MOONSEYE IS a small but fortified town on the border between the Six Duchies and the Mountain Kingdom. It is a provisioning town and traditional stopping place for trade caravans using the Chelika trail to the Wide Yale pass and the lands beyond the Mountain Kingdom. It was from Moonseye that Prince Chivalry negotiated his last great treaty with Prince Rurisk of the Mountain Kingdom. On the heels of finalizing this treaty came the discovery that Chivalry was father to an illegitimate son conceived with a woman from that area and already some six years old. King-in-Waiting Chivalry concluded his negotiations and immediately rode home to Buckkeep, where he offered his queen, father, and subjects his deepest apologies for his youthful failure, and abdicated the throne to avoid creating any confusion as to the line of succession.
Burl kept his word. By day I walked, flanked by guards, my hands bound behind me. I was housed in a tent by night and my hands unbound that I might feed myself. No one was unnecessarily cruel to me. I do not know if Burl had ordered that I be strictly left alone, or if enough tales of the Witted, poisoning Bastard had been spread that no one ventured to bother me. In any case, my trek to Moonseye was no more unpleasant than foul weather and military provisions made it. I was sequestered from the pilgrims so I knew nothing of how Kettle, Starling, and the others fared. My guards did not talk among themselves in my presence, so I had not even camp gossip for rumors. I dared not ask after any of them. Even to think of Starling and what they had done to her made me ill. I wondered if anyone would pity her enough to straighten and bind her fingers. I wondered if Burl would allow it. It surprised me how often I thought of Kettle and the children of the pilgrims.
I did have Nighteyes. My second night in Burl's custody, after a hasty feeding of bread and cheese, I was left alone in a corner of a tent that housed six men-at-arms as well. My wrists and ankles were well bound, but not cruelly tight, and a blanket flung over me. My guards soon became engrossed in a game of dice by the candle that lit the tent. It was a tent of good goat leather, and they had floored it with cedar boughs for their own comfort, so I did not suffer much from cold. I was aching and weary and the food in my belly made me drowsy. Yet I struggled to stay awake. I quested out toward Nighteyes, almost fearful of what I might find. I had had only the barest traces of his presence in my mind since I had bid him sleep. Now I reached for him and was jolted to feel him quite close by. He revealed himself as if stepping through a curtain, and seemed amused at my shock.
How long have you been able to do that?
A while. I had been giving thought to what the bear-man told us. And when we were apart, I came to know I had a life of my own. I found a place of my own in my mind.
I sensed a hesitancy to his thought, as if he expected me to rebuke him for it. Instead I embraced him, wrapping him in the warmth. I felt for him. I feared you would die.
I fear the same for you, now. Almost humbly he added, But I lived. And now at least one of us is free, to rescue the other.
I am glad you are safe. But I fear there is little you can do for me. And if they catch sight of you, they will not rest until they have killed you.
Then they shall not catch sight of me, he promised lightly. He carried me off hunting with him that night.
The next day it took all of my concentration to stay on my feet and moving. A storm blew up. We attempted a military pace despite the snowy trails we followed and the shrieking winds that constantly buffeted us with threats of snow. As we moved away from the river and up into the foothills, the trees and underbrush were thicker. We heard the wind in the trees above us, but felt it less. The cold became drier and more bitter at night the higher we went. The food I was given was enough to keep me on my feet and alive, but little more. Burl rode at the head of his procession, followed by his mounted guard. I walked behind in the midst of my guards. Behind us came the pilgrims flanked by regulars. Behind all that trailed the baggage train.
At the end of each day's march, I was confined to a swiftly pitched tent, fed, and then ignored until the next day's rising. My conversations were limited to accepting my meals, and to nighttime thought-sharing with Nighteyes. The hunting on this side of the river was lush compared to where we had been. He found game almost effortlessly and was well on his way to rebuilding his old strength. He found it no trouble at all to keep pace with us and still have time to hunt. Nighteyes had just torn into a rabbit's entrails on my fourth night as a prisoner when he suddenly lifted his head and snuffed the wind.
What is it?
Hunters. Stalkers. He abandoned his meat and stood. He was on a hillside above Burl's camp. Moving toward it, slipping from tree to tree, were at least two dozen shadowy figures. A dozen carried bows. As Nighteyes watched, two crouched in the cover of a dense thicket. In a few moments, his keen nose caught the scent of smoke. A tiny fire glowed dully at their feet. They signaled the others, who spread out, noiseless as shadows. Archers sought vantage points while the others slipped into the camp below. Some went toward the picket lines of the animals. With my own ears, I heard stealthy footsteps outside the tent where I lay trussed. They did not pause. Nighteyes smelled the stench of burning pitch. An instant later, two flaming bolts went winging through the night. They struck Burl's tent. In a moment, a great cry arose. As sleeping soldiers stumbled out of their tents and headed toward the blaze, the archers on the hillside rained arrows down on them.
Burl stumbled out of the burning tent, wrapping his blankets about himself as he came and bellowing orders. "They're after the Bastard, you fools! Guard him at all costs!" Then an arrow went skipping past him over the frozen ground. He cried out and flung himself flat into the shelter of a supply wagon. A breath later two arrows thudded into it.
The men in my tent had leaped up at the first commotion. I had largely ignored them, preferring Nighteyes' view of the events. But when the sergeant burst into the tent, his first order was "Drag him outside before they fire the tent. Keep him down. If they come for him, cut his throat!"
The sergeant's orders were followed quite literally. A man knelt on my back, his bared knife set to my throat. Six others surrounded us. All about us, in the darkness, other men scrambled and shouted. There was a second outcry as another tent went up in flames, joining Burl's, which now blazed merrily and lit his end of the camp well. The first time I tried to lift my head and see what was happening, the young soldier on my back slammed my face back into the frozen ground energetically. I resigned myself to ice and gravel and looked through the wolf's eyes instead.
Had not Burl's guard been so intent on keeping me, and on protecting Burl, they might have perceived that neither of us were the targets of this raid. While arrows fell about Burl and his blazing tent, at the dark end of the camp the silent invaders were freeing smugglers and pilgrims and ponies. Nighteyes' spying had shown me that the archer who had fired Burl's tent wore the Holdfast features as clearly as Nik did. The smugglers had come after their own. The captives trickled out of the camp like meal from a holed sack while Burl's men guarded him and me.
Burl's assessment of his men had been correct. More than one man-at-arms waited out that raid in the shadow of a wagon or a tent. I did not doubt that they'd fight well if personally attacked, but no one ventured to lead a sortie against the archers on the hill. I suspected then that Captain Mark had not been the only man to have an arrangement with the smugglers. The fire they did return was ineffective, for the blazing tents in the camp had ruined their night vision, whereas the fire made silhouettes and targets of the archers who stood to return the smugglers' fire.
It was over in a remarkably short time. The archers on the hill continued to loose arrows down on us as they slipped away, and that fire held the attention of Burl's men. When the rain of missiles abruptly ceased, Burl immediately roared for his sergeant, demanding to know if I had been kept. The sergeant looked warningly about at his men, and then called back that they'd held them off me.
The rest of that night was miserable. I spent a good part of it facedown in the snow while a half-dressed Burl snorted and stamped all around me. The burning of his tent had consumed most of his personal supplies. When the escape of the pilgrims and smugglers was discovered, it seemed to be of secondary importance to the fact that no one else in camp had clothing of a size that would fit Burl.
Three other tents had been fired. Burl's riding horse had been taken in addition to the smugglers' ponies. For all Burl's bellowed threats of dire vengeance, he made no effort to organize a pursuit. Instead he contented himself with kicking me several times. It was nearly dawn before he thought to ask if the minstrel, too, had been taken. She had. And that, he declared, proved that I had been the true target of the raid. He tripled the guard around me for the rest of that night, and for the next two days' journey to Moonseye. Not surprisingly, we saw no more of our attackers. They had got all they wished and vanished into the foothills. I had no doubt that Nik had boltholes on this side of the river as well. I could not feel any warmth toward the man who had sold me but I confessed to myself a grudging admiration that he had carried off the pilgrims with him when he escaped. Perhaps Starling could make a song of that.
Moonseye seemed a small town hidden in a fold of the mountains' skirts. There were few outlying farmsteads, and the cobbled streets began abruptly just outside the wooden palisade that surrounded the town. A sentry issued a formal challenge to us there from a tower above the walls. It was only after we had entered it that I appreciated what a thriving little city it was. I knew from my lessons with Fedwren that Moonseye had been an important military outpost for the Six Duchies before it had become a stopping place for caravans bound for the other side of the Mountains. Now traders in amber and furs and carved ivory passed through Moonseye on a regular basis and enriched it in their passing. Or so it had been in the years since my father had succeeded in negotiating an open-pass treaty with the Mountain Kingdom.
Regal's new hostilities had changed all that. Moonseye had reverted to the military holding it had been in my grandfather's day. The soldiers that moved through the streets wore Regal's gold and brown instead of Buck's blue, but soldiers are soldiers. The merchants had the weary, wary air of men rich only in their sovereign's scrip and wondering how redeemable it would prove in the long run. Our procession attracted the attention of the locals, but it was a surreptitious curiosity they showed us. I wondered when it had become bad luck to wonder too much about the King's business.
Despite my weariness, I looked about the town with interest. This was where my grandfather had brought me to abandon me to Verity's care, and where Verity had passed me on to Burrich. I had always wondered if my mother's folk had lived near Moonseye or if we had traveled far to seek out my father. But I looked in vain for any landmark or sign that would awaken some memory of my lost childhood in me. Moonseye looked to me both as strange and as familiar as any small town I had ever visited.
The town was thick with soldiers. Tents and lean-tos had been thrown up against every wall. It looked as if the population had recently increased a great deal. Eventually we came to a courtyard that the animals in the baggage train recognized as home. We were drawn up and then dismissed with military precision. My guard marched me off to a squat wooden building. It was windowless and forbidding. Inside was a single room where an old man sat on a low stool by a wide hearth where a welcoming fire burned. Less welcoming were three doors with small barred windows on them that opened off that room. I was shown into one, my bonds summarily cut, and then I was left alone.
As prisons go, it was the nicest one I'd ever been in. I caught myself in that thought and bared my teeth to it in something that was not quite a grin. There was a rope-laced bedstead with a bag of straw on it for a mattress. There was a chamber pot in the corner. Some light came in from the barred window, and some warmth. Not much of either, but it was still a great deal warmer than outside. It had not the severity of a serious prison. I decided it was a holding area for drunk or disruptive soldiers. It felt odd to take off my cloak and mittens and set them aside. I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.
The only remarkable thing that happened that evening was that the meal offered meat and bread and even a mug of ale. The old man opened the door to pass me the tray. When he came to take the tray back, he left two blankets for me. I thanked him, and he looked startled. Then he shocked me by observing, "You've your father's voice as well as his eyes." Then he shut the door in my face, rather hastily. No one spoke further to me, and the only conversation I overheard were the curses and gibes of a dice game. From the voices I decided there were three younger men in the antechamber as well as the old key holder.
As evening came on, they gave up their dice for quiet talk. I could make out little of what was said over the shrilling of the wind outside. I arose soundlessly from my bed and ghosted to the door. When I peered out of its barred window, I saw no less than three sentries on duty. The old man was asleep on his own bed in the corner, but these three in Regal's gold and brown took their duties seriously. One was a beardless boy, probably no more than fourteen. The other two moved like soldiers. One had a face more scarred than mine; I decided he was a brawler. The other wore a neatly trimmed beard and was obviously in command of the other two. All were awake, if not exactly alert. The brawler was teasing the boy about something. The boy's face was sullen. Those two, at least, did not get along. From teasing the lad, the brawler went to endlessly complaining about Moonseye. The liquor was bad, there were too few women, and those there were as cold as the winter itself. He wished the King would cut their leash and let them loose on the Mountain whore's thieving cutthroats. He knew they could cut a path to Jhaampe and take that tree-fort town in a matter of days. Where was the sense in waiting? On and on, he ranted. The others nodded to it as to a litany they knew well. I slipped away from the window and returned to my bed to think.
Nice cage.
At least they fed me well.
Not as well as I fed myself. A little warm blood in your meat is what you need. Will you escape soon?
As soon as I work out how.
I spent some time carefully exploring the limits of my cell. Walls and floors of hewn plank, old and hard as iron to my fingers. A tightly planked ceiling I could barely brush with my fingertips. And the wooden door with the barred window.
If I were getting out, it would have to be through the door. I returned to the barred window. "Could I have some water?" I called out softly.
The youngster startled rather badly, and the brawler laughed at him. The third guard looked at me, then went silently to take a dipper of water from a barrel in the corner. He brought it to the window and passed only the bowl of it through the bars. He let me drink from it, then withdrew it and walked away. "How long are they going to hold me here?" I called after him.
"Till you're dead," the brawler said confidently.
"We're not to speak to him," the boy reminded him, and "Shut up!" ordered their sergeant. The command included me. I stayed at the door, watching them, gripping the bars. It made the boy nervous but the brawler regarded me with the avaricious attention of a circling shark. It would take very little baiting to make that one want to hit me. I wondered if that could be useful. I was very tired of being hit, but it seemed the one thing I did well lately. I decided to press a little, to see what would happen. "Why are you not to speak to me?" I asked curiously.
They exchanged glances. "Get away from the window and shut up," the sergeant ordered me.
"I just asked a question," I objected mildly. "What can be the harm in speaking to me?"
The sergeant stood up and I immediately backed away obediently.
"I'm locked up and there's three of you. I'm bored, that's all. Can't you at least tell me what you know about what's to become of me?"
"They'll do with you what should have been done the first time they killed you. Hanged over water and chopped into quarters and burned, Bastard," the brawler offered me.
His sergeant rounded on him. "Shut up. He's baiting you, you idiot. No one says another word to him. Not one. That's how a Witted one gets you into his power. By drawing you into talk. That's how he killed Bolt and his troop." The sergeant shot me a savage look, then turned it on his men as well. They resumed their posts. The brawler gave me a sneering smile.
"I don't know what they've told you about me, but it's not true," I offered. No one replied. "Look, I'm no different from you. If I had some great magical power, do you think I'd be locked up like this? No. I'm just a scapegoat, that's all. You all know how it's done. If something goes wrong, someone has to take the blame for it. And I'm the one who's landed in the shit. Well, look at me and think of the stories you've heard. I knew Bolt when he was with Regal at Buckkeep. Do I look like a man who could take Bolt down?" I kept it up for the better part of their watch. I did not really think I could convince them I was an innocent man. But I could convince them that my talking or their replying was nothing to be feared. I told tales of my past life and misfortunes, certain they would be repeated all over the camp. Though what good that might do me, I did not know. But I stood at the door, gripping the bars at the window and with very tiny motions, twisted at the bars I gripped. Back and forth I worked them against their settings. If they moved, I could not detect it.
The next day dragged for me. I felt that each hour that passed was one that brought danger closer to me. Burl had not come to see me. I felt sure he was holding me, waiting for someone to come and take me off his hands. I feared it would be Will. I did not think Regal would trust me to anyone else to transport. I did not want another encounter with Will. I did not feel I had the strength to withstand him. My work for the day consisted of jimmying at my bars and watching my captors. By the end of that day, I was ready to take a chance. After my evening meal of cheese and porridge, I lay down on my bed and composed myself to Skill.
I lowered my walls cautiously, fearing to find Burl waiting for me. I reached out of myself and felt nothing. I composed myself and tried again, with the same results. I opened my eyes and stared up into blackness. The unfairness of it sickened me. The Skill-dreams could come and take me at their will, but now when I sought that Skill river, it eluded me completely. I made two more efforts before a throbbing headache forced me to give it up. The Skill was not going to help me get out of here.
That leaves the Wit, Nighteyes observed. He felt very near.
I don't really see how that is going to help me, either, I confided to him.
Nor do I. But I have dug out a spot under the wall, in case you are able to get out of your cage. It was not easy, for the ground is frozen and the logs of the wall were buried deep. But if you can get out of the cage, I can get you out of the city.
That is wise planning, I praised him. At least one of us was doing something.
Do you know where I den tonight? There was suppressed merriment in the thought.
Where do you den? I asked obediently.
Right under your feet. There was just space enough for me to crawl under here.
Nighteyes, this is foolish boldness. You may be seen or the marks of your digging discovered.
A dozen dogs have been here before me. No one will mark my coming and going. I have used the evening to see much of this men's warren. All of the buildings have spaces beneath them. It is very easy to slip from one to another.
Be careful, I warned him, but could not deny there was comfort in knowing him so close. I passed an uneasy night. The three guards were careful always to keep a door between us. I tried my charms on the old man the next morning when he passed me a mug of tea and two pieces of bard bread. "So you knew my father," I observed as he maneuvered my food through the bars. "You know, I have no memories of him. He never spent any time with me."
"Count your blessings, then," the old man replied shortly. "Knowing the Prince was not the same as liking him. Stiff as a stick be was. Rules and orders for us, while he was out making bastards. Yes, I knew your father. I knew him too well for my comfort." And he turned away from the bars, dashing any hope I had of making him an ally. I retired to sit on my bed with my bread and tea and stare hopelessly at the walls. Another day had ticked endlessly by. I was sure it brought Will another day's journey closer to me. Another day closer to being dragged back to Tradeford. One day closer to death.
In the cold and the dark of the night, Nighteyes awoke me.
Smoke. A lot of it.
I sat up in my bed. I went to the barred window and peered out. The old man was asleep in his cot. The boy and the brawler were playing at dice, while the other man carved at his nails with his belt knife. All was calm.
Where is the smoke coming from?
Shall I go see?
If you would. Be careful.
When am I not?
A time passed, during which I stood to one side of my cell door and watched my guards. Then Nighteyes reached me again. It's a big building, smelling of grain. It burns in two places.
Does no one cry an alarm?
No one. The streets are empty and dark. This end of town is asleep.
I closed my eyes and shared his vision. The building was a granary. Someone had set two fires against it. One only smoldered, but the other was licking well up the dry wooden wall of the building.
Come back to me. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage.
Wait.
Nighteyes moved purposefully up the street, slipping from building to building as he went. Behind us, the granary fire began to crackle as it gained strength. He paused, sniffed the air, and changed his direction. Soon he was looking at another fire. This one was eating eagerly into a covered pile of hay at the back of a barn. Smoke rose lazily, wisping up into the night. Suddenly, a tongue of flame leaped up and with an immense whoosh, the whole pile was suddenly ablaze. Sparks rode the heat into the night sky. Some still glowed as they settled onto roofs nearby.
Someone is setting those fires. Come back to me now!
Nighteyes came swiftly. On his way to me, he saw another fire nibbling at a pile of oily rags stuffed under the corner of a barracks. An errant breeze encouraged it to explore. The flames licked up a piling supporting the building, and curled eagerly along the bottom of the floor.
Winter had dried the wooden town with its harsh cold as thoroughly as any heat of summer. Lean-tos and tents spanned the spaces between the buildings. If the fires burned undetected much longer, all of Moonseye would be a cinder by morning. And I with it, if I were still locked in my cell.
How many guard you?
Four. And a locked door.
One of them will have the key.
Wait. Let us see if our odds get better. Or they may open the door to move me.
Somewhere in the cold town, a man raised his voice in a shout. The first fire had been spotted. I stood inside my cell, listening with Nighteyes' ears. Gradually the outcry increased, until even the guards outside my door stood, asking one another, "What's that?"
One went to the door and opened it. Cold wind and the smell of smoke coiled into the room. The brawler drew his head back in and announced, "Looks like a big fire at the other end of town." In an instant, the other two men were leaning out the door. Their tense conversation woke the old man, who also came to have a look. Outside, someone ran past in the street, shouting, "Fire! Fire down by the granary! Bring buckets!"
The boy looked to the officer. "Should I go and see?"
For a moment the man hesitated but the temptation was too much. "No. You stay here while I go. Stay alert." He snatched up his cloak and headed out into the night. The boy looked disappointedly after him. He remained standing at the door, staring out into the night. Then, "Look, there's more flames! Over there!" he exclaimed. The brawler swore, then snatched up his cloak.
"I'm going to go and have a look."
"But we were told to stay and guard the Bastard!"
"You stay! I'll be right back, I just want to see what's going on!" He called the last words over his shoulder as he hurried away. The boy and the old man exchanged glances. The old man went back to his bed and lay down, but the boy continued to hang out the door. From my cell door I could see a slice of the street. A handful of men ran by; then someone drove a team and wagon past at a fast clip. Everyone seemed headed toward the fire.
"How bad does it look?" I asked.
"Can't see much from here. Just flames beyond the stables. A lot of sparks flying up." The boy sounded disappointed to be so far from the excitement. He suddenly recalled whom he was speaking to. He abruptly drew in his head and shut the door. "Don't talk to me!" he warned me and their went to sit down.
"How far from here is the granary?" I asked. He refused to even glance at me, but sat stony-eyed, staring at the wall. "Because," I went on conversationally, "I just wondered what you were going to do if the fires spread this far. I wouldn't care to burn alive. They did leave you the keys, didn't they?" The boy, glanced immediately toward the old man. His hand made an involuntary twitch toward his pouch as if to be sure he had them still, but neither made a reply. I stood by the barred window and watched him. After a time the boy went to the door and peered out again. I saw his jaw clench. The old man went to look over his shoulder.
"It's spreading, isn't it? A winter fire is a terrible thing. Everything dry as bones."
The boy would not reply, but he turned to look at me. The old man's hand stole down to the key in his pouch.
"Come and bind my hands now and take me out of here. None of us wants to be in this building if the flames come this far."
A glance from the boy. "I'm not stupid," he told me. "I won't be the one to die for letting you go free."
"Burn where you stand, Bastard, for all I care," the old man added. He craned his neck out the door again. Even from afar I could hear the sudden whoosh as some building vanished in an eruption of fire. The wind brought the smell of the smoke strongly now and I saw tension building in the boy's stance. I saw a man run past the open door, shouting something to the boy about fighting in the market square. More men ran past in the street, and I heard the jangle of swords and light armor as they ran. Ash rode on the winds now and the roaring of flames was louder than the gusting winds. Drifting smoke grayed the air outside.
Then suddenly boy and man came tumbling back into the room. Nighteyes followed them, showing every tooth he had. He filled the door and blocked their escape. The snarl he let loose was louder than the crackling of the flames outside.
"Unlock the door of my cell, and he won't hurt you," I offered them.
Instead the boy drew his sword. He was good. He did not wait for the wolf to come in, but charged at him, weapon leveled, forcing Nighteyes back out of the door. Nighteyes avoided the blade easily, but he no longer had them cornered. The boy followed up his advantage, stepping out into the darkness to follow the wolf. The second the door was no longer blocked, the old man slammed it.
"Are you going to stay in here and burn alive with me?" I asked him conversationally.
In an instant, he had decided. "Burn alone!" he spat at me. He flung the door open again and raced outside.
Nighteyes! He's the one with the key, the old one who runs away.
I'll get it.
I was alone in my prison now. I half expected the boy to come back, but he did not. I grabbed the bars of the windows and shook the door against its latch. It barely budged. One bar felt slightly loose. I wrenched at it, bracing my feet against the door to lever at it with all my weight. An eternity later, one end twisted free. I bent it down and worked it back and forth until it came out in my hand. But even if all the bars came out, the opening would still be too small for me to get through. I tried, but the loose bar I gripped was too thick to get into the cracks around the door to pry at it. I could smell smoke everywhere now, thick in the air. The fire was close. I slammed my shoulder against the door but it didn't even shiver. I reached through the window and groped down. My straining fingers encountered a heavy metal bar. I walked my fingertips across it until I came to the lock that secured it in place. I could brush my fingers against it but no more. I couldn't decide if the room was truly getting warmer or if I were imagining it.
I was blindly bashing my iron bar against the lock and the braces that supported it when the outer door opened. A guard in gold and brown strode into the room, calling, "I've come for the Bastard." Then her glance took in the empty room.
In a moment, she pushed back her hood and became Starling. I stared at her in disbelief.
"Easier than I'd hoped," she told me with a stark grin. It looked ghastly on her bruised face, more like a snarl.
"Maybe not," I said faintly. "The cell's locked."
Her grin became a look of dismay. "The back of this building is smoldering."
She snatched my bar with her unbandaged hand. Just as she lifted it to smash at the lock, Nighteyes appeared in the door. He padded into the room and dropped the old man's pouch on the floor. Blood had darkened the leather.
I looked at him, suddenly aghast. "You killed him?"
I took from him what you needed. Hurry. The back of this cage burns.
For a moment I could not move. I looked at Nighteyes and wondered what I was making of him. He had lost some of his clean wildness. Starling's eyes went from him, to me, to the pouch on the floor. She did not move.
And some of what makes you a man is gone from you. We have no time for this, my brother. Would not you kill a wolf if it would save my life?
I didn't need to answer that. "The key is in that pouch," I told Starling.
For a moment she just stared down at it. Then she stooped and fumbled the heavy iron key out of the leather pouch. I watched her fit it into the keyhole, now praying that I had not dented the mechanism too badly. She turned the key, jerked loose the hasp, and then lifted the bar from the door. As I came out she ordered me, "Bring the blankets. You'll need them. The cold outside is fierce."
As I snatched them up, I could feel the heat radiating from the back wall of my cell. I grabbed up my cloak and mittens. Smoke was beginning to slink in between the planks. We fled with the wolf at our heels.
No one took any notice of us outside. The fire was beyond battling. It held the town and raced wherever it willed. The people I saw were engaged in the selfish business of salvage and survival. A man trundled a barrow of possessions past us with no more than a warning look. I wondered if they were his. Down the street I could see a stable afire. Frantic grooms were dragging horses out but the screams of the panicked animals still within were shriller than the wind. With a tremendous crash a building across the street collapsed, wheezing hot air and ash toward us in a terrible sigh. The wind had spread the fire throughout all Moonseye. The fire sped from building to building, and the wind carried burning sparks and hot ash beyond the walls to the forest above. I wondered if even the deep snows would be enough to stop it. "Come on!" Starling yelled angrily, and I realized I had been standing and gawking. Clutching the blankets, I followed her wordlessly. We ran through the winding streets of the burning town. She seemed to know the way.
We came to a crossroads. Some sort of struggle had taken place there. Four bodies sprawled in the street, all in Farrow colors. I paused, to stoop over a soldier and take the fallen woman's knife and the pouch at her belt.
We neared the gates of the town. Suddenly a wagon rattled up beside us. The two horses drawing it were mismatched and lathered. "Get in!" someone shouted at us. Starling leaped into the wagon without hesitation.
"Kettle?" I asked, and "Hurry up!" was her reply. I climbed in and the wolf leaped easily up beside me. She did not wait to see us settled but slapped the reins on the horses. The wagon plunged forward with a lurch.
Ahead of us were the gates. They were open and unmanned, swinging on their hinges in the wind from the fire. To one side I caught a glimpse of a sprawled body. Kettle did not even slow the team. We were through the gates without a backward glance, and rattling down the dark road, to join others fleeing the destruction with carts and barrows. Most seemed bound toward the few outlying homesteads to seek shelter for the night, but Kettle kept our horses moving. As the night about us grew-darker and folk fewer, Kettle stirred the horses to a faster clip. I peered ahead into the darkness.
I realized Starling was looking back behind us.. "It was only supposed to be a diversion," she said in an awestruck voice. I turned to look back.
An immense orange glow silhouetted the palisade of Moonseye in black. Sparks rose thick as swarming bees into the night sky above it. The roar of the flames was like storm winds. As we watched, a building caved in and another wave of sparks rose into the air.
"A diversion?" I peered at her through the darkness. "You did all that? To free me?"
Starling shot me an amused glance. "Sorry to disappoint you. No. Kettle and I came along for you, but that was not what this was about. Most of that is the work of Nik's family. Revenge against those who broke faith with them. They went in to find them and kill them. Then they left." She shook her head. "It's too complicated to explain it all right now, even, if I understood it. Evidently the King's Guard at Moonseye has been corrupt for years. They've been well paid to see nothing of the Holdfast smugglers. And the smugglers have seen to it that the men posted here enjoyed some of the better things in life. I gather that Captain Mark enjoyed the best of the profits. He was not alone, but neither was he generous about sharing.
"Then Burl was sent here. He knew nothing of the arrangement. He brought a huge influx of soldiers with him, and tried to impose military discipline here. Nik sold you to Mark. But when Nik was selling you to Mark, someone saw a chance to sell Mark and his arrangement to Burl. Burl saw a chance to take you, and clean up a ring of smugglers. But Nik Holdfast and his clan had paid well for safe passage for the pilgrims. Then the soldiers broke faith with them, and the Holdfast promise to the pilgrims was broken." She shook her head. Her voice went tight. "Some of the women were raped. One child died of the cold. One man will never walk again because he tried to protect his wife." For a time, the only sounds were the noises of the wagon and the distant roaring of the fires. Her eyes were very black as she looked back at the burning town. "You've heard of honor among thieves? Well, Nik and his men have avenged theirs."
I was still staring back at the destruction of Moonseye. I cared not a whit for Burl and his Farrowmen. But there had been merchants there, and traders, families and homes. The flames were devouring them all. And Six Duchies soldiers had raped their captives as if they were lawless raiders instead of King's guards. Six Duchies soldiers, serving a Six Duchies king. I shook my head. "Shrewd would have hanged them all."
Starling cleared her throat. "Don't blame yourself," she told me. "I learned long ago not to blame myself for evil done to me. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't even your fault. You were just the catalyst that started the chain of events."
"Don't call me that," I begged her. The wagon rumbled on, carrying us deeper into the night.