” he said. “They’re used to strangers staring at them. If we looked straight ahead, they might suspect something.”
He could make out more detail now. The horses that had pulled the caravans were enclosed in a small pen, surrounded by a hastily erected wooden fence—long beams placed over X-shaped supports. To one side, three women were bent over a large tub, working busily. As he watched, one of them stood, wrung out a brightly colored shirt and pegged it onto a rope line strung between two trees. Then she went back to washing another item. Already, several shirts and items of underclothing hung damply on the line.
“Washing day,” Alyss remarked.
“Looks like they may be settling here for a few days,” Will said. “Not surprising. They’ve been moving fast since they left Wensley. They’re probably ready for a rest.”
Four men sat around a fire on low stools, passing a flagon from hand to hand. They stared at the two travelers as they rode slowly past. Even at a distance, the two young riders could sense the unfriendliness in the stares.
“Looks like visitors aren’t welcome,” Will said.
They were past the camp now and it would be showing too much interest if they were to turn in the saddle and stare back at it. But Will now had a good idea of the layout.
“I would have thought they might have camped closer to the trees,” Alyss said. The camp was surrounded by several hundred meters of open ground on all sides. “They’d get more shelter then.”
Will shook his head. “Staying out there on open ground makes it that much harder to get close to the camp without being seen,” he pointed out. “Halt was right about these people. They’re not going to be easy to fool.”
He had already decided that he would come back to the camp that night to reconnoiter. But now he had some misgivings. If the Roamers were as cunning as Halt had said, it might be difficult to get close enough to hear anything useful—even for a skilled Ranger. And there were those blasted dogs as well. They’d be prowling the campsite at night, on the alert for strange sounds or smells. Dogs could make things very difficult for an honest intruder, he thought wryly.
The village on the hill had a small tavern, but no inn. However, the tavern keeper let out space in his stables for travelers, and Will and Alyss were happy to settle for another night rolled in their blankets on beds of straw. The fact that they weren’t in the main building also meant it would be easier for Will to slip away that night
and study the Roamers’ camp.
They ate first, then retired to the stable, ostensibly to sleep. As Will readied his equipment, he was surprised by Alyss’s stepping into the stall he was using as a bedroom. She was wearing dark tights and a black thigh-length jacket, belted at the waist. Her heavy Courier’s dagger was sheathed at her side and she also wore the dark brown cloak.
It was obvious that she intended to accompany him and he opened his mouth to voice his refusal, but Alyss held up a hand to stop him.
“I’m coming,” she said. “Think about what Halt said. I’m logically going to be the one to make contact with the Roamers. It makes sense if I know what I’m getting into.”
“Yes,” said Will, “but—”
“I won’t try to get close,” she said. “I’ll leave that to you. I’ll stay in the cover of the trees, seeing as much as I can. Then you can fill me in on the details.”
Will hesitated. What she said made sense, he realized. And he could rely on Alyss not to do anything rash. He nodded briskly.
“All right. Let’s get moving.”
They avoided the main street, slipping down a side alley to a service road that ran parallel and led out of the village. Once they were away from the small cluster of buildings, the road petered out and they were walking in an open, recently harvested field. The edge of the trees was a bare fifty meters away.
Their boots crunched softly on the brittle, newly mown stubble of the field as they hurried toward the Roamer camp. For the last half kilometer, they kept to the shelter and concealing darkness of the woods, until they came to a point where they could see the camp.
The fires were burning in two of the fireplaces, and two of the caravans had windows lit by yellow lantern light. The other three were dark. There were still several figures seated in the open space around one of the fires—two of them were men and the third was a woman.
“Stay here,” Will breathed in Alyss’s ear. “I’m going to try to get closer.”
She nodded and he slid away from the tree that they were sheltering behind, crawling on his belly through the long, damp grass. There were few bushes or trees that he could use for shelter, so he moved slowly, sometimes waiting in a spot for several minutes until a cloud scudded across the sky, bringing a patch of moving darkness with it.
He was fifty meters from the camp when one of the dogs raised its head and yapped tentatively. He froze where he was. He heard a Roamer man call to the dog, then a grunt of exertion as he rose from his low seat to peer out into the darkness.
“See anything?” the woman asked him.
“The fire’s too bright.”
“The dog heard something, else he wouldn’t have yapped,” she said.
He snorted dismissively at her. “The dog’s a fool. Probably heard a badger or a weasel.”
“Maybe you should go look,” she suggested, and he reacted angrily to the words.
“Maybe you should! You have a good idea like that, you should be the one who does it.”
“I’m not a man,” she said. There was a defensive tone in her voice and Will recalled Halt’s words about how Roamer men were dismissive of their women. “It’s not my job.”
“That’s right, woman. Your job is to clean and cook and mend my clothes and keep your mouth shut. So I suggest you get on with that last part now!”
“I’m going to bed,” she said, anger in her voice.
Her husband watched her go. “Women!” he said disgustedly. “You’re lucky you’re not married, Jerome.”
“Don’t I know it,” the man called Jerome answered heavily. He shook the jug experimentally, decided it was empty and tossed it aside.
His companion yawned and stretched. “Well, I’m for bed too,” he said after a few moments. He rose and walked unsteadily toward the caravan his wife had entered, stumbling on the stairs, then slamming the door behind him as he entered. Obviously, Will thought, that hadn’t been the only jug they’d drunk that night.
With only Jerome left staring into the fire, there was no chance of overhearing any more. Slowly, Will backed away from the camp and slid silently back to the trees where Alyss waited.
“Well?” she said expectantly. He shrugged.
“Didn’t hear much that was useful to us,” he said. “Except Halt’s right about their attitude to women. It seems Roamer women aren’t expected to have an opinion on anything.”
“So what will we do?” Alyss asked.
Will hesitated for a few minutes.“We need to know more about them,” he said finally. “What they do. How they behave. What their routines are.” He chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his lip. He was very conscious of Halt’s warning that the Roamers would be a difficult target. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake that might tip them off to the fact that they were being pursued.
“We’ll come back tomorrow and just watch them for a few hours, see if there’s any weakness we can exploit. For now, let’s go back to the tavern. I could use a cup of coffee to warm me up.”
Staying low, they crept quietly away, heading back into the trees. When they could no longer see the lights of the camp through the thick screen of tree trunks, they straightened and picked up the pace.
Back at the village, they slipped unnoticed into the tavern. It was late but there were still a dozen customers drinking and talking loudly—as people tend to do when alcohol is involved. Three men sat at a table near the bar, playing dice. As Will and Alyss waited for their coffee, Alyss watched the progress of the game with mild interest. One of the players had just won a large hand and was raking in his winnings when he became aware of her scrutiny. He looked up and smiled at her. After all, he was in a good mood—and Alyss was a remarkably beautiful girl.
“Evening, gorgeous,” he said to her. “Looks like you brought me luck. Care to sit with us?”
Alyss smiled at him. His tone was friendly, and she could hardly expect courtly manners from a simple farm worker. “Afraid not,” she said. “My boyfriend might get lonely.”
“He can join us too,” said one of the other players. “We always welcome strangers—and their money.”
They all laughed and Will smiled at them as well. “I think not, gentlemen. My purse is too thin already.”
“Not fond of gambling?” the third man at the table asked and Will shook his head, smiling sadly.
“Too fond of it, I’m afraid. That’s why my purse is so thin.”
That elicited a sympathetic laugh from the gamblers. They knew that condition all too well.
“Pity about that,” said the first man to have spoken. “You’d have a chance to win some big money on Sevenday. There’s a d—”
But before he could complete the statement, one of the others seized his wrist.
“That’s enough now, Randell!” the other man said hastily. “No need to go blabbing about it to the world!”
“What? Oh . . . no! Sorry!” The man seemed taken aback by the warning. He dropped his eyes from Will’s gaze. “Forget I spoke,” he mumbled.
His friend smiled apologetically. “Ah, Randell here runs on a bit at times, young feller. Pay him no heed. No heed at all.”
“Of course.” Will spread his hands to indicate that he understood. Their coffee had arrived and he took that as an opportunity to finish the conversation. “Good night, gentlemen,” he said, and he and Alyss turned toward a table at the back of the room. As they made their way through the chairs and tables, he overheard a few more words of conversation from the dice players.
“Are you mad, Randell?” asked the third man. He was obviously trying to keep his voice low but the intensity of his words made them carry to Will’s attentive ears. “You don’t go telling strangers about the . . .” He stopped himself, then finished, “The you-know-what.”
“Sorry! Sorry!” It was Randell now, upset at his carelessness. “Still, no damage done and they look harmless enough. Not as if . . .”
The rest of his words were lost in the low hubbub of voices in the tavern
. As they sat, Will and Alyss exchanged meaningful looks. Then she smiled at him.
“Laugh,” she said. “Laugh out loud. Now.”
Puzzled, he threw back his head and laughed. She joined in, then touched his hand fondly and took a sip of her coffee. Still smiling, she said quietly, “Don’t want them to think we’re talking about what just happened.”
He nodded, smiling broadly. It seemed strange to be talking seriously while keeping a happy smile fixed on his face. But Alyss was experienced in this sort of deception and he allowed himself to be guided by her.
She leaned toward him and ran her hand fondly down his cheek. “Let’s try to look as if we’re having a romantic chat,” she said.
He nodded, smiling still, and took her hand gently, touching his lips to it.
“What did you make of all that?” she asked, then looked shyly around the room, as if embarrassed that people might be watching this show of affection. “Keep smiling,” she admonished as she saw his brow furrowing thoughtfully. Hastily, he adjusted his expression.
“Something’s happening on Sevenday. Something that involves gambling and the chance to win big money.”
“So,” she said, brushing her hair to one side in a coquettish gesture, “it’s something out of the ordinary. What does that suggest?”
He could tell they were thinking along the same lines. “Dogfighting,” he said. “That’s why the Roamers have settled in for a while. They’ll be running a dogfight somewhere in the forest on Sevenday.”
“Tomorrow is Twainday,” Alyss said thoughtfully. “That gives us a little time.”
“Not much,” Will said. All pretense of smiling and romance was gone now. “We still don’t know how to find Ebony. We need to get busy tomorrow.”
6
SHORTLY AFTER SUNRISE, THEY WERE BACK IN THEIR OBSERVATION post of the previous night, watching the Roamers’ camp. For some hours, nothing out of the ordinary seemed to occur. The Roamers went about mundane day-to-day tasks, like lighting fires, preparing breakfast, cleaning, and mending items of equipment and clothing.