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By Root 1314 0

along. Although Maddyn was less than pleased with this vulnerable arrangement, the countryside around was certainly peaceful enough. As they jingled their way along, they saw two farmsteads, one herd of cows, and naught else but field after field of cabbages and turnips sprouting under the watchful eyes of crow-chasing small girls. At last, just when the sun was so low in the sky that everyone in the troop was squinting and cursing, they came to a deep-running stream, bordered by willows and hazels. Standing beside his black horse, Wffyn the merchant was waiting for them, and through a clearing in the trees Maddyn could see what seemed to be a canal barge tethered to the bank.

“There you are!” Wffyn sang out. “Good! First shipment just pulled in.”

As Budyc trotted forward to meet him, it dawned on Maddyn that these men were smugglers of some sort, a suspicion that was confirmed later that evening, after the silver daggers had made camp. Along with Owaen, Maddyn followed Caradoc upstream to confer with the merchants on the morrow’s route and found a line of four barges being loaded from a parade of wagons. Stripped to the waist and sweating in the torchlight, Budyc and Wffyn were bounding from barge to shore and back again as they gave orders to the crew or even leant a hand themselves to haul the cargo on board.

“Those look like ale barrels,” Owaen remarked. “But I never heard of ale that heavy. Look at those poor bastards sweat!”

“Just so, and ale doesn’t clank, either—it sloshes.”

“What in the three hells is going on?” Caradoc muttered, somewhat waspishly. “And what?! Look at that lead barge!”

The cattle barge had slatted wooden sides, and just visible above was a row of cows’ skulls stuck on poles and padded with wisps of straw. As the three silver daggers watched, openmouthed with amazement, a bargeman began wrapping the skulls with bits of leather, humming as he worked and stepping back now and again for a good look at his handicraft.

“At night and from a distance they look a good bit like cows,” Budyc remarked as he joined them. “Enough to convince the passersby that we’re a perfectly ordinary line of barges.”

“All right, good sir,” Caradoc snapped. “Just what is all this?”

“Know how the smelter masters weigh out raw iron up north? They say they have so many bulls’ worth of weight—the measure’s actually as much iron as you could trade a bull for back in the Dawntime, or so the guildmaster tells me. So that’s what we’ve got—a load of bulls, and barrels of the darkest ale in the kingdom.”

With a bark of laughter, Maddyn got the point of the joke and the journey both, but Owaen merely looked baffled.

“Iron, lad,” Maddyn told him. “They’re carrying smuggled iron down to Dun Cerrmor, and I’ll wager they’re getting a good bit more for it than a bull in trade.”

“You could say that.” Budyc preened a little. “But we’re not making some splendid profit, mind. Think about it—we have to hire wagons for the dry parts of the journey, barges for the wet, and the country folk’s silence, and then guards like you for the border crossing—it’s worth our while, but only just, lads, only just. Then count in the danger. Why do you think we hired you? The Cantrae men’ll stop us if they can, and they won’t be making an honorable prisoner out of the likes of me. If it weren’t helping to save Cerrmor, I doubt me if I’d make these runs.”

“Tell me somewhat,” Caradoc said. “Think there’s going to be much left of Cerrmor to save by the end of the summer?”

“I don’t know.” Budyc’s eyes turned dark. “We’re living on hope alone now that the king’s dead. Hope and omens—every cursed day you hear someone prattling about the true king coming to claim the throne, and the city still believes it, well, for the most part, anyway, but I ask you, Captain—how much longer can we hold out? The regent’s a great man, and if it weren’t for him, we’d have all surrendered to Cantrae by now, but even so, he’s just a regent. Too bad he’s so blasted honorable—if he’d-marry the king’s daughter and give her a son, we’d all cheer him as king soon enough.”

“And