Doubleborn Read Online Free PDF Page B

said.
    “You can smell it, can you?”
    “Yes. Are you making it to keep people away?”
    “What do you think? Where’s it coming from?”
    Tim walked up the passageway and back again.
    “It’s coming from the college,” he said. “Not from down here.”
    “That’s right,” said Vengeabil. “You’ve been so used to it that you hardly noticed. When you did, you thought it was from my kitchen. Now you’ve been away you can smell it.”
    “What is it?”
    “It’s rotten. It’s decaying. It’s like a piece of meat left on the road. It stinks. The college is dying. That’s what you can smell. Only you have to step outside to notice it.”
    “Why? Why’s it like that?”
    “Ask Frastfil.”
    Tim watched the kitchen door close. He stood for a while, thinking about all that he had learned in there. He braced himself against the stench and climbed the stairs back into the college.
    It took two days. They stopped often on their journey. Winny gave Tamrin a brass bell with a wooden handle.
    “Ring this,” she told her when they drew near to a group of cottages.
    Tamrin swung the bell and enjoyed the sound of the clapper against the metal, liked the feel of the reverberations in her hand.
    “Old iron,” shouted Winny.
    Tamrin laughed at the pleasure of the noise.
    “Old iron,” she joined in.
    People came to their doors and waved. Winny waved back to some of them, stopped at others who beckoned her to them. She sharpened their knives and axes and scythes with a small grindstone on the back of the cart. She let Tamrin turn the handle while she held the blades against the stone. Some paid her in cash, others in kind. She took apples and bread, cheese, cold meat, squares of old linen, a straw hat, anything that might be eaten or traded.
    “Got anything for me?” she asked everyone. And she exchanged coins or goods for anything made of iron or copper.
    Tamrin kept to the cart and wouldn’t go into the houses even when they pressed her to join them for a drink of cordial or a meal. So Winny didn’t go in either. She let them bring food out to the cart and she sat there with Tamrin.
    A couple of times Winny spoke quietly to a householder and listened.
    “He’s passed this way,” she told Tamrin. “He’s on his way home. No one knows who he is but not enough people travel this way to pass without notice.”
    They rested in the hottest part of the day, under the shade of trees. The cart was heavy to push. Tamrin wished she could magic it along a bit more easily but she held back. Winny was very strong and took most of the strain.
    Tamrin took a long time getting her courage up to ask Winny the question.
    “Are you a tinker?” she asked.
    Winny sucked at a sweet grass stem.
    “What do you think?”
    “I don’t know. Sorry I asked.”
    Winny patted her arm.
    “I don’t mind. There’s nothing wrong with tinkers. They do a good job and they’re not the thieves and liars people say they are. Not most of them, anyway. But they mend pots and pans. I just collect scrap metal.”
    “So are you?”
    Winny squinted at Tamrin. The sun was mid-sky.
    “You know I’m not, don’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “So why are you asking me?”
    Tamrin shook her head.
    “You want me to tell you I’m not a tinker and then tell you what I am, don’t you?” she laughed.
    “Don’t make fun of me,” said Tamrin.
    “I’m not making fun of you. I like you. I think it’s funny that you didn’t ask. It’s a wizard question.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean that if most people want to know something they ask, straight out. That’s not a wizard way. Wizards always come at things sideways.”
    Tamrin laughed now.
    “It’s true,” she admitted. “I suppose it’s the way we’re taught.”
    “Is it just that? There must be a reason.”
    Tamrin thought about it and decided to tell the woman the truth, and that really isn’t the wizard way.
    “It’s because things look different from the side,” she said. “If