Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [24]
She strode instead toward the Trader's Quarter, which lay just ahead. The smell of manure, hay, and axle grease assaulted her nose as she walked through an arched gate into a wide plaza fronted on all four sides by enormous stables. At its center was a notice board; on it was a document bearing the same symbol Larajin had seen on the tailor shop the mob had just looted. Curious, she decided to take a closer look.
She wove through the crowd of people and horses, sidestepping piles of dung that dotted the cobblestones. The notice bearing the horned oval turned out to be an official proclamation-one that sent a chill through Larajin as she read it, despite the heat of the sun on her shoulders. It reminded the citizens of Ordulin that the ten-year-old ban prohibiting elves from entering Sembia was still in effect. Not only that, but the ban now had been extended to half-elves, as well.
Dated less than a tenday ago, the proclamation ordered all half-elves living in Ordulin to leave the city immediately or face retribution at the point of a sword. It further ordered that all homes and businesses belonging to half-elves were to be marked with a sign warning the citizens of Ordulin against doing business with the enemy. An example of the symbol used to designate the property to be confiscated was printed at the bottom of the notice. It was a crude representation of an elf s face- an oval with pointed, triangular ears.
Sickened, Larajin turned away from the notice board. She realized now that the tailor she'd heard being beaten inside his shop hadn't committed any crime, other than being born a half-elf. He was probably the man Habrith had told her to contact. Only an agent of the Harpers would tarry so long in a city that was hostile to his race. Was it too late to run back and offer him whatever healing she could-or had the mob that had looted his shop also carried him away… even killed him?
Larajin nervously fingered an ear. Were people looking at her, noticing her too-slim build? If the scales of fate had tipped only slightly differently, giving her the pointed ears of her mother's race, Larajin could have been the one receiving that beating.
In one corner of the plaza, a dozen men in civilian clothes practiced with pikes, taking turns thrusting at a wooden dummy under the eye of a member of the town guard. They were the militia, no doubt only recently mobilized. Larajin once again was confronted by the oval-and-triangles symbol. This time, it had been painted on the practice dummy.
Ordulin no longer felt like a safe haven. She was in as much danger there as she had been in Selgaunt. She needed to leave the city as soon as possible, to keep moving north. She'd have to try to find the Harper agent in Essembra on her own.
She scanned the notice board, looking for a suitable caravan, but while the notices advertised caravans bound
for Yhaunn, for Highmoon, to Archenbridge, and back south to Selgaunt, the only caravans bound for Essembra had departed more than a tenday ago.
"Looking for a caravan, Mistress? Where to? If it's north, I c'n help you."
Larajin could smell the man before she turned around. His breath had the fetid odor of a bad tooth, and his appearance matched the smell. His hose had a tear in the knee, and his leather doublet was stained under the arms. One hand rested on the hilt of a sword, which hung in a rust-spotted scabbard at his hip. The man's scalp was shaved but he wore his beard long. Flecks of what must have been his lunch still clung to it. His eyes kept darting to the money pouch that hung from Larajin's belt. One cheek puckered as he sucked on his bad tooth.
Larajin wanted nothing to do with him, but she did want to find out more about any caravan headed north- if one existed. The fact that no such caravan was advertised on the notice board made her wary. She wasn't going to venture down any back alleys with this lout. She rested a hand casually on the dagger she'd belted at her hip.