Player's Ruse Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Mayhap Fisk and I should investigate,” I said. “Wait here, Rosamund. ’Tis less than a quarter mile off. It shouldn’t take long.”
    Fisk grimaced. “Even if it is some shepherd’s hut, what could we do? He almost certainly got out, and if he didn’t, he’s dead. He’s probably on the road ahead of us.”
    Wrongness. Wrongness. Wrongness. It wasn’t that. But Fisk knows all too well how capricious these warnings can be.
    “The horses will be chilled,” said Rose, “if we wait much longer.”
    A cold droplet trickled down my spine. We were all chilled, though Rose was too brave to complain on her own account. And Fisk was right: Whatever was wrong, ’twas unlikely I could fix it.
    But as we rode past the ridge, and on toward Huckerston, I kept turning back to gaze at the flames till a bend in the road took them out of sight.
    The sense of warning passed in time, as such things do, and we reached the town walls before darkness fell. The rain had lightened to a drizzle by then, though ’twas too late to give much aid to our sodden clothing.
    Most towns in this tranquil time have outgrown the defensive walls that ringed them before the first High Liege united the warring barons and brought peace to the realm at large. I wondered why Huckerston hadn’t. There was obviously no local law against it, for several inns and taverns had spread onto the main road outside the big, old gate, but there was no suburb of workshops and warehouses, which are usually the first buildings to move outward, leaving the older parts of the cities to the rich and the poor.
    Our first concern was to find an inn as soon as might be. The ones outside the gate looked expensive enough to draw a yelp of protest from Fisk, before he remembered that Rose was paying.
    Even had we paid, I’d not have quibbled, for we were chilled to the bone and weary too. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones. All the inns on the main road were filled with storm-stayed travelers. The host of the first house gave us directions to an inn in town called the Slippery Wheel. He said ’twas unlikely to be full, for ’twas more tavern than inn and few knew to seek rooms there. He added that ’twas respectable enough for the lady and that the host would take good care of us if we said Dell Potter had sent us. So we gathered ourselves for the last leg of the journey and clattered through the gates and onto the cobbled streets of Huckerston.
    Even in the dim light I could tell ’twas different from the towns I was accustomed to, for all the buildings were built of brick, in the same reds, oranges, and golds of the dusty roads. The better buildings were roofed with arched tiles, often of a different shade than the brick that made up the walls. I had never seen this before, and watching the rain pour off those roofs in torrents, I wondered how expensive it might be.
    The common buildings were roofed in the familiar thatch, which dripped mournfully. At least the city had installed a modern system of street drains, and a good one too, judging by the way the flooding water rushed through the grates.
    They didn’t have streetlamps, and the old-fashioned torches that lined Huckerston’s streets shed no light now. But most of the windows we passed were of the new, thin glass, and as folk lit their lamps and candles, they provided enough light for us to make our way to the Slippery Wheel.
    ’Twas a slow night for the tavern, and the host himself came out to assure us that Joe Potter would take good care of us, just as Dell had promised.
    “Kin of yours, is he?” Fisk asked.
    I wondered myself, though aside from the snowy apron of his trade this lean, bald man bore no resemblance to Master Dell. Now he laughed, and I heard a touch of real amusement behind his professional cheer.
    “I can’t blame you for thinking it, sir, but every fifth man in this town’s named Potter, and most of us no kin to each other at all. But come in, and we’ll get you settled in