Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [83]
In another three hundred paces they could see a road. Here and there a tree hung over it; Arvid longed for that shade. Once on the road, Arvid fixed his mind on staying upright and moving as steadily as he could; the gnome, at his side, said nothing until they came to a well, four trees, and a bench set ready for travelers.
“Water. We stop.”
Arvid leaned on the well coping, feeling the cool damp air ease his face. The gnome was already up on the coping, working the windlass. “I should—” Arvid began.
“My lord, sit on the bench. I will fetch water. I have still the carafe.”
Arvid staggered to the bench; it felt a half-season cooler in the shade there. He let the cloak fall back from his head. The gnome brought the bucket back to the well coping, filled the carafe, and brought it to Arvid. After a bowlful of water, he felt a little better. The gnome drank, and then Arvid again. Now Arvid was aware of hunger, but no worse than he’d known other times. He wet his face and looked around. Under one of the trees, a few hardy summer flowers bloomed: blue sage, star-eye, tinset. He plucked one spray of tinset and laid it on the well coping; the gnome added the silvery-gray leaf of blue sage.
They had scarcely started again when a party on horseback, all in Gird’s blue and white, rode up behind them and surrounded them.
“Ho, travelers—did you see aught of a man in black and—” The speaker paused. “You! You are that thief! And this must be—”
“I am not a thief,” Arvid said. “I am Arvid Semminson, come to Fin Panir at the request of the Marshal-General, and this is my companion, who will share his name if he wishes.”
“Liar!” The man, red-faced now, spurred his horse closer to Arvid. “You killed Girdish knights; you stole—”
“I killed a dwarf,” Arvid said. “I killed no knights, nor did this gnome. I stole nothing.”
“It is gone, and your horse and pack; you must have done it!”
“It” must mean the necklace. His horse, his pack? Had there been other thieves, and he had not noticed? In the meantime … “Do you see a horse and pack?” Arvid said. “If they are gone, someone stole them—it was not I, for if I had taken my own horse, I would be riding, not afoot.”
“It threw you and ran off, and no wonder,” the man said.
Arvid sighed. Girdsmen had heads like stone; facts shattered on their preconceptions. “I am not so ill a rider,” he said instead. “I left my horse in the care of your stable, and my pack hanging from a peg in a guest room. If they are gone, then they were taken by someone else.”
“Are you, a thief, accusing Girdsmen of thievery?”
“I accuse no one; I merely state the facts. If it is gone, someone else took it because I did not.”
“Where were you last night and this day, then?” the man asked.
“Last night I was in the treasure chamber of Gird’s Hall,” Arvid said. “With the knowledge of your Marshals’ council, I had baited that chamber with a sapphire and two pieces of gold. While I was there, as I had expected, the dwarf I warned Marshal Perin about made an entrance through the rock itself. He had overpowered this gnome, and stolen power from the gnome to make an entrance. The dwarf was angry and grew stone across the door I had used; the only way out was through the passage he had created. I killed him, taking this wound—” He held up his arm. “I found the gnome still alive, and he led me through the passage to the outside.”
“You trusted him?”
“I had no choice,” Arvid said. “I needed his help to get out of that place—I cannot burrow through stone.”
“He is rockfolk; he could—”
“His power was spent; I told you. The dwarf stole it.”
The man leaned forward, resting a forearm on his horse’s neck. “Let me tell you another tale, Arvid Semminson, that I think runs truer than yours. You and these rockfolk planned the whole thing. You let them into the treasure chamber, after they burrowed along; together you killed the knights in the corridor,