half-smothered guffaw.
“Perhaps you would tell us what happened to our belongings then,” Avila said. “They seem to have been misplaced.”
The man smiled, but his eyes had the glitter of sea ice, no gleam of humour to warm them. “I might have thought some gratitude was in order. My men, after all, saved your lives.”
“For which we are duly grateful. Now our things, where are they?”
“Safe in the tent of the army commander, never fear. My turn for questions. Why were you fleeing Charibon?”
“What makes you think we were fleeing the place?” Avila countered.
“You were perhaps taking a constitutional in the blizzard, then?”
“It is none of your business,” the young Inceptine snapped.
“Oh, but it is. I saved your lives. You’d be frozen wolf-bait had my men not found you. I believe I am due an answer to whatever questions I have the urge to pose, plus some common courtesy in their answering.”
The two monks were silent for a few seconds. It was Albrec who finally spoke.
“We apologize for our lack of manners. We are indeed grateful for our lives, but we have been under some strain of late. Yes, we were fleeing the monastery-city. It was an internal matter, a—a power struggle in which we became embroiled through no fault of our own. Plus, there was a heretical side to it…”
“I am intrigued,” the Fimbrian said. “Go on.”
“I saved certain forbidden texts from destruction,” Albrec said, his mind racing as it concocted the tissue of half truth and outright lie. “They were discovered, and we had to flee or be burned as heretics. That is all there is to it.”
Barbius nodded. “I thought as much. The text you were carrying with you—is it one of these heretical documents?”
Albrec’s heart leapt. “Yes, yes it is. It still exists, then?”
“The marshal has it in his tent, as I told you.” He seemed to lose interest in them. His gaze flicked out to the surrounding campfires where his men lay close to the flames in weary sleep. “I must go. Call by the marshal’s tent in the morning and you shall have your belongings back. You may stay with the column as long as you wish, but be warned: we travel to Ormann Dyke, and the longer you remain with the army the worse the roads will become, the less easy for you to make your own way in the wilderness.”
“If you could spare us a couple of mules we could be on our way by tomorrow,” Albrec said eagerly.
Barbius’s cold eyes sized up the little monk squarely. “Whither will you go?”
“To Torunn.”
“Why?”
Albrec was momentarily confused, sure he had said too much, given something away. He faltered, and it was Avila who spoke, his voice dripping with scorn.
“Why, to throw in our lot with Himerius and his fellow heretics, of course. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, as they say. It’s a hard world, soldier. Even clerics have to rub along the best they can.”
Barbius smiled again. “Indeed they do. I will see you in the morning, then.” He rose easily, and it was Avila who called him back as he turned to go.
“Wait! Where is this commander’s tent? How shall we find it? This camp is as big as a town.”
The Fimbrian shrugged, walking away. “Ask for Barbius of Neyr’s headquarters. He commands the army, or so I am told.”
THREE
“I don’t like it, my lady,” Brienne was saying as she fussed with the pins in Isolla’s hair. “No one will tell me anything, not even the pageboys.”
“If they won’t spill their confidences to you, there is truly something wrong with the world,” Isolla said wryly. “That’s enough, Brienne. I can’t bear it when you fuss.”
“You’ve an impression to make,” Brienne said stubbornly. “Would you have these Hebrians think you were come from some backwater court where the ladies still wore their hair down on their shoulders?”
Isolla smiled. There was no arguing with her maidservant sometimes. Brienne was a minx of a woman, tiny and slim with raven
Stephanie Pitcher Fishman